VZW Killing Data Plans By End Of The Month

[cg83]

AT&T killed its unlimited Internet data plan earlier this year, and now there is buzz Verizon may be following suit.
Engadget writes,

AT&T and Verizon tend to follow each others' moves pretty closely -- the two carriers regard each other as their nearest competitors, after all -- and we're hearing that Big Red intends to move to some sort of tiered bucket strategy on July 29.

There's no word on what the plan might cost, or what different tiered plans would be available.
In a January 2010 interview with the Washington Post, Verizon CTO **** Lynch hinted that the death of unlimited data plans could be on the horizon.
“The problem we have today with flat-based usage is that you are trying to encourage customers to be efficient in use and applications but you are getting some people who are bandwidth hogs using gigabytes a month and they are paying something like megabytes a month,” he said, adding, “That isn’t long-term sustainable. Why should customers using an average amount of bandwidth be subsidizing bandwidth hogs?"
Now, with the release of the Droid X, it seems Verizon has a new crop of even bigger "bandwidth hogs" to worry about: Thursday, Verizon revealed that early data shows the new Droid X is using five times the data of "any other device."




We heard rumblings that Verizon Wireless will be killing its unlimited data plans by the end of the month and the folks over at Droid Life have received the alleged script that Big Red is sending out to squash concerns.
Thanks to “blog activity,” Verizon is coaching its customer service representatives to deflect customers who are asking about the future of its unlimited data plans.
“Thank you for your inquiry but I have no information on any pricing change at this time,” customer representatives are supposed to say. “I’d be happy to review your current plan and let you know what your options are.”
This doesn’t really give us hints at what Verizon is planning to do, as the company doesn’t comment on rumor and speculation and this line fits into that philosophy. But I don’t think it’s too crazy to believe that Verizon will move away from unlimited plans to a tiered-pricing model.
AT&T recently axed unlimited plans and now users can pay $15 a month for 200 MB or $25 for 2 GB. If Verizon moved to tiered-data pricing, I would expect it to have similar rate plans.
Why would Verizon do this? Well, the simple fact is the carrier never really wanted to offer “unlimited” data. Sure, a few years ago, Verizon could get away with charging you $30 a month for that BlackBerry and most users would use a paltry amount of data. But with devices like the Motorola Droid X and the explosion of data-intensive apps, Verizon customers are sucking down data at a rate that doesn’t gibe well with Verizon’s business model.
Big Red has already said that its 4G network based on LTE will have tiered-pricing. The company plans to offer “buckets” of 4G data for a variety of consumer devices.
The carrier is supposed to implement these changes July 29, so we’ll know for sure in a week. What do you guys think of Big Red ditching unlimited data plans?





Following in rival AT&T's footsteps, Verizon Wireless is rumored to be ending its offering of unlimited data soon, a move that is considered unsurprising given that the carrier had alluded to tiered pricing even before AT&T's controversial change. The move by Verizon Wireless is speculated to happen on July 29th; hopefully users on current unlimited plans would be grandfathered in unless they make account changes.

Right now, Verizon is charging about $30 for unlimited smartphone data, the same as AT&T's plan prior to its change to tiered pricing; AT&T is now charging $25 for 2 GB of data and a paltry 200 MB for $15.

The move is justified by the carriers in that most users use under 2 GB of data a month; for a majority of cell phone owners, it will be a cost savings of $5 though users on AT&T's plan under the unlimited data terms are grandfathered in unless they explicitly call in and change to a tiered plan. For heavy data users--a minority--this will help to offset network congestion and hopefully provide a better experience for all users.

However, despite those justifications, as carriers move to 4G networks--AT&T and Verizon Wireless are opting for LTE technologies--that are more efficient at handling data, charging more for data flow is controversial as it'd be cheaper for networks to handle data under 4G systems. Another reason for controversy is that as smartphones get more powerful, data caps may limit the potential of your "pocket computers." For devices capable of shooting large megapixels worth of pictures and high-resolution HD videos, data caps may make it prohibitive to share and be social on the web while mobile.

At this point, such a move seems likely though Verizon Wireless has not officially commented on when a change would occur.



3 different articles

[DavidinCT]

Dumb, just another way they can rip off the customer. As phones coming out require more internet access, they will just keep billing you.

Personaly, I have never been impressed with the speeds of Verizon internet on any of my phones....

I guess Verizon will release the price changes once they get the iPhone... I would assume.

[cg83]

Originally Posted by DavidinCT

Dumb, just another way they can rip off the customer. As phones coming out require more internet access, they will just keep billing you.

Personaly, I have never been impressed with the speeds of Verizon internet on any of my phones....

I guess Verizon will release the price changes once they get the iPhone... I would assume.

couldnt have said that any better myself. the so called "3G" speeds are horrible in the Philly area.



I was was reading some post that said one of the main reasons this could happen is because the VZW users consume more internet then others(people with Incrediable and X were targeted most) and they claim it was only going to get worse when the Iphone comes out, lol.


also this doesnt help the cause either:

Validas study finds Verizon smartphones consuming more data than iPhones

By Darren Murph posted Jul 30th 2010 9:19AM




You know how we've good reason to believe that Verizon Wireless is at least mulling the switch to capped / tiered data plans? Yeah. An independent Validas research report has found that, between January and May of this year (pre-AT&T caps), Verizon's stable of smartphones collectively averaged more data consumption per month that Apple's iPhone. Of course, this quite literally compares an Apple to every smartphone on Verizon save for BlackBerries, but given how much squalling we've heard from Ma Bell about this rampant iPhone data usage, we're pleased to see a few facts that spin things the other way. The company's full report is due out in September, but investigation of over 20,000 wireless bills found that VZW smartphones "are consuming more wireless data than AT&T iPhones by a ratio of roughly 1.25:1," with the average Verizon user eating up 421MB per month and the average iPhone user consuming 338MB per month. It also points out that "nearly twice as many Verizon Wireless smartphone users are consuming 500MB to 1GB per month compared to AT&T iPhone users." You learn something new everyday, right?

[BooDaddy]

This is not a good sign for us. Im on Sprint, but if 2 out of the 3 competitors make this move, SPrint surely will as well.

[Rager02]

I hope not I hope sprints $10 "premium data" lets us keep unlimited.

Originally Posted by BooDaddy

This is not a good sign for us. Im on Sprint, but if 2 out of the 3 competitors make this move, SPrint surely will as well.

Sent from my HTC Evo using Tapatalk.

[ricchini2007]

sprint doesn't rape their customers like verizon

[starletgt92]

Glad Im with Sprint. Unlimited Data FTW!

[gTen]

Originally Posted by starletgt92

Glad Im with Sprint. Unlimited Data FTW!

Sprint may end up throttling data though >.>

But to note.. Sprint actually has more spectrum and bandwidth then Verizon and AT&T so hopefully they will not >.>

[DavidinCT]

Originally Posted by ricchini2007

sprint doesn't rape their customers like verizon

Give it time, they are a buisness...they are there to make money. If everyone else is doing it and making money, what do you think Sprint will do ?

[darren.wlsn1]

Originally Posted by DavidinCT

Give it time, they are a buisness...they are there to make money. If everyone else is doing it and making money, what do you think Sprint will do ?

dont agree, sprint seems to have mind set of being first or only to do some things imo so if there the only company to have unlim. it could bring lots of new peeps there way.