Letting ISPs impose arbitrary restrictions, then charge you more money to get around them, isn’t a model that’s going to be great for innovators over the longer haul.

These restrictions aren’t entirely arbitrary. Bandwidth is a finite resource that costs a lot of money to expand. ISPs and mobile providers have always had to do /something/ to limit use of their available bandwidth so that everyone can have the bandwidth they want/need. Tiers of access at different price points seems to solve this problem pretty well while still allowing them to oversell said bandwidth. If everyone actually used the bandwidth they pay for the whole system would come crashing down and they would have to change their pricing to a cartoon version of their current pricing.

We do, however, need to stop supporting these companies with public funds that never achieve the intended results. Let them succeed or fail on their own merit.

Disclaimer: I don’t work for Verizon nor do I work in the mobile industry.

Once again, Karl writes an article which lacks integrity, fueling an unlimited amount of bias attacking a company which, despite the data cap restrictions, actually lowered its prices across the board.

For Karl, he’ll no doubt ignore the use of "unlimited" in its proper context in the above sentence, instead falsely providing information to readers this is actually something which exists in communications.

It simply isn’t true. Furthermore, Karl should be articulating the use of the word "Unlimited" is actually the real problem, because as we clearly see, it does confuse people.

Communications have a finite limit to them and the more users there are, the more these limitations are experienced.

Anyone who has tried to use a phone during a natural emergency (or worse, terrorist attack) will understand the problem. There’s just only so much people can use a time.

While I certainly don’t agree with the insanely low data caps of these plan offerings, I can understand the reasoning behind throttling 4K videos over a spectrum which cannot handle it.

"4G" data cap is 100MB/sec. This is a specification of the communication signal. It cannot be altered. This may seem fast, when say downloading a song of about 2MB could be obtain in less than a second.

But we all know reality is we cannot achieve this incredible download speed. Other factors, such as data transfer integrity checks, server loads, and other factors delay this transfer.

A 4K video is an excessive amount of data to transfer to a device whose screen is barely capable of rendering the 4K in a manner as to be appreciated. Most screens, 6", would appear no different had the video been 1080p, and some would argue 480p would also be acceptable on a screen this size.

Yet, the way Karl makes it sound, everyone should experience 4K just because it’s there.

Nonsense. I’ve stated this multiple times, so it bears repeating: WIRELESS IS NOT THE SAME THING AS BROADBAND.

You can rag on Verizon about its pricing all you want.

Please stop using the term "unlimited". It was never true, and it will never be true.

I live near the Indianapolis area, and around 12pm, you can clearly tell when people are on their lunch break simply by looking at a phone.

I can’t imagine this is faring any better in major cities, so perhaps Verizon isn’t trying to screw customers over, but trying to undo their own mistake by using the word "unlimited" in the first place.

Something to think about.

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All cell phone carriers have unlimited data plans, and yes they’re actually unlimited. You can use as much data as you want witout any fear of being charged more because you’re paying a set amount per month. However, the fee that you pay is actually for the limited LTE data that your plan covers. For example, Verizon’s Get More Unlimited plan offers you a whopping 75GB of premium data speed, but once that limit has been reached, your speed may drop down.

Now for people who listen to music, this might not be much of an issue, but for video enthusiasts, that is a real issue. At $90 per month, Verizon’s Get More Unlimited plan is their most expensive plan. It is only recommended for those who are true streamers and who don’t mind paying a bit more for data. I am one of those streamers who streams a lot of music, but more importantly, I want to stream my music at its highest quality possible.

However, what you also have to take note of is the quality of service that you get with your carrier. Verizon being the top dog has the most towers, the highest speed connections, and of course, the most expensive plans of any cell carrier on the planet, but as they say, you get what you pay for. You’re going to pay more for the top dog, but that’s to be expected. The question is however, how much data do you really need and use? Again, with heavy streamers such as myself, I would need a lot of LTE data to play with.

I am a music enthusiast, so I feel justified in purchasing Verizon’s more expensive plan just for that reason. I want the better sound quality, and I don’t want any issues with streaming. Now from what I heard, your data is never really capped on Verizon, but it may slow down due to congestion. Other cell carriers may actually cap the data speed at the point when you have used up your alotted LTE data. I believe that at some point in the near future, data and speed capping will be a thing of the past due to the fact that technology is getting cheaper by the day.

Take for example the many music services that are now available. You just pay a measly $10 per month and have access to millions of songs that you can play at any time day or night without having to purchase a single CD. And back when CDs were big, the average CD would cost anywhere from $15 to $16 per disc which contained at least 10 songs give or take a few more. That was quite expensive back then, but now, for just roughly that same amount, you can get access to millions of songs for the price of one disc. It just goes to show how technology is making things that were once very expensive very cheap. It also shows that the Internet is no longer in its infancy and has grown up quite a bit over theyears.

5G is supposed to be the introduction of the Internet of things, so we’ll have to wait and see where cell carriers go when it is fully released to everyone on the planet.