Unlimited mobile data in America – where's the catch? There's always a catch

The problem is that the current ISP model is like an all you can eat buffet, where one in 10 customers eats all the food, one in 100 takes his chair home too, and one in 1,000 unscrews all the fixtures and fittings and loads them into a van as well.

www.telco2.net/blog/2008/02/bbcs_iplayer_nukes_all_you_can.html

This was written in 2008 about fixed line ISP offerings, but nothing really changes ...

No catch...

they just lie.

Late to the party

I already have unlimited mobile data on a second tier provider and have for the last 3 years. For $40 per month.

The catch? Throttled after 2GB from 4G to 3G. As I don't watch movies or play bandwidth sucking games or music, I'm usually not throttled until the last few days of the month.

Tethering for video'?

Frankly, when I need it, it's just because I'm doing some tasks complex enough which my phone can't handle, which usually doesn't involve watching some silly movie or show. Everything is becoming so monodimensional due to media and CEOs who can't look beyond their nose people who actually use their connections in different ways are hampered in their use, and find themselves to pay more than needed.

Luckily bypassing some tether blocks is not so difficult.

When is unlimited not unlimited

I had a look at the Terms and Conditions (yes I know no one is supposed to read them) of one carriers offering Unlimited calls and text. Their idea of Unlimited calls was 2000 minutes per month which I worked out to be just over 1 hour per day. Not exactly my idea of unlimited...

I did find one operator that offered a "limited" offering of 43200 minutes per month (30 day cycle not calendar month) now that is what I call unlimited (do the maths).

In Australia "Unlimited Data" on a mobile is like Oz (fantasy land)... I keep living in hope though that one carrier will break free and the rest will have to follow.

My current plan has a 3GB cap but I rarely get anywhere near that. Mind you, I don't consider a phone to be a suitable medium for watching videos so that probably saves me because it's something I rarely do. A bit of email, web browsing and navigation obviously doesn't use much.

There's a reason why some stick to prepaid (and voice only). 70$ a month? Not unless I can write it as a business expense.

First world problem

"A customer who has used almost all of her data could still binge on HBO, but would be unable to make an important video call with her doctor,"

Are there many people who have important video calls with their doctor?

All you can eat

You write: " And not one, anywhere, has lasted very long." I beg to differ. Swisscom in Switzerland has been offering these all-you-can-eat/doownload packages since at least 2010 and they're still going strong.

Mind you, they have priced them accordingly.

Enjoy: https://www.swisscom.ch/en/residential/mobile/subscription-tariffs/natel-infinity2-xl.html#handy=ja

Carrier fee for suckers

T-Mobile only knows how much tethering data you're using when it passes through their custom tethering app. Without it, tethering data is normal data like it should be. It's an odd and expensive penalty for buying your phone from a T-Mo store rather than from the manufacturer.

Maths check needed.

"If you're Octomom, the price goes down to $20 per line."

No it doesn't. As a family tends towards an infinite size, the price per line will asymptotically approach $20, but a mere 8 children is nowhere near that.