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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.



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