by "Textured Soy Protein" (texturedsoyprotein)
Published 11/14/2017 at 19:33
by "Textured Soy Protein" (texturedsoyprotein)
Published 11/14/2017 at 19:33
No Tags
STARS: 5
Wireless carriers have been moving away from plans with data caps, to “unlimited” plans that restrict your internet usage in other ways like slowing down your data speed on all data, or specific kinds of content, or on hotspot. AT&T has quietly become the worst at this.
I should point out that no unlimited data plan is actually unlimited. All of the wireless carriers have some kind of data cap in the fine print, after which they will limit your download speed so severely that you basically won’t be able to do anything with your internet on your phone. These range anywhere from 22 to 50 GB depending on carrier.
3 of the 4 major wireless carriers have an entry-level “unlimited” plan and a step-up option that gets rid of the bullshit crap they pull on the entry-level plan. Sprint does light throttling on their one and only plan, and at different levels for different kinds of content. Here’s a plan comparison, courtesy of Sprint.
Note that the non-Sprint plans here are the step-up, mostly un-fucked-with plans. What about the fucked-with plans?
Verizon Go Unlimited - $75/month - your data speeds may randombly be deprioritized “in times of network congestion,” video streams at 480p, unlimited hotspot but capped at 600 kbps speed
T-Mobile ONE - $70/month - video streams at 480p, 10 GB of hotspot limited to “3G speed” - but both versions of T-Mobile’s unlimited plan include free Netflix worth $12/month that you can apply to your existing Netflix account if you already subscribe to Netflix
And then we have AT&T’s Unlimited Choice plan for $60/month. Your download speeds are capped to 3 Mbps, or 1.5 Mbps when watching video, and you can’t use mobile hotspot. At all. At least you get free HBO!
Over on AT&T’s Cricket prepaid side, you can get an unlimited plan for $60/month, but it’s throttled to 8 Mbps, or you can save 5 whole dollars per month if you’re willing to accept 3 Mbps. But no free HBO for you!
Speaking from experience, I once tried Cricket before they made it clear that their max data speed was 8 Mbps. And even that sucked! My cousin wanted my help in doing a video call at her wedding with our elderly grandparents. I got them set up with Hangouts on their iPad, and I tried to video call them on my shitty throttled Cricket plan, and their slow wifi at their retirement community. That video call was glitchy as fuck! It juuuuuuust barely worked enough for my cousin to feel happy with it. But it was far from ideal. Don’t rely on throttled data. 3 Mbps would be so much more terrible. Screw that.
But actually, AT&T isn’t the worst offender with data throttling. No, that dishonor belongs to U.S. Cellular. They just rolled out a new “unlimited” plan that throttles all of your data to 1.5 Mbps for $70/month. Do not, under any circumstances, buy this plan.
Lest you think that numbers like 3 or 1.5 Mbps aren’t THAT bad, well, they suck. Here’s what doesn’t stuck:
All is not lost! Don’t be lured by these bullshit “unlimited” data plans that are actually worse than plans with data caps. Unless you’re a huge data binger, there are many prepaid plans, both with the major carriers themselves, and other prepaid brands piggybacking on their networks, that
don’t
have this stupid throttling.
At the moment, I’m on T-Mobile’s $50/month 10 GB prepaid plan. By default it throttles video to 480p but you’re totally free to turn this off. There’s no other throttling on data or hotspot. No, there’s no free Netflix, but there is free music streaming with most common music apps , i.e. it doesn’t count toward your data cap. I’m on wifi at home and at work. Most of my data usage away from home is music streaming. I’ll have to try really hard to burn up 10 GB of data in a given month. I’d rather live with the totally fine data cap and not have my data throttled.
Don’t be lured by stupid not-actually-unlimited data plans! Shop around! Check your data usage, see how much you really use, and find the plan that works best for you. The wireless carriers are really good at promoting the hell out of plans that charge us too much for features that don’t meet our needs, but they haven’t totally gotten rid of the arguably-better options. Use them while you can!
"For Sweden" (rallybeetle)
11/14/2017 at 19:37, STARS: 1
AT
&
T
Road
&
Track
coincidence?
"AestheticsInMotion" (aestheticsinmotion)
11/14/2017 at 19:45, STARS: 0
Yeah but what if you ARE huge data binger? No one looks out for us power users :/
"CaptDale - is secretly British" (captdale)
11/14/2017 at 20:00, STARS: 0
I love my T-Mobile!
"Textured Soy Protein" (texturedsoyprotein)
11/14/2017 at 20:07, STARS: 0
T-Mobile is probably the best bet. Their $80 plan is pretty good and has the highest cap-but-don’t-call-it-cap at 50 GB.
Sprint is ok but their not-a-cap is at 23 GB.
"HammerheadFistpunch" (hammerheadfistpunch)
11/14/2017 at 20:09, STARS: 1
K&N?
"xc90v8/I4 :(" (xc90v8)
11/14/2017 at 20:14, STARS: 1
I’m at 154GB for this month already...
"Textured Soy Protein" (texturedsoyprotein)
11/14/2017 at 20:27, STARS: 1
How does that even happen?
