Give Me Unlimited Data Or Give Me Death: Page 2 of 2

Spare me the blather about how much it costs to upgrade networks. Sprint Nextel is about to tack on a $10-per-smartphone premium to cover upgrade costs to 4G. I say keep your 4G. LTE is already an overused buzzword, and when I'm streaming Pandora on a bike ride out in cow country, I could care less that the network might be a a bit faster if only we all paid more. I'll gladly trade hyped-up performance claims and sexy ad campaigns for unlimited data and reasonable performance at a realistic price. And just because I cut the cord for the landline at home doesn't mean that some mobile carrier is entitled to the money I used to spend on it.
 
From the user perspective, trying to watch your utilization is a losing battle, and it is my conjecture that most users at the end of the day could care less about whether they are connected to 3G, 4G, LTE or some Wi-Fi offload. They just want to connect, do their thing without needing a spreadsheet to track their activities lest they exceed the capacity of their package, and not have to choose between groceries or a data plan. Throttle my speeds a bit. Charge more for apps and take a bigger cut to bulk up the network. Lose a VP or two and reduce executive bonuses, and stop flooding me with paper junk mail. Show some creativity in keeping unlimited plans available and reasonably affordable. These devices are not telephones; they are powerful computers that just happen to make calls. Charge us more for voice calls if you'd like, but I gotta have unlimited data on my smartphone.