Yesterday, Verizon Wireless big boss Lowell McAdam told investors that when 4G hits, unlimited data plans won’t make sense anymore. Instead, buying “buckets” of data – where you’d purchase a set number of monthly megabytes – is the model of the future.
Just to be clear: segmented data plans like that might be ideal for Verizon Wireless, but they’re the opposite for consumers who’ll have to shell out overage fees. Especially when McAdam also conceded that the cost of carrying 1MB of data over LTE will be half to a third that of 3G data transfer.
Some brighter news came out of the talk: Verizon’s expecting three to five 4G handsets on their network in the first half of 2011, with calls originating from LTE phones being carried over VoIP by 2012.
I guess tiered data plans have been inevitable for some time now. I just didn’t know it would be quite this depressing to see them looming on the near horizon. [Financial Times]
rgluga
Friday, May 28, 2010 at 9:14 AMHaha, welcome to Australia. We hope you enjoy your stay.
This is the only model we’ve ever had. And depending on the network, you could buy a 200MB ‘bucket’ for $19.95 a month. And after you exceed that? 1 or 2 cents per kB.
One month I ended up with a $600 phone bill because I somehow went over my 1GB cap by a few hundred MB.
It’s a fantastic model! Just not for the consumer.
Adam
Friday, May 28, 2010 at 10:17 AMIt’s a shame that the US is moving to the Australian model… this makes it seem like we’ll never get unlimited data plans :(
Mitch
Friday, May 28, 2010 at 11:50 AMArgh, that sucks- like rgluga said, we’ve had that here for awhile, except it’s pretty much every Internet service- cable, adsl, etc all tiered by download limit :( If the only restriction the US has is on mobile data, count yourselves lucky :P
miles
Friday, May 28, 2010 at 1:34 PMI for one just want to pay for what i use, rather than subsidise those falsely inflated volume selling arrangements. Damn monopoly money.