Verizon's new 4G LTE network is so fast that you can use up your entire 5GB, $50 monthly allotment in 32 minutes.
I'm in the middle of testing Verizon's new LTE network, and the 2010-era speeds are soured by the 2005-era thinking on data plans. Verizon has priced LTE pretty much like 3G to encourage data sipping, not guzzling. As soon as you start using the latest high-bandwidth Internet services, your whole month's allotment can evaporate within a day.
My tests maxed out at an impressive 21Mbps. If you were downloading 5GB at that speed, it would only take you 32 minutes. Since the LTE network currently has almost nobody on it, I got average speeds around 15Mbps; Verizon estimates you'll be able to get around 8.5Mbps with a loaded network. But very few applications actually use those speeds consistently, so I also checked out some more common uses.
Downloading some files via BitTorrent, I registered 5.6Mbps, which could use up the cap in about two hours. Standard-definition Netflix video is kinder to your data cap; according to Netflix, they encode at 1500 kbps, so it'll take you 7.4 hours to burn through your monthly allotment. That's fewer than four movies.
The longest-established 4G provider, Clearwire, has said its WiMAX users average 7GB/month — and that's with a slower network than LTE. Clearwire sells unlimited WiMax service for $45/month. If you want to use super-fast LTE as much as an average Clear WiMAX user, you'll have to pay $80/month for Verizon's 10GB tier. And if you're a heavier user than average, Verizon charges $10 for each additional gigabyte over your plan.
Why Verizon Keeps Caps Low
What's up with this? I think Verizon is trying to keep heavy users off the new LTE network — especially anyone who may try to use it to replace a home connection. The carrier has two reasons for this. First, Verizon is a major seller of home broadband, and wired bits are a lot cheaper to deliver than wireless. If a user wants to guzzle gigabytes, Verizon wants that person to sign up for DSL or FiOS.
I also suspect that Verizon is making sure their network isn't crushed by demand. Verizon Wireless is intensely protective of its network quality, and the company doesn't want everyone jumping onto its brand-new trampoline at once, for fear it'll break. That at least leaves hope that as Verizon becomes more confident it can handle the traffic, it could lower prices to let more people in.
At various events over the past two years, Verizon executives described LTE as a potentially disruptive technology that was going to encourage new service plan paradigms. You could see data buckets shared between devices, for instance, or you could pay for specific services (like Netflix) rather than by the byte, or see data being included in a device price (like you see on the Amazon Kindle.) But for now, we have a 4G network with hoary, old, 3G-esque modem plans.
When he announced the LTE launch, Verizon CTO Tony Melone said that for the launch day, simplicity was key.
"As the network evolves, other aspects around our offerings will evolve as well, and pricing is an aspect of that," he said. Let's hope so.