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New in the Smartphone world. Data Plan
- Thread starter kyrax12
- Start date
well I wanna know why it is more expensive heh. Is there a good reason for it?
jhansman
Platinum Member
I have the 200MB data plan with AT&T and I never use more than 50-75 MB in a month. I'm either on wireless (at home, usually), and only use 3G when I have to. Only once did I run over that 200 MB, streaming radio at home. My router failed and the phone switched to 3G without notifying me. I now run an app that prevents that.
Because carriers have to build and maintain tens of thousands of cell towers and there is a small limit of how many users pet tower you can support. For umts I've read its about 50 per tower at once
boomhower
Diamond Member
And because it's an oligopoly and they can. It's no shocker that when one raises prices or changes plan types(i.e. tiers) the others follow shortly thereafter.
Brian Stirling
Diamond Member
The bandwidth available on even the fastest wireless technology is no where near as fast as fiber/cable. In addition to that you can easily run multiple fibers/cables to expand bandwidth as needed but with wireless you must add more cell towers and that is limited.
The bottom line is it cost a shit load more to deliver data over cellular networks versus cable/fiber. Think about it, if it cost the same why would anyone tie themselves down to a fixed position internet pipe if a wireless network were just as fast and cheap AND you can move about with it...
Brian
boomhower
Diamond Member
I agree to an extent but a lot of LTE connections right now is faster than the fastest speed Time Warner will give me.
JimKiler
Diamond Member
This makes sense but voice over cell has to be more expensive than texting but yet I am supposed to pay for texting? No thank you. I have a data plan and as soon as my 2 year contract is up I will relegate that phone to WiFi only.
AyashiKaibutsu
Diamond Member
Anyone who thinks what cell phone companies charge you is driven by costs is a fool. They charge what they charge because they can and they know they can make more all loosely agreeing to charge about the same amount than they can competing against each other.
kubani1
Senior member
most companies cap data in the UK, but the prices are much cheaper, and some networks offer unlimited data, my carrier cost £30 a month and i get 2000 min, 5000 in network min, 5000 texts, 5000 in network text and truly unlimited internet with no throttling.
I got to say, America is way behind when it comes to mobile phones and connection speeds. they need more competition, but that doesn't seem to be the trend right now.
They limit you to in network minutes? What a rip off. All US contracts have had unlimited in network minutes for years. For ATT if you add unlimited texting to a family plan you get unlimited calls to any mobile phone on any network.
ATT also gives you included roaming on t mobiles network. Soon it will probably be Verizon as well
ATT also gives you included roaming on t mobiles network. Soon it will probably be Verizon as well
Red Storm
Lifer
I know far more people that value data over minutes. Hell I only have 450 minutes and because of all the free scenarios (nights, weekends, mobile to mobile, etc.) I hardly ever break 200 minutes. Data on the other hand...
Fire&Blood
Platinum Member
Actually, the Walmart data plan is 5GB and it it's not EDGE, it's 56k throttling afterwards. Even ff you were to try to "sacrifice" your ability to do voice and data and the same time for higher speeds on EDGE, it won't work, EDGE is also throttled at 56k.
There is no real competition here in the US. I lived in Germany for 4 years, their options are much better. Here it's just watered down competition with the cost passed onto consumers. Sprint and T-Mobile's existence help keep the pricing somewhat in check, for now...
Granted, some people here are the gullible kind, the wet dream of any telco executive but most know what's going on.
If the carrier says "pay extra, not my problem" if the consumer goes over his data, minute or txt count, why shouldn't the consumers say " build extra, not my problem" when the carriers cry over network usage.
It's all bogus anyway. The average consumer can't even comprehend the fatness of profit margins that big 2 US telcos collect.
These preemptive bandwidth/minute restrictions serve to promote the more expensive plans, hot spots and overages, as well maintain the gap between the network capacity upgrades. They have profits large enough to sustain capacity increase but they want delay it as long as possible, they aim for the jugular with their profits while restricting
If they really wanted to reduce cost of operation they would lose some fat within their corporations.
There is no real competition here in the US. I lived in Germany for 4 years, their options are much better. Here it's just watered down competition with the cost passed onto consumers. Sprint and T-Mobile's existence help keep the pricing somewhat in check, for now...
Granted, some people here are the gullible kind, the wet dream of any telco executive but most know what's going on.
If the carrier says "pay extra, not my problem" if the consumer goes over his data, minute or txt count, why shouldn't the consumers say " build extra, not my problem" when the carriers cry over network usage.
It's all bogus anyway. The average consumer can't even comprehend the fatness of profit margins that big 2 US telcos collect.
These preemptive bandwidth/minute restrictions serve to promote the more expensive plans, hot spots and overages, as well maintain the gap between the network capacity upgrades. They have profits large enough to sustain capacity increase but they want delay it as long as possible, they aim for the jugular with their profits while restricting
If they really wanted to reduce cost of operation they would lose some fat within their corporations.
JeffreyLebowski
Lifer
Why would you pay a tethering fee? I've tethered multiple T-mo phones and never paid a fee for it.
and as soon as the VZW iphone came out more than a few of our sales people got it because they need consistent voice service and are always talking on their phone
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