I flipped out on T-Mobile the other day because they are eliminating my expensive but unlimited-4G-data plan and migrating me to a cheaper-but-capped plan. In the middle of my contract. The CSR assured me that I would retain my unlimited data service as a courtesy after the plan switch but I am not convinced.
I’m so happy you posted this- I didn’t get close to the 8GB so I didn’t get a text. But now I saved $10, too!
It’s typically standard procedure that you’re grandfathered in to unlimited data if you had it before they eliminated it. Where did you hear that you’d be migrated to a cheaper but capped plan?
I’d imagine the customer service rep you spoke to was indeed correct and you’ll keep your plan.
Not sure if that is an analysis of the economics of telephony, or a criticism of telephony companies for their rate structures. Yes, once the system it built out there is negligible marginal cost to carry a call/packet of data. But the infrastructure has to get paid for somehow. This is similar to the software industry–companies spends many millions on development and when you buy Microsoft Office you’re spending a couple hundred dollars on two bucks’ worth of plastic. Or on a bucket of bits if you download. That doesn’t mean there is anything underhanded about it.
In the day (pre- and immediately post-AT&T breakup), it was more an indictment of the uncompetitive rate structure than anything else.
In the present, it’s a reminder that things like voice minutes and data capacity are arbitrary commodities, essentially bottomless and costless once the “carrier” infrastructure is built. I’m in no way saying that Verizon shouldn’t recoup its costs or charge for the use of its monstrously expensive system - just pointing out that there is almost no difference in runtime cost between zero and max-normal usage levels. This viewpoint can help sort out why carrier companies do many of the weird things they do in pricing and packaging their services.
(To turn it around, thinking of minutes as some hard commodity that needs to be grown, mined, refined, stored, shipped etc. leads to some very twisted thinking… but the carriers use that mindset to their advantage in pricing and marketing.)
Bearing in mind that I know a/ America is a lot bigger than Britain; b/ Britain is a lot more cell-phone crazy: prices in America seem insane considering I could get a Virgin SIM, shoving it in any phone, and pay £20 a month for unlimited calls, unlimited text, and unlimited data.
Or less if I chose other options.
For some strange reason url for Virgin Sims refused to appear.
It’s pretty useless to compare the US and Europe on many levels - that the UK is smaller than most US states alone is a game-changing matter for things like mobile phone service. To be competitive, Verizon et al. must provide a nationwide network that is probably 30-100 times bigger in infrastructure than any UK provider’s.
There are regional providers here, many that rent carrier space on the big networks, that are much cheaper. If you don’t mind slightly second-rate service (and not even that, in most city zones) and service restricted to your local metropolis, you can get very inexpensive service. That may be a closer match to the UK model, or most European models.
Of course, some very large number of cell phone users would be perfectly well-served by a regional carrier and plan; they’d pay far less in roaming or other charges on their infrequent jaunts outside the home city. But like most things in the US, cell service is sold on the Vegas buffet model.
Starts humming “Mr. Siegal” again, for some reason.
They sent me a postcard that said so and a CSR I contacted via their Facebook page confirmed it. He said my only option was to add unlimited data to the new plan, which would work out as $10 more than my current plan.