Sprint to no longer offer unlimited data - NOW HAS A CAP of 5GB/month!

[J Kinkaid]

Starting July 17th Sprint will cap data at 5gb a month and if you go over that they may cancel your account .

more info can be found in this thread



http://howardforums.com/showthread.php?t=1371662&page=1&pp=15

 

[Tony Laubach]

Starting July 17th Sprint will cap data at 5gb a month and if you go over that they may cancel your account .

At least it gets me through the brunt of the chasing season... not sure exactly how much I do use on my data card monthly to be perfectly honest, so I guess we'll see.

If that is true and I am a 5gb+ user, I would imagine I'll pay more attention to failed downloads that would add towards the 5gb and make sure they hear about it EVERY SINGLE MONTH. I will not pay for data that didn't make it because their service crapped out. I imagine they'll get a lot more of those "failed connection" complaints.

 

[Joey Ketcham]

I don't think I would worry much about this, you would think that if this were true that Sprint would have pulled the unlimited package from their site and have at least some type of notice up, but there is nothing and they still offer the unlimited plan. Also why would they put a cap on their data plan when their competition provides the same service with unlimited data? I don't think Sprint would be dumb enough to do that.

 

[J Kinkaid]

I wonder if they will let old customers stay grandfathered in our chose not to enforce it like ATT does . I wouldn't be shocked if Tmobile buys Sprint in the next year and saves Sprint from losing millions each year

 

[Mark Sudduth]

Tmobile and Sprint are not compatible in their networks. Kind of like Nextel and Sprint were not and look how THAT turned out. Hopefully Sprint can stay Sprint- they've been around a long time and have the best overall data system in the U.S. built from the ground up. Time will tell.

 

[Mark Sudduth]

Here is a recent CNBC story about Sprint & Tmobile- among other things.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/24460668/site/14081545

 

[Scott Weberpal]

I don't think I would worry much about this, you would think that if this were true that Sprint would have pulled the unlimited package from their site and have at least some type of notice up, but there is nothing and they still offer the unlimited plan. Also why would they put a cap on their data plan when their competition provides the same service with unlimited data? I don't think Sprint would be dumb enough to do that.

Verizon and ATT both have a 5GB cap...neither have a truly unlimited plan. If this happens with Sprint, I'll move over to Alltel.

 

[mike scantlin]

is this going to cause problems with autonet mobile?

 

[Scott Weberpal]

Autonet is a completely seperate entity from Sprint or any other carrier. Autonet has their own contracts and deals with the carriers who provide service to them.

 

[Steve Polley]

This may be a deal breaker for me if they actually enforce it. I wonder what this will do to those of us that are running live streaming such as myself. Im sure it wouldnt take long to rack up 5GB during a few chases in a month. If this holds true, like Scott, I will be switching to alltel as well.

 

[Ben Holcomb]

How many are actually using 5GB per month? I chased a few times, and used my data plan extensively last month including streaming a lot of video and only managed to use 837 megabytes. Almost half of that appears to be streaming video (Judging by my archives)

Are you all using your cellular plans as your primary internet too or just downloading large files on it? I guess I just use mine for mobile use, and tend to not download large files unless its absolutely necessary.

 

[James Siler]

Tmobile and Sprint are not compatible in their networks. Kind of like Nextel and Sprint were not and look how THAT turned out. Hopefully Sprint can stay Sprint- they've been around a long time and have the best overall data system in the U.S. built from the ground up. Time will tell.

Tmobile and Sprint may not be compatable technology wise but if they due like Alltel did when they bought the AT&T Wireless network in Oklahoma, they changed it to CDMA, which makes me wonder if they do buy Sprint, will they change Tmobiles customers to CDMA or will they force a migration to GSM? Intersting to say the least.

 

[Scott Weberpal]

How many are actually using 5GB per month? I chased a few times, and used my data plan extensively last month including streaming a lot of video and only managed to use 837 megabytes. Almost half of that appears to be streaming video (Judging by my archives)

Are you all using your cellular plans as your primary internet too or just downloading large files on it? I guess I just use mine for mobile use, and tend to not download large files unless its absolutely necessary.

I use mine as full-time home internet. I have no other high speed options available where I currently live in the country other than high speed through satellite (hughes or starband, etc) which is horribly slow and over priced compared to Sprint. I know there are months I don't go over 5GB, but I also know there are months I go well over.

I hope Sprint lets me drop without an ETF due to the plan changing, either that or let me stay grandfathered with the old plan.

 

[Jason Foster]

Ah...doesn't seem that bad of a thing

At least it's not the old days.....like my 1998 cell bill of about $1700 because of roaming charges and a great 9600 data rate (took like 4 minutes for the visible sat image to load).

To me, it's all about what the charge is for overage. I don't mind paying a few hundered more in one or two months of use, when I need it. Better than paying a huge monthly amount for data I'm not using.

Oh, and for the streamers, why don't you just be more selective of the streams. I don't watch much now, but if your streaming during down time or waiting for the cap to break, just turn it off and save the bandwidth.

 

[Bill Schintler]

RE: data bandwidth limit

How many are actually using 5GB per month? I chased a few times, and used my data plan extensively last month including streaming a lot of video and only managed to use 837 megabytes. Almost half of that appears to be streaming video (Judging by my archives)

Are you all using your cellular plans as your primary internet too or just downloading large files on it? I guess I just use mine for mobile use, and tend to not download large files unless its absolutely necessary.

While chasing for 12 hours daily and downloading data constantly during that period (including streaming level-2 radar the entire time), I average on the order of 500mb/day. I'm AT&T, which also has a 5GB limit. Prior to entering into the contract, I spoke with several sales and customer service reps who assured me that the limit is loosely enforced and is in place to protect the provider against a very small minority of customers who consistently use enormous amounts of bandwidth (such as running a server). I was promised that if I go over 5GB from time to time, there would be no problem nor would there be extra charges. I was assured that this cap would be enforced only in cases where the customer uses well in excess of the 5GB month after month. It is more of a legal “outâ€￾ for the provider to terminate the contract in the event that a customer always uses excessive bandwidth. I suspect that this is the case with other providers who have a limit. For anyone who uses a data plan primarily for chasing, I can't imagine that this is a problem.

- bill