"AestheticsInMotion" (aestheticsinmotion)
11/14/2017 at 20:50, STARS: 0
Yeah, once I pay off my s8+ I’ll probably upgrade to the higher tier unlimited plan. I normally hit the cap with a day or two left on the cycle so not too bad
"Textured Soy Protein" (texturedsoyprotein)
11/14/2017 at 21:11, STARS: 0
Paying for a phone on a carrier installment plan is another thing I hate.
"horizonsofkhaos" (horizonsofkhaos)
11/14/2017 at 22:25, STARS: 0
I loathe at&t right now. Speeds are good but the price is insane. I was at $110 a month for myself not too long ago. I think I’m just going to force myself into using absolutely minimal amounts of data and switch over to Project Fi.
"Textured Soy Protein" (texturedsoyprotein)
11/14/2017 at 23:21, STARS: 1
If you specifically want the AT&T network, you can do the Straight Talk $45/month 10 GB plan. No throttling or hotspot limitations. They don’t have visual voicemail but you can get it for free through a third party service like YouMail which is actually kinda nice. They also have a $55 unlimited plan but it throttles video to 480p. Unless you use tons of data the unthrottled 10 GB plan is the way to go.
"MrDakka" (mrdakka)
11/15/2017 at 00:13, STARS: 0
Too much porn?
"xc90v8/I4 :(" (xc90v8)
11/15/2017 at 06:55, STARS: 0
Mobile is faster than the normal internet in the house. So for big files I use my hotspot..
"Pickup_man" (zekeh)
11/15/2017 at 09:20, STARS: 0
Verizon is basically the only acceptable provider in my area when it comes to coverage, so unless you want shit coverage, you go with Verizon.
My wife and I share 3gb per month, we go over maybe a couple times a year, mainly if we travel and have to use GPS a lot.
"Textured Soy Protein" (texturedsoyprotein)
11/15/2017 at 10:32, STARS: 1
U.S. Cellular and Verizon generally have the best networks here in Wisconsin. I was on Verizon’s network through a cheap Total Wireless plan, but they have a rare dead spot in the part of town where my office is. It’s been this way for years. I stuck on it until I moved to a new desk in a different part of the building which totally killed my Verizon signal. Nobody could call me, I’d only get a visual voicemail notification. I switched to T-Mobile. Their signal is a bit better in my office and they’re the only network that supports wifi calling on (some) unlocked phones.
There are a couple prepaid brands you can use to get on Verizon’s network.
Total Wireless is a good option to get on Verizon’s network with a more generous data plan for relatively cheap, with a couple caveats. They have a 15 GB, 2 line plan for $60/month. There’s no visual voicemail, but you can get it for free through a third party service. I used YouMail which is actually rather nice. The bigger annoyance is they still don’t support voice over LTE (yet) so you don’t get HD voice calls and you also don’t get simultaneous voice & data.
Boom Mobile does support VVM and VoLTE but their data plans are less generous and they don’t do multi-line plans. Their single line plans are 2 GB for $30, or 5 GB for $40. They also have a couple plans with throttled data speeds at 5 GB for $35 or 10 GB for $50. But we already know how I feel about throttled data. I could probably get by with the un-throttled 5 GB plan, if only the damn Verizon signal at my job weren’t so crap.
T-Mobile’s coverage in rural parts of Wisconsin still isn’t the greatest, so I kept my wife’s phone on Total Wireless so if we’re out somewhere in the sticks hopefully at least one of our phones will work. I bumped her down to the 5 GB single line plan for $35. She’s occasionally been annoyed by the lack of simultaneous voice & data so I might flip her over to the equivalent Boom plan. That’ll get her the VoLTE features for only $5/month more.
"t0ast" (t0ast217)
11/15/2017 at 10:51, STARS: 0
I ditched them about 18 months ago after they started screwing with the speeds and price of their original grandfatered-in unlimited plan and went to Project Fi. With some changes in phone usage habits, like replacing on-the-go streaming with pre-downloaded stuff, browsing, gaming, or dare I say a non-phone activity, I’m at $40 or less for a typical month.
Coverage and call quality is a tiny bit worse than AT&T here, but the speeds are consistently good (~75 Mbps as I write this) and I’ve been able to put their zero-fee international data coverage to good use several times now. It’s definitely not for everyone, but if you have regular access to WiFi and/or can reign in your data usage, it’s a pretty sweet place to be.
"horizonsofkhaos" (horizonsofkhaos)
11/15/2017 at 12:00, STARS: 0
That’s a pretty good tidbit. I’ve been a bit of a heavy data user over the years but I’m definitely sick of paying top dollar for it. I had considered switching over to at&t prepaid but the throttled data sounds like it would be a pain over time.
"horizonsofkhaos" (horizonsofkhaos)
11/15/2017 at 12:08, STARS: 0
I’ve been kicking around the idea of jumping over to Project Fi since I have a Pixel XL. I will just have to change my habits some and not use my data as much. I’ve been a little spoiled with my unlimited data but I’m sick of paying so much for it. I changed over from a grandfathered unlimited plan with AT&T that eventually was costing me $110 a month. I combined with my mom’s plan and we’re down to $145 a month for both phones but she really doesn’t need that much data at all. I’d rather be own my own plan again and her be able to get the bare minimum service with AT&T since that’s all she needs.