11-02-2012, 03:50 AM
Agree that the Verizon data caps for 4G LTE are a total ripoff. Being off grid we are dependent on wireless for internet access and Verizon has the only reliable signal in our location mauka of Pahoa (surprisingly AT&T is quite marginal as evidenced by our son's iPhone experience here). We don't look at videos, much less movies and stick with the news and information sites that we are interested in. However, with 4G speeds allowing more rapid surfing and with modern web pages overloaded with images and videos, it is very easy to build up Verizon's 5 Gb cap (associated with the $59 base rate). From then on it's $10 per Gb over the cap! But we do upload pictures and documents for a couple of web sites and we do get occasional big software updates and the data cap fees go up and up.
Bottom line: if another wireless provider with quality service and either a big data cap, or preferably no cap, were to come on line, we would drop Verizon like a hot rock. We simply do not believe that maintenance of cell towers compares with maintenance of a cable company's wired infrastructure. Yet the cable companies seem to routinely offer either no data cap or a very large one at lower prices than Verizon! And it's not only that we could actually watch a few movies online without further surcharges, but that the next big computer OS update download wouldn't severely reduce down our internet usage for the rest of the month.
Bottom line: if another wireless provider with quality service and either a big data cap, or preferably no cap, were to come on line, we would drop Verizon like a hot rock. We simply do not believe that maintenance of cell towers compares with maintenance of a cable company's wired infrastructure. Yet the cable companies seem to routinely offer either no data cap or a very large one at lower prices than Verizon! And it's not only that we could actually watch a few movies online without further surcharges, but that the next big computer OS update download wouldn't severely reduce down our internet usage for the rest of the month.