Just received the first bill from Verizon for my aircard.  Went over the 5GB usage limit by 2GB.  

Do any providers offer an unlimited wireless data usage plan ?    

-- Edited by thebearII at 16:46, 2008-11-04

You have to log on every day or so with Verizon to check those numbers. They are normally two days behind. Alltel is being bought by Verizon so I don't expect the plan to stay unlimited. Verizon business plans can be unlimited.

You can get satellite with larger limits, but the cheap ($60/month) Hughes.net satellite plan is 200MB/day or about 6GB/month. You have to make sure to get a 7000 series modem with Hughes.net since the 9000 series are not mobile. Starband I think starts with a 2GB/week limit.

Edit: AT&T and Sprint both have the 5GB/month limit on new plans.

-- Edited by bjoyce at 21:07, 2008-11-04

I was under the impression that my Sprint Aircard is unlimited usage. I have had it about 6 months and never had any additional charges. Phyllis

I just upgraded my aircard and in the process I went through all the plans with all carriers and they all had a 5 Gig limit except for cricket which the reviews were good if you lived in an area covered but otherwise was bad. I've had my sprint card since Oct 05 which was unlimited usage for 60 dollars. I decided to stay with sprint since I could keep the unlimited plan. My bill still states unlimited and I know I use an average 150 meg a day which on my calculation would still keep me under the 5 gig limit. On a side note an Att rep told me the reason they went to a 5 Gig limit was because small companies were using one aircard with a wireless router for all their employees to use which is not what the personal unlimited plan was there for and is why if that’s what you want then they have business plans for those customers.

I went with Sprint as they were the only ones that offered an unlimited data plan.  I work from the road quite a bit and couldn't have any restrictions on data.  Except for a few places, my coverage has been excellent ~ I also have the booster antenna.  I was also told that some plans will shut you down when you reach that limit, not just charge you more.

Sprint recently changed their plan to have a 5GB limit, but people who already have a plan are not affected. People with Verizon data plans prior to March 2008 also did not have a limit.

Thanks for the replies.... It was weird, right after I posted yesterday, I read an article that AT&T and Comcast are placing data usage limits on their DSL service in some areas. Reno nevada was one area mentioned. It looks like unlimited usuage will be a thing of the past....

We have had a Verizon aircard for about 3 years, we pay $59.99 per month for unlimited use.

Bear, Just curious what you do to use that much? Need We be concerned if our usage consists of surfing web 4 to 5 hours a day. We Do not download movies or any of that type of stuff. Wife does do geneology online but that is it.

Not to get too personal, but how much did the extra 2 gigs cost you? Also I echo the question, what caused the over usage? I got my aircard a week ago and so far have not reached 1 gig yet. v/r........ Don

There are a lot of ways to use more bandwidth than you expect. Many programs, including Windows, Adobe products, and virus scanners, can download and install updates automatically. Many websites have videos on them that run without you asking, often with commercials. A friend found out one webpage was not to be left in a hidden tab, once a day it would run the video of a TV show for an hour. http://money.cnn.com starts to run continuous videos after about a minute. I have also visited an RV travel journal, now gone, where the design caused each webpage to take over 10MB each and sometimes more so just catching up on the journal could take 50 to 100MB. Not to mention spyware and such that can sneak into your computer and use more. Also many a grandparent has found out the hard way that the grandkids can use up a bandwidth limit quickly. They download all their favorite programs, they use social networking sites, and they visit video and animation intensive websites. Spyware also loves to come down with some of those favorite programs. We have two computers hooked up to our router(s) and both surf blogs, news sites and do email. I also maintain a website. We use between 2.7 and 4.0GB most months, but last month I configured a new computer and had some other uses that caused us to use 5.3GB, luckily it was not all on my aircard.

They told me at Verizon to be careful of any website that is constantly downloading current info such as news channels, espn etc. I first bought the lowest package and went over my usage in 4 days so called and upgraded to the $59 plan. Now I have been fine. They also told me if I am going to have a month that I won't be using it much, that I can call and lower it to the lowest plan again.

Well as near as I can tell, the usage was mostly itunes downloads (music, music videos and two movies) and watching YouTube videos plus I had to download Windows service pack 2 and 3, twice to get them to work properly. We had only had dial up before with the occaisional WI-FI access at RV parks. So once we were able to surf at high speed, we took advantage. And my wife got a new iphone at the same time, so she had to load it up with music, videos and applications. The 2GB overage cost $190..... only because Verizon places a cap at 750MB overage for the first three months. If we had to pay for the full 2GB it would have been over $500. I could have had about four air cards with 20GB for the $190 cost. I'm watching the usage daily to see where the heavy stuff is and it looks like now that the initial feeding frenzy is over, we'll be OK this month. I am considering a second air card if we go over the 5GB limit again. I love the speed we get with the air card and it has worked well, I just wish there was an unlimited usage plan.