Mobile Wireless Computing: Choosing a Network Operator and Unlimited Data Plan ...
[Posted originally on the 'Windows 10' board by Don Green]
By Chris Welch
The Verge
June 28, 2018
theverge.com
Above Unlimited. Unlimited &More. Unlimited &More Premium. These are the names of new mobile data plans introduced in just the last month by Verizon and AT&T. In an era without net neutrality, we’ve drifted far, far away from the days when “unlimited data” was a simple concept that meant you could use your smartphone to its full capabilities without any handcuffs or confusing limitations.
Carriers will tell you that the fundamental, underlying promise of unlimited data remains true in 2018: you can use your smartphone as much as you want without overage charges or being cut off once you’ve surpassed a specific threshold. And yes, that’s true. Consumers are generally in a better place now than they were a few years ago, back when Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint were offering tiered buckets of data and charging $10 or $15 for every extra gigabyte above your chosen allotment. None of us miss those days.
We thought unlimited data was dead then. But some prodding from T-Mobile helped turn the industry around and left data buckets behind as an ugly memory. Even so, unlimited data today is much different than in the early days of the iPhone and Android smartphones. Now more than ever, carriers are aggressively policing their networks and implementing restrictions on video quality and hotspot usage. They continue to arbitrarily differentiate between the different types of data you’re accessing with your smartphone — whether it’s through an app or simply the mobile web.
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Which is best?
As always, your first priority in choosing a carrier should be coverage and reliability. They’re all inching closer in these categories, but Verizon is still perceived as the leader when it comes to network scope and dependability. It’s also the most expensive of the four. So if T-Mobile or Sprint work well in your area and places you often travel, there’s less incentive to spend more. And they’re certainly hoping those freebies can make up for any coverage gaps. T-Mobile’s One Plus plan gets those perks, LTE hotspot, and the most runway before facing deprioritization.
But if you’re looking to support whichever carrier is best upholding net neutrality, well, among the big four, none of them are. Restricting video quality, limiting hotspot usage to some plans, zero rating, and other asterisks are clear evidence of that. Unlimited data is still technically unlimited, but somehow carriers have turned their services into a confusing mess.
And it’ll probably only get worse if T-Mobile and Sprint join up. <<
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- Eric L. - |
