On Fri, 17 Jul 2009 15:26:23 -0700 (PDT), D Ball
wrote:
>So, if you are getting on the net via phone, then your phone service
>provider likely charges you a premium monthly rate for unlimited
>Internet access or a by-the-minute rate each time you access the
>Internet via phone hookup.
For cell phone access to the Internet, I think that's no longer
generally true.
You can pay a premium for what they call unlimited access, but there's
actually a limit (Sprint and Verizon, for example, advertised
unlimited but meant 5GB per month, and I think they were forced by
state PUCs to change their advertising).
Or you can pay by the byte (kilobyte, megabyte). Verizon used to have
a plan where you paid by the minute, but they dropped it in favor of
charging by the kilobyte, probably because customers can guess how
many minutes they've used, but have no easy way to know their kilobyte
usage. It's better, from the carriers' point of view, to bill on
something the customer can't easily measure, because overage charges
are more likely.
There are some plans around that charge by the minute, or really have
unlimited usage, but they're not common.
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