The idea of unrestrained data usage sounds ideal for cellphone subscribers, but recently the two largest carriers, Verizon and AT&T, have been trying to distance themselves from unlimited data plans.
Verizon is going even further, making the argument that unlimited data plans are bad for networks and customers.
Tech Industry Analyst, Jack Gold, posted an article on Verizon’s blog making the case that unlimited data usage degrades the quality of network connections and is, therefore, bad for customers.
“The quality of connection is important to wireless users,” Gold explains, “and when connections become slow or disconnections occur due to overcrowding, users become disappointed.”
He goes on to say that “if everyone had unlimited data and used it fully, the performance of the networks would suffer because of bandwidth restrictions and the ‘shared resource’ nature of wireless.”
Gold said that a degraded network would cause the carriers to have to upgrade their networks and increase capacity to keep up with all the data usage. That cost would undoubtedly be passed on to the consumer.
“Much like highways that need to be widened for peak rush-hour traffic, this would require major investments that someone would have to pay for – that someone being the subscribers,” Gold argues.
He said in order to accommodate unlimited data customers, everyone would have to share in the cost because carriers would have to concentrate resources on accommodating unlimited data users and overall network improvements would take a backseat.
The vast majority of customers don’t even use enough data to warrant an unlimited data plan, he said.
“Even if we combined mobile and Wi-Fi data usage, we’d find that the vast majority of users would still be within the allotments of data plans available from the carriers at a reasonable cost, particularly if it’s a multidevice shared family plan.” He adds, “In most cases, users are very well-served by current wireless data plans, and really don’t require more.”
But while Verizon is making the argument against unlimited data, T-Mobile US CEO John Legere, is more than happy to accommodate customers looking for unrestricted data plans.
Sprint, T-Mobile US and a few other smaller carriers still offer unlimited data plans. Go here to compare prices.
