'A closer look at Verizon's cellular based broadband service'

A closer look at Verizon's cellular based broadband service

By Wilbur Corncob at 04/13/07 09:07

Here a follow up on Verizon's cellular based "broadband" after a phone call. The phone call clarified what I finally figured out from their website. They should have presented the information on their map in a much clearer manner. The concept is simple, the service is fast in metro areas and slow in so called "national access" area. Duh!

They don't present that concept well on their website, and especially not on their stupid coverage map! The map legend talks about Broadband, National Acccess and other ambigous terms.

They could have and should simply note the transfer rates offered in various areas on the map legend. That really could be the key to a customer making the purchase. I am interested in my data transfer rate and service areas. I am not interested in fancy names like "national access".

What else did I learn? That it would be nearly impossible to exceed the 5 GB usage limit, as the service is "unlimited" and "you'd have to be online 24 hrs a day for the whole month" to get close to that usage.

Well, let's do a little math.... this is pretty boring and maybe I don't even have the figures correct, so I'll try to be real clear.

• 5 GigaBytes = 1024 x 1024 x 1024 x 5 = 5,368,709,120 bytes. This should be how much data I can transfer before I am terminated. I suspect it is much less actual data due to packet headers, routing packets, retransmitted packets, acknowledge packets, etc.
• 400 Kbits/Second = 1024 x 400 / 8 = 51,200 bytes / second. This is how many bytes we should be able to transfer in a second in a metropolitan area.
• 5,368,709,120 / 51,200 = 104,857 seconds to transfer 5 gigabytes on 400k connection. This is how long it should take us to use our monthly alotment if we downloaded a large file, like a DVD or two of my 2.5 gigabyte datafiles.
• 104,857 / 3600 = 29.13 hours to transfer 5 GigaBytes. It's hard to comprehend seconds, but when we talk about hours, we see its about 1 day of actual network usage.
• at 60 Kbits/second it would be 194.20 hours. We might be unlucky and be stuck in a national access area. We it would take us a bit over a week.

So the bottom line it would take just over a day to just over a week depending on your transfer rate to use your monthly alotment of service and be terminated.

This is a far cry from the service being unlimited and you'd have to be on 24 hrs a day for a whole month to approach the limit.

My problem here is not that they limit the quantity of data you can transfer. Verizon's is welcome to price and limit the service any way they like. They are not welcome to offer the service subject to immediate termination for simply transferring too much data, and we're not talking spamming here. My problem is multifold:

• They consider one days worth of data transfer to be unlimited
• They promote the service to transfer large files (remember a single DVD is 4.7 GB). A 200 GB hard drive is a fairly common size.
• They promote the sevice as if using 5 GB would be close to impossible or at least extremely difficult. In this day and age 5 GB is a tiny quantity of data.
• They have a severe penalty for exceeding the "unlimited usage" of 5GB/Line/Month, ie: immediate termination of your service!

Now, I realize Verizon will simply say that the service is not intended for such usage, and I disagree. They promote it as a business to business service and for large file downloads and as backup for when there is a landline circuit outage.

That aside the whole issue is resolved by offering a quality service without punishing their good customers. They simply need to define the price as $60/mo/up to 5GB and $x/additional GB. That would benefit their customers and their shareholders.

I've gone round and round with Verizon on this 5gig limit. Fortunately, I signed up in 2007 before they imposed the limit on "unlimited." In 24 mos of contract, I've gone over the 5gig limit twice. I am an internet novice, with e-mail, some catalog shopping, craigslist shopping....no photos, no business files....nothing of big usage, and I am constantly checking my usage to stay under 5 gig. For being grandfathered in, they don't shut off or terminate my service, but they, however.....slow my speeds down to dial up as punishment for the entire billing cycle. Infuriating!! If a customer goes over the gig limit the last 2 days of the billing cycle, the speeds are slowed down for the next 30 days until a new billing cycle. I pay $60 a month for dial up if I exceed the gig limit. This month my contract expires, and you should here the desperate customer service attempts to keep me on this over-rated plan where not even the fine print in the contract is truthful for the REAL service one receives. I would be better off financially and speed wise to sit at a wi-fi station at Starbucks for free.

Suck it up, Verizon, and offer what you say you will, or your business plan to dominate the world will fall on deaf ears.

Verizon has a ridiculous low broadband limit of 5G, it's not too hard to go over it (I work from home and depend heavily on Internet). Verizon charged me almost $200 extra last month so I switched to Comcast, which offers a 250 GB limit instead - for a lower price than Verizon.

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