Around March of 2011, Verizon Wireless was promoting it's new 4G networking by offering unlimited data plans. I bought an HTC Thunderbolt, the Verizon network's first 4G phone, and promptly started tethering it to my laptop using a program called Easy Tether (purchased through the Amazon's app store).
While I had that phone, I would routinely consume hundreds of gigs of bandwidth each month, mostly from watching streaming videos. I wasn't even torrenting. Before there were a bunch of other people using 4G, I got some pretty good download speeds. One day, I remember downloading the Xcode, a 4 or 5 gig download, within a few minutes. Another day, Speedtest clocked my download speed at something like 33gps, although 9 to 12 gigs per second for the norm.
Today I'm on a cheapo prepaid wireless plan and settle for 2G download speeds of about 50kbs, which is fine most of the time. My cheapo phone plan and cable internet subscription are cheaper than any reasonable plan Verizon Wireless offers. For now, I'll enjoy my reasonably speedy Netflix streaming at home until Comcast throttles my download speeds to that of a 28.8K modem.