It's time for carriers to remove data caps on “unlimited” plans

If you subscribed and paid for an unlimited phone plan, would you expect there to be a limit to the amount of high-speed data you can get?

Data prioritization and other ways to reduce data usage aren't exactly new, Sprint used to lower the quality of images years ago, but more recently they There are many carriers that offer unlimited plans that slow down your speed. your connection. Calling these plans “unlimited” is technically correct since you get as much low-speed data as you can use, but it doesn't feel completely honest.

Improved labels like the FCC Broadband Label make it easier to know exactly how much high-speed data you're getting. However, if you're not interested in creating spreadsheets and figuring out which values ​​are best, you may want to consider a plan that has much less data than you expected.

These carriers need to remove data caps on unlimited plans

They're not the only ones

Mint Mobile has been a popular prepaid option for some time due to its affordable plan size, easy-to-understand multi-month discounts, and strong marketing. The T-Mobile-owned carrier is touting three limited plans, plus an unlimited plan for customers to choose from. In the former case, even if all the data is used up, the data will still work, but it will be much slower, making it unsuitable for anything other than sending messages.

However, the problem is that if you are on Mint's unlimited plan, the same thing happens when you use 40GB. As a matter of fact, Mint's unlimited plan is 40 GB plus 5 GB of hotspot data.

Ultra Mobile, another T-Mobile carrier, also offers a similar service to Mint Mobile, with multi-month discounts, but recently updated its two unlimited options to true unlimited. Mint Mobile is becoming very difficult to recommend as other carriers continue to raise the bar.

Unlike Mint, Boost Mobile is in charge of its own destiny, with its own 5G network in addition to AT&T and T-Mobile coverage areas. However, despite this amount of space, your carrier's unlimited plans have limits of 30 GB on the cheapest and 50 GB on the more expensive ones. Boost also has a plan called Infinite Access, which comes with the same 30GB premium data limit as the basic unlimited plan. Beyond 30GB, speeds can drop to just 512Kbps.

Boost's plans can be great, especially if you need a new phone, but you have to accept Boost's creative definitions of “unlimited” and “infinite.”

Meanwhile, data prices on Google Fi, popular for its deals, international features, and data sharing features on phones like the Google Pixel 9 Pro, feel like something out of a time capsule. At $10 per GB on the flexible plan and only 50 GB of high-speed data on the top-tier Unlimited Plus plan, it's not appealing.

Google Fi's Unlimited Plus plan costs $65 per month (plus taxes and fees) per line, which is a good deal for frequent international travelers, but for everyone else, it's 50 GB of data. This is an expensive plan. For comparison, US Mobile's Unlimited Premium plan comes with 100 GB of high-speed data and an international eSIM for $44 per month (taxes and fees included).

Unfortunately, this isn't the end for you, as AT&T Prepaid is another plan that explores the limits of “unlimited.” The Unlimited Basic plan gets you 30GB of data at 3Mbps 3G speeds, but it slows down to 1.5Mbps after that. The other plan, Unlimited + 10GB Hotspot Data, only gives you 16GB of high-speed data and can be as slow as 1.5Mbps.

Of course, no one really needs an unlimited plan, but it's nice to have some peace of mind. Unfortunately, you also need to pay attention to how much data you're actually getting and whether it suits your needs, especially if you're signing up for an annual plan with a carrier like Mint Mobile.

Some carriers are starting to emerge

MobileX, Ultra Mobile and more have upgraded their plans

Unlimited plans with high-speed data caps are nothing new and may be here to stay, but customers looking for the best value data plan should still pay attention. Fortunately, some carriers are reintroducing virtually unlimited plans, with carriers like Ultra Mobile removing high-speed limits and Visible removing speed limits. MobileX is another notable carrier that lets you upgrade your unlimited plan to 199GB.

Even if you know how much high-speed data you typically need, you don't have to waste it completely because you can get a great deal with one of these unlimited plans. Plus, if you've already paid off your cell phone, you can also save a lot of money by trying out a new carrier.

In fact, if you haven't checked your data usage in a while, you may need much less data than you expected thanks to the availability of public Wi-Fi and smart software that can handle app updates and cloud backups. There is a possibility that Only when connected to Wi-Fi.