tiered

Verizon Wireless is toying with the idea of eliminating its unlimited data plans and switching to tiered pricing, according to its parent company's chief financial officer, John Killian.

In an interview with Bloomberg's BusinessWeek, Killian said, "We will probably need to change the design of our pricing where it will not be totally unlimited, flat rate."

A jump to tiered pricing would mimic a similar move by AT&T, which put the brakes on its unlimited data plan earlier this month.

Under AT&T's DataPlus plan, customers will now pay $15 a month … Read more

Tiered pricing for wireless plans could mean mobile apps are going to get squeezed down to size by their developers.

As unlimited mobile data plans become a thing of the past for many wireless smartphone subscribers, developers will have to think more carefully about how efficiently their apps use network resources. For the past couple of years app developers haven't had to worry too much about whether their applications consumed a lot of data resources on wireless networks. Cell phone carriers, such as AT&T and others around the world like O2 in the U.K., offered smartphone … Read more

AT&T isn't the only wireless operator that is doing away with unlimited data plans for smartphones. Telefonica's O2 in the United Kingdom is also dumping its unlimited data offering, the company announced Thursday.

O2, the second-biggest mobile operator in the U.K., said in a press release that the change in pricing will give customers "a more transparent pricing model tied to usage."

Here's what has changed: Customers on plans costing 25 pounds, 30 pounds or 35 pounds a month will get 500 megabytes of data downloads. Plans costing 40 pounds or 45 … Read more

The new Apple iPhone 4 goes on sale June 24 and eager fans are already trying to figure out how they can get their hands on the latest and greatest iPhone.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs called the iPhone 4.0, which is the fourth generation of iPhone, the "biggest leap since the original iPhone" was launched in 2007. The new device has a homegrown processor like the one used in the iPad and a bigger battery that offers up to seven hours of talk time, six hours of 3G browsing, and 300 hours of standby. It also comes … Read more

Compellent's C-Drive event last week drew about 300 storage administrators and IT generalists to downtown Minneapolis one week before EMC World. While that's small show by EMCWorld standards, it was a big event for Compellent customers.

I have yet to meet a more evangelistic group of storage users. Compellent's architecture creates a unique storage management environment. While the architecture supports a variety of RAID levels and RAID-based array configurations, one has to leave pre-conceived notions regarding management and functioning of traditional RAID arrays at the door. These people behave as if they had seen the light and … Read more

Communications provider Comcast on Wednesday announced two new tiers of service for heavy residential downloaders, along with speed upgrades for subscribers of its existing services.

The two new plans, dubbed "Extreme" and "Ultra" clock in at 50 and 22 Mbps of downstream respectively and 10 and 5 Mbps of upstream. Comparatively, customers of Comcast's "performance" plans are getting a big jump from 8 to 16 Mbps on the downspeed, however, upload performance remains at 2 Mbps.

The speed bumps, which are being rolled out to 10 major markets between now and next year … Read more

Sometimes it's the simplest ideas that offer the best solutions. The idea of having oven racks always at the ready is as simple as it is perfect. Pile up the food and cook it all at once. Some forethought will certainly have to go into what you cook and when to check it, just by the simple fact alone that the oven loses so much heat every time you open the door.

But just look at that photo right there; doesn't that look delicious? Well, those veggies could be a little better seasoned. However, it's the thought … Read more

On today's episode, Molly issues a blanket un-curse to all who have suddenly discovered that Firefox has trouble with Flash. (But really, it's Firefox's fault.) Also, the Associated Press volunteers to tackle the thorny issue of defining fair use for all of us, and yet the blogosphere insists on painting it as some sort of heavy-handed attempt to lock down their own content and dictate rules that they have no legal authority to tackle. How rude.

Verizon blocks access to whole USENET hierarchy http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080616-alt-blocked-verizon-blocks-access-to-whole-usenet-hierarchy.html … Read more

Mark Cuban's onto something important with his frank ruminations on the subject of imposing tiered broadband. It's not a popular argument, but it is one worth consideration.

When it comes to broadband internet access, you can have speed or large volumes of data transfer. You can't have both. One certainty in the broadband world is that for those of us with cable or DSL modems connecting us to the Internet, there is still a finite amount of bandwidth available. When a user consumes a disproportionate and significant amount of bandwidth, it can and will slow down everyone. … Read more