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

[dgalanis]

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

[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]

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CaboWaboMan wrote:

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

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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]

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GeekGuy wrote:

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CaboWaboMan wrote:

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

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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.

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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!

[CaboWaboMan]

Yes, I am beginning to understand this now, they would not want someone selling mobile hotspot space.  Can someone give me some idea of what 2 gigs of data represents, I am having a bit of trouble wrapping my head around this.  This is going to be a pure convenience thing for me.  Example i'm on the road with my laptop and need to mod an excel, word or access doc on the fly and send it off...am I good to do this several times or do I wait till i'm home or in the hotel?

Very interesting conversation all, I appreciate the input

short but sweet....do not play wow thru your phone while driving

[djtonic]

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CaboWaboMan wrote:

Yes, I am beginning to understand this now, they would not want someone selling mobile hotspot space.  Can someone give me some idea of what 2 gigs of data represents, I am having a bit of trouble wrapping my head around this.  This is going to be a pure convenience thing for me.  Example i'm on the road with my laptop and need to mod an excel, word or access doc on the fly and send it off...am I good to do this several times or do I wait till i'm home or in the hotel?

Very interesting conversation all, I appreciate the input

short but sweet....do not play wow thru your phone while driving

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CaboWaboMan> nice name btw.

It's hard to fully judge how much data is used.  just surfing and sending emails would ammount to thousands of pages and text only emails before you hit 2 gigs.  But, once you start adding in attachments you will have to figure in the size of those attachements.  If you send 10 x 200MB files in a month, you've hit your limit on the attachments alone.

I stream pandora 5 days a week for hours upon hours a day and I use about 2.5 gigs of data per month, plus web surfing.  If i download a bunch of files on my phone that number will bounce up tremendously. 

So...likely the excel files ammount to a matter of Kbs so it shouldnt be a problem to stay WELL within that 2gb limit.  I personally don't think it is worth the extra 20 bucks a month for 2 extra gigs.  I would transfer my excel sheet to my phone via USB and then send it direct from the droid to my recipient.

Dj 

[GeekGuy]

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djtonic wrote:

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CaboWaboMan wrote:

Yes, I am beginning to understand this now, they would not want someone selling mobile hotspot space.  Can someone give me some idea of what 2 gigs of data represents, I am having a bit of trouble wrapping my head around this.  This is going to be a pure convenience thing for me.  Example i'm on the road with my laptop and need to mod an excel, word or access doc on the fly and send it off...am I good to do this several times or do I wait till i'm home or in the hotel?

Very interesting conversation all, I appreciate the input

short but sweet....do not play wow thru your phone while driving

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CaboWaboMan> nice name btw.

It's hard to fully judge how much data is used.  just surfing and sending emails would ammount to thousands of pages and text only emails before you hit 2 gigs.  But, once you start adding in attachments you will have to figure in the size of those attachements.  If you send 10 x 200MB files in a month, you've hit your limit on the attachments alone.

I stream pandora 5 days a week for hours upon hours a day and I use about 2.5 gigs of data per month, plus web surfing.  If i download a bunch of files on my phone that number will bounce up tremendously. 

So...likely the excel files ammount to a matter of Kbs so it shouldnt be a problem to stay WELL within that 2gb limit.  I personally don't think it is worth the extra 20 bucks a month for 2 extra gigs.  I would transfer my excel sheet to my phone via USB and then send it direct from the droid to my recipient.

Dj 

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Exactly...also any video streaming will use a lot of data.

[djtonic]

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GeekGuy wrote:

Exactly...also any video streaming will use a lot of data.

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Yeah...Porn is wicked expensive when you tether

dj.

[GeekGuy]

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djtonic wrote:

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GeekGuy wrote:

Exactly...also any video streaming will use a lot of data.

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Yeah...Porn is wicked expensive when you tether

dj.

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hehe...its those darn pop-ups.

[ksmith95]

http://www.verizonwireless.com/splash_includes/datacalculator.html

Here is a calculator provided by verizon.  I'm thinking of getting this phone and was wondering the same thing.  Not sure how accurate this is.

[GeekGuy]

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CaboWaboMan wrote:

Yes, I am beginning to understand this now, they would not want someone selling mobile hotspot space.  Can someone give me some idea of what 2 gigs of data represents, I am having a bit of trouble wrapping my head around this.  This is going to be a pure convenience thing for me.  Example i'm on the road with my laptop and need to mod an excel, word or access doc on the fly and send it off...am I good to do this several times or do I wait till i'm home or in the hotel?

Very interesting conversation all, I appreciate the input

short but sweet....do not play wow thru your phone while driving

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LOL...no playing wow thru the phone...or in my case LOTRO..

[Wildman]

I havent decided to get the 20.00 Mobile Hotspot plan because I did know about the 2 Meg cap, I decided to do some research and from what I have came across is that I believe there is a area on the Verizon account page that includes the running total of the amount of data used during the use of the HotSpot feature.. I havent seen it on my account but I am assuming this is because I am not on that plain at this time but I have read on a number of post stating that this is how you can track your usage.

[dgalanis]

Unfortunately djtonic, it's really not that clear..... and I think the marketing materials and the charges for "hotspot" and "unlimited data" definitely lead people to believe it is included. 

Put it this way, they are refunding the first month's data usage if you call and complain, and they were very aware of the problem when I called.  The supervisor I talked to admitted that the terminology used is misleading and it does not make sense to not have an additional tethering data plan available so you could use one device if you wanted.

[djtonic]

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dgalanis wrote:

Unfortunately djtonic, it's really not that clear..... and I think the marketing materials and the charges for "hotspot" and "unlimited data" definitely lead people to believe it is included. 

Put it this way, they are refunding the first month's data usage if you call and complain, and they were very aware of the problem when I called.  The supervisor I talked to admitted that the terminology used is misleading and it does not make sense to not have an additional tethering data plan available so you could use one device if you wanted.

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I'll give you that dgalanis....Marketing is misleading and driven by small print and astereks.  I think these ad campaigns are designed to mislead and confuse people into making a decision.

But, once on the site or when speaking to a customer sales repand when you place your order I personally found no confusion between tethering and data plans, all the info is right up front and the prices and limitations.  If a rep didn't offer the info you should be sure to always ask specific questions.

Glad they removed the charges, they've been doing that for years when someone complains about overage charges.

Dj

[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]

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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...

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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.