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How long till cell phone data gets cheaper?? Especially Verizon

Z

zanemoseley

Senior member
I'm curious how long you guys think it will take till cell companies and in particular Verizon get more reasonable data rates. I just have a standard slider phone with 450 minutes / 500 text with insurance and with a discount my phone only costs $55 per month. I'd like to have a smart phone with internet for random usage but there's no way I'm paying $30 more a month plus more tax. Hell I only pay $30 for my high speed home internet and the phone internet will be used way less.

Honestly I figured the prices would already be dropping but they seem to be going up, Verizon went from unlimited for $30 to 2gb for $30 last year.

Unfortunately where I live its either Verizon or else put up with spotty service when you get off main roads.
 
Uh...data is going to get more expensive, not cheaper. If you wanted cheap data you should have adopted a smartphone a long time ago.
 
The amount of total possible capacity a cellular carrier can have is very finite while the amount of capacity being used is increasing extremely fast. We all know what happens when a limited resource is in absurdly high demand.
 
Seems there will have to be a day where there will be enough large carriers with great coverage to evoke fierce competition. As far as the total bandwidth they can supply versus the demand I guess that's a different issue. I'm not really educated on the technology/science behind high speed wireless data.

Another thing that pisses me off about Verizon is in regards to their shift from basic/feature/smart phones to a very minimal selection of basic phones, no feature phones and a ridiculous amount of smart phones. I would also be in favor of having a smart phone but just using WiFi when available and just not using internet while out and about. Verizon won't let you do this except for pre-paid plans but then its $65 before tax for just 450 minutes and text.
 
LOL VZW prices are not coming down for the forseeable future, they have only gone up

I was a VZW smartphone customer for ~4 years, and in this time;

-no more 1 year contracts, only 2 years
-approximate doubling of ETF
-elimination of unlimited data plans for new customers, plans are tiered now
-existing customers pay more for new phones, presumably as a way to extract more revenue from customers grandfathered into unlimited plans
 
OS said:
LOL VZW prices are not coming down for the forseeable future, they have only gone up

I was a VZW smartphone customer for ~4 years, and in this time;

-no more 1 year contracts, only 2 years
-approximate doubling of ETF
-elimination of unlimited data plans for new customers, plans are tiered now
-existing customers pay more for new phones, presumably as a way to extract more revenue from customers grandfathered into unlimited plans
Click to expand...

well phones are a lot more expensive now. the 2 yera deals are mostly because of the subsidies.

you can blame apple for that on verizon. there were 1 year deals , until just after the iphone came out. i got in on it early april last year before they got rid of them.

data will get cheaper once its gets more competitive. now i realize people say data used to be $30 for "unlimited" but that was i suppose under the undrestanding that all our phones were so awful they could never download that much data so it was effectively capped anyway.

that said verizon has been offering 4gb data for price of 2gb on and off soon, and i wouldnt be surprised if that becomes permanent once at&t's lte and sprint / t-mobile LTE are all up and competing.
 
dguy6789 said:
The amount of total possible capacity a cellular carrier can have is very finite while the amount of capacity being used is increasing extremely fast. We all know what happens when a limited resource is in absurdly high demand.
Click to expand...

It will be interesting to see what new standards develop out of that, though. One thing we've learned from the past is that when any particular service or commodity becomes prohibitively expensive, alternative technologies emerge. So I'm sure companies will continue innovating inexpensive ways to implement technology.
 
I would rather spend $60 on data and $10 on voice than $30 on data and $40 on voice. I NEVER talk on the phone with all of these new, better methods of communication. Whichever carrier solves that problem will get my money.
 
The typical subsidy based contract transforms the subscriber to Monica Bellucci in "Irreversible", stuck in loop for 2 years.

For those that haven't seen that scene from the movie, US cellphone subscribers are raped but they seem to like it because they come back for more. Expecting lower data prices (or any other kind of price drops) equates to expecting the rapist to let the victim go before he is "finished" with her.

Buy a device outright or put it on the credit card and tell the telcos to f off. Until consumers do, US mobile business will keep the status quo with watered down competition in which the majority of cost of competing is passed onto the consumers anyway.
 
Last edited:
dagamer34 said:
I would rather spend $60 on data and $10 on voice than $30 on data and $40 on voice. I NEVER talk on the phone with all of these new, better methods of communication. Whichever carrier solves that problem will get my money.
Click to expand...

Hmm. What do you talk on then?
 
Verizon postpaid can get away with high prices because of their coverage. Sprint and T-Mobile for instance have to give you more value.

If you do not need to roam off Verizon towers, there is always Page Plus with either their $30 or $55 per month plans. For $55 per month (if you sign up before Mar 1), you get unlimited talk/unlimited text/1gb. For $30 a month, you get 1200min/3000txts/100mb. They allow most Verizon postpaid phones as you do not get a subsidized phone. Thus, you either use what you have now or look at 3rd party dealers. They also do not care if you use a smartphone or not with any of their plans.

Another option with Verizon coverage is Straight Talk with their $30 plan, but you phone choices are very limited.
 
laughing.gif
 
zanemoseley said:
I'm curious how long you guys think it will take till cell companies and in particular Verizon get more reasonable data rates. I just have a standard slider phone with 450 minutes / 500 text with insurance and with a discount my phone only costs $55 per month. I'd like to have a smart phone with internet for random usage but there's no way I'm paying $30 more a month plus more tax. Hell I only pay $30 for my high speed home internet and the phone internet will be used way less.

Honestly I figured the prices would already be dropping but they seem to be going up, Verizon went from unlimited for $30 to 2gb for $30 last year.

Unfortunately where I live its either Verizon or else put up with spotty service when you get off main roads.
Click to expand...

Wanna know when? And this is not something new. I've been saying this, even here, for years. Get rid of subsidized phones and phone contracts. If you look at worldwide markets, the ones with the cheapest mobile phone plans are the ones with very few or almost no subsidized phones.

Everyone knows that cell phone plans factor in the subsidized costs of phones into the plans themselves. The damn problem is that if you bring your own phone and opt for a monthly plan, you get zero discounts.

When we move away from subsidized phones, yes you pay more up front for the phone but long term, the mobile phone companies have to compete on features and price. Which drives down prices.
 
If we didn't have subsidized phones and phone contracts, both phone prices and plans would be cheaper. The reason unsubsidized phones cost so much is because they want you locked in a contract. If we didn't have subsidized phones, phone prices would drop really fast down to the level people could afford. It's almost criminal new phones are being released at $700+ when cost to build is $250-300. No way prices and margin could stay that high if phones weren't being subsidized.
 
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