Rumors of a change of terms with Sprint data plans have been confirmed - starting July 31, their wireless broadband data will no longer be unlimited. Which is really bad news for those of us who have switched to Sprint wireless data as our primary form of internet access. For the past year in our technomadic travels, a Sprint Wireless aircard running through our Cradlepoint wireless router has been our means of being able to stay connected while we travel the country, with my Verizon tethered phone being our backup. And even for the past couple of months while we've been stationary, we completely cut the cable and have been running full time off the aircard. Basically, we are amongst the heavy data users that these companies hate but advertise to get with promises of 'unlimited'.

For the longest time, Sprint has been the only major nationwide carrier to offer unlimited dataplans, as others such as Verizon have gone to capping at 5 GB.

5 GB is plenty for most folks who are using wireless broadband as a second means of internet access - it covers regular checking of e-mail, normal surfing, IM, an occasional video feed and some minor file downloads. Basically, you'd have to be online pretty much all the time, and doing massive stuff. So I suspect that 5 GB is not enough to feed two technomadic adventurers full time running frequent large file downloads for work, extensive browsing, Netflix video video, iTunes syncing and more. I say suspect, because when I log into our Sprint account to see just how much bandwidth we suck down - apparently this data will not be accessible until Jun 8. Very frustrating in planning our next exodus to hit the road again.

And even potentially more disturbing than the 5GB cap, is the 300 MB cap on roaming data which was previously included. As we travel between major areas, a lot of our access is roaming and we've typically ignored the little triangle symbol - which can stay there for days at a time sometimes.


So, aside from increased gas costs meaning at least a shift into a bit more conscious routing and planning of our journey - increased internet access costs (in the form of potentially a second connection device to juggle) will bring more conscious planning into routing to find free wifi hotspots for our major internet work. I'm anxious to hear whatever plans Sprint is considering for heavy data users.