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Buyer Beware!! No data plan when using Droid X as a hotspot!!

I purchased the Droid X right when it came out and got the "unlimited" data and hotspot options. I just received my first bill and it has $250 worth of data charges on it. I called customer support and learned that hotspot data is not in the unlimited plan. In fact, they do not offer a data plan for using the phone as a wifi hotspot - it's pay as you go.

This was the whole reason I bought this phone - to get the hotspot. I even turned in a wifi card I had with Sprint. Even the customer support supervisor admitted it does not make any sense. What a disaster..... #fail

Comments

CaboWaboMan

Excuse my ignorance, but I thought the $20 per month for wifi hotspot specifically covered that, disassociated with the 29.99 for unlimited data and x amount for voice plan. Can someone from Verizon please clarify this...

Thank You

If it is as stated above my post...thx for the heads up...this was my number 1 reason for this specific purchase...

GeekGuy

The hotspot is a seperate feature on your phone. It has nothing to do with your phones data. It is a seperate billed item on your account as well. The $20.00 monthly charge will give you up to 2GB on the monthly subscription. $.05 per MB after that.

Here is a link for more info : http://www.verizonwireless.com/b2c/mobilebroadband/?page=products_connect

That information is freely available though.

CaboWaboMan

Thx for the info...just got the phone today...so just starting to get up to speed on everything.

GeekGuy

CaboWaboMan wrote:
Thx for the info...just got the phone today...so just starting to get up to speed on everything.

I hope that you have a good phone without any of the issues floating around.

I personally have a phone that I have been loving since 7/15. It has been the best phone that I have ever had, and I am enjoying things it can do greatly.

I wish you great luck and enjoyment.

djtonic

GeekGuy wrote:
CaboWaboMan wrote:
Thx for the info...just got the phone today...so just starting to get up to speed on everything.
I hope that you have a good phone without any of the issues floating around.

I personally have a phone that I have been loving since 7/15. It has been the best phone that I have ever had, and I am enjoying things it can do greatly.

I wish you great luck and enjoyment.

I've had some* of those issues and I still love and think this is the best phone I've ever had too!

But back to the topic. It pays to read the plans before you buy them. It's very clear in the verbiage what the costs are going to be for hotspot and tethering your phone.

Verizon also makes it pretty clear that the use of mobile hotspots and tethering is not to be used as your PRIMARY internet connection or to replace a home broadband connection.

The ammount of data people use on a PC should far surpass what is used on a smartphone and it would make sense for them to put that cap on it. I wish they would at least just turn off your data when you hit the cap instead of charging you 250.00 in data charges!

djtonic

Yea they have gotto offer some sort of tracking tool.

elotter

data is not unlimited.. read the Terms of service.. its is a soft 5gb cap and it actually states it in the contract that you sign... if you grossly go over that cap as you would using your cellphone as a connection for gaming you will get charged...

Gsnorby

I don't travel a lot, but when I do it tends to be for weeks at a time. One of the things I liked about the Verizon plans is that the tethering was separate. The Customer Service Rep at my Verizon Store explained to me that, using the My Verizon website, you can toggle service features on and off. It is perfectly "permissible" to not have the $20 data tether plan on the account, but then activate it when you travel... you can remove it when you don't need it anymore.

For me, that's a win-win. I don't pay for it when I don't need it, but when I want it, it's there.

Before buying my Droid X, I had a USB dongle-thingy with Verizon that I fueled pay-as-you-go with gift cards I'd buy on the road. It worked okay, but nowhere near as convenient as this is. That stand-alone WWAN adapter will be staying with this laptop when I upgrade to a new one and give this one to my 70 year old mother. She only needs away-from-home internet for one week in the summer when she visits her sister.

Wildman

elotter wrote:
data is not unlimited.. read the Terms of service.. its is a soft 5gb cap and it actually states it in the contract that you sign... if you grossly go over that cap as you would using your cellphone as a connection for gaming you will get charged...

Basically Verizon probally looks at it this way, if you are going over 5Gig just using the web from your device, there is a good chance you are using your device to teather using some other method... I do some extentive web browsing and also I download drivers from systems to my device to load onto system without web access and then plug phone into unit as Mass Storage device to install them to the system and my average is usually around 3Gigs.

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