Have I misunderstood the Verizon unlimited plan

[mikestock]

I have had at least 2 Verizon phones for years. At times I have added a Jet Pack or smart phone for additional hotspot capacity in the RV.

Before my current trip I added the third phone for hotspot purposes, which I thought would allow me 15 GB additional access. We watched about 5 hours of movies in two nights when we had no view of DirecTV satellites. Also connected with laptop to check emails and some searching for local attraction info.

I was shocked to see that we had used 19+ GB of data and email content would not load. I called Verizon to try to get an explanation of why the use was so high. I had expected about 6 GB of use.

The real shocker I got from the agent was that, after I reached 22 GB of total use, all three of my phones were in this slow down, 3g mode.

I have had Verizon for years and have been told by in person and customer service agents that I had 15 GB of 4g hotspot data for EACH line. I have, in past years, maxed out one line and still had hotspot access on other lines. This was my reason for adding the third line. We expected to be on the road quite a bit during the current and next few monthly billing periods.

Am I the only one who expected to have 15 Gb of hotspot data for EACH LINE?

[mikestock]

MrWizard wrote:
I'm sure if you check your account
You will find that somewhere during one of your device add on removal sessions your account status was changed
When you added a device after , the data per device plan was eliminated

I know that I had 15 Gb on each of my two lines before I activated the third line. This was done just last week and over the phone. If there was a change in my basic contract it was not revealed.

[mikestock]

gafidler wrote:
switch to T Mobil

I am not locked in to Verizon. What do they offer?

Get a USB to HDMI adapter for the phone and use it directly for watching movies, rather than as a hotspot to smart TV. Or enable screen share on your smart TV and connect the phone to it wirelessly (cast)

I can and have done this in the past as my previous tv was not "Smart". I thought about this doing but did not know it would make a difference.

[GordonThree]

Here's something to try "next time"

Get a USB to HDMI adapter for the phone and use it directly for watching movies, rather than as a hotspot to smart TV. Or enable screen share on your smart TV and connect the phone to it wirelessly (cast)

This will save a lot on your hotspot usage.

Not much you can do about getting throttled in a congested area, almost every campground is going to be that way.

You can set Netflix and Amazon to stream at lower quality which will save a lot of data.

[gafidler]

switch to T Mobil

[MrWizard]

I'm sure if you check your account
You will find that somewhere during one of your device add on removal sessions your account status was changed
When you added a device after , the data per device plan was eliminated

Like had been said it is 'pooled' data
And the plans I remember where data was separate per device, was each device got 10GB

19GB is not too high for 6 hours of HD video from a streaming service
When I record OTA HD video it is approx 6gb per hour
6 hours would be 36GB of disc space

I'm not sure why the post, was the surprise at the amount of data used
Or the surprise at data pool
You apparently had no problem watching movies
And did not get over billed

[6_6_Oilburner]

We use Verizon as our home internet, I have a tablet that I hot spot off of, and my wife uses the MIFI box. Data on my phone is unlimited, but mobile hot spot Data on our plan is limited to 10gb per device then that device gets slowed down.

[azdryheat]

Wife and I each have unlimited lines but we don't stream movies and such so throttling has never been an issue.

[shastagary]

use the verizon app on your phones and you can watch your data usage

[2oldman]

shastagary wrote:
never take there (sic) word for what you are getting when you sign up always ask for it in writing so you are sure what you are getting.

It's in writing on the website. The sales crew just forgets to point that out.

[Executive45]

In answer to your question - YES...:(...Dennis

[shastagary]

never take there word for what you are getting when you sign up always ask for it in writing so you are sure what you are getting.
make them print out the plan details so you can see for yourself make the customer rep sign and date it so you can go back if they do not give you what it says.

[2oldman]

coolmom42 wrote:
There are different versions of "unlimited" but even the most expensive reduces your speed at some point.

Especially when using the phone as a hotspot, something I do a lot.

[coolmom42]

your "unlimited" data becomes throttled speed when you are in a high usage area, and over 22 GB. If you are in a low use area, no problem. The data pool is shared among all devices on the same plan. It is not "per phone".

I recommend you go to a REAL Verizon store and talk to a person there. This version of "unlimited" may not be the best setup for your purposes. There are different versions of "unlimited" but even the most expensive reduces your speed at some point.

Verizon unlimited plans

[2oldman]

Not sure about your particular plan, but my data is not per phone. 5 hours of movies would definitely exceed 6 gig. Also, I think those agents are salesmen rather than helpful representatives. Sorry about your problems.