Verizon To Kill All Unlimited Data Plans

afabbro writes "Verizon mentioned in an investor conference that it will be eliminating unlimited data plans, even for those it grandfathered in. From the article: 'Speaking at the J.P Morgan Technology Media and Telecom conference today, Verizon Communications CFO Fran Shammo told investors that the company's 3G unlimited data plans that customers were allowed to hang onto last year when Verizon switched to a tiered offering will soon go away entirely. Instead, the company will migrate its existing and new 4G LTE customers to a new "data share plan." The company has yet to announce the details of this new plan, but it has said previously that the data share plan will be introduced in midsummer. The plan will allow people on the same family plan to share buckets of data each month, much like they share voice minutes and text messaging. It will also allow individuals to share data across different 4G LTE devices.'"

Comments

Congratulations, Verizon

[CanHasDIY]

On chasing away a good portion of your customer base.

If they really, really want to let me out of my contract here in a month or two, so be it. T-mobile and Sprint still have unlimited plans, so I guess that's where I'll be heading.

Re:Congratulations, Verizon

[Anonymous Coward]

Why wait? The moment Verizon changes your plan from "unlimited" to "limited" the contract terms have changed, and you can reject those new terms (thus voiding the contract).

Be careful with that one... the fine print probably says if you reject the changes you are still bound to the contract with existing terms until the end of the
contract... which means they would still hit you with an early termination fee that you would have to go to arbitration to get back.

Re:Congratulations, Verizon

[imcdona]

The only downside to T-mobile is that they compress all images to save bandwidth.

Re:Congratulations, Verizon

[jo_ham]

And to make it "reeeeeeeal" simple for you, Verizon is within its rights to stop selling an unlimited data plan at any time, beyond the terms it initially signed you up for. I am willing to bet that there are terms in the contract that state that they can do this.

Perhaps they wanted to have unlimited data plans initially, and now that time has moved on a little, they want to offer something else. Saying that they should never have offered it to you in the first place if they were ever planning on changing their services in the future is a little silly, especially if you're calling out the GP as an "egocentric fuck". Look who's talking - you want Verizon to offer you an unlimited data plan for the rest of time, presumably until you die or get bored of them, regardless of what Verizon does in the future (again, without looking at the terms of your contact and just seeing "lolz unlimited that means forever, no backsies, at *my* discretion and not theirs".

Everyone is quick to demonise them, but they are making changes that people have asked for - for example, shared data plans across multiple devices and shared data among households.

Re:Congratulations, Verizon

[Anonymous Coward]

The real news here is that Slashdot actually supports the Euro sign!

Rise of the discount carriers

[MrEricSir]

With the el-cheapo carriers heavily advertising their cut-rate plans, how long can AT&T and Verizon keep it up? Why would anyone pay $80/month when they can get the same service from another carrier for less than $50?

Unless the big boys start offering either better service or lower prices, how will they stay in business?

Re:Rise of the discount carriers

[Moheeheeko]

With the el-cheapo carriers heavily advertising their cut-rate plans, how long can AT&T and Verizon keep it up? Why would anyone pay $80/month when they can get the same service from another carrier for less than $50

Because that $50 plan from T-mobile or Sprint is next to useless with their shit coverage. I ran T-mobile for 2 years, I had above 2 bars maybe once.

Re:Rise of the discount carriers

[vlm]

I've been using a widget called "data counter widget" (creative, huh?) on my android phone and its very unusual to go over 20 megs per day, which is only 600 megs per month. Most of my traffic is wifi. Some map lookup, some fooling around in the web browser, the occasional evernote upload, some runkeeper uploads, some email checking, some geocache application lookups, that's about all I do that requires cell data and can't be done better over wifi. I do all my app updating and podcast downloading over wifi (dogcatcher has a simple checkbox to only download podcasts over wifi).

My guess is all this is being tooled up in preparation for some kind of "sql slammer" type of worm. Get everything ready to mail out the overage charges, then release the 10 gigs per hour worm and watch the profits roll in.

Dont you love...

[bolthole]

how they market speak that shared plan people are "allowed to pool" their network usage. Rather than the more accurate "forced to share usage". It puts people on family plans at the mercy of their teenage daughter. DOOOOOOoooommmmm.....

Re:The first of the pack?

[Jeng]

AT&T will not follow suit, they will figure out a way to fuck their customers even harder, they think of it as a challenge I guess.

Not a surprise

[Mr_Silver]

According to Nokia Siemens Networks, the average amount of smartphone data used per day is 15MB (about 450MB per month). If you're using ten times that amount on a grandfathered plan that costs you peanuts, it's hardly surprising that someone somewhere will run the numbers and work out that you are of no value to the company.

By all means shout "right, that's it! I'm off to Sprint!" but it'll be a hollow victory as Verizon will probably be more than happy to see the back of you.

Fight fire with fire.

[bratwiz]

The simple solution is for everybody to start calling Verizon to inquire about data plans, get support for anything and everything-- and even just to find out how your favorite verizon person is getting along. Call now. Call often. In fact, don't stop calling. Call, call call. Choke their lines, make it hurt. Plus, I'd bet that it'd be a great idea to check out all their wonderful offerings on their web sites-- all of them-- a lot. Check your bill. Twice. Make sure you read it right. In fact, have your wife / coworker / friend / friend's mom / neighbor-down-the-street / heck, all of 'em read it twice just to make sure you didn't miss anything. You might also want to call their sales line to find out about all their great offerings and add-ons. I'll bet they have a *ton* of cool stuff you could buy. But I know it's hard to decide right away. In fact, you might have to really get them to explain it carefully with plenty of detail in order to fully grasp the sheer awesomeness of their products. In fact, you might even have to think about it some and then call back and ask them to explain anything you didn't completely get the first time. You could also call them to tell them what a wonderful job you think they're doing. I'm sure they don't hear that anywhere near enough. You could really brighten up some verizon employee's day by calling them up just to tell them. And you know, all of the verizon employees do a terrific job and I'd be willing to bet they'd ALL enjoy hearing your opinion! Plus you should also call their bosses to congratulate them. And send emails-- lots of emails. Calling isn't the only way to let them know what a superb job you think they're doing.

You know, with all their loyal, friendly customers and fanatical fans-- they just couldn't bear the thought of taking away their unlimited Internet...

Re:Fight fire with fire.

[sohmc]

Many large corporations have moved from Customer Service to Customer Relations. The difference is that corporations are no longer interested in keeping customers happy. They only need customers to keep paying.

Verizon has a very large customer base. As long as they don't do something drastic, the majority of their customers will continue paying. They may have crappy customer service, but as long as people don't have problems, they will continue to pay.

I have no figures on the subject but I suspect that those with unlimited data plans may represent a smaller portion of their customer base...or at least a smaller profitable portion of their customer base. They may lose customers because of this, but they may be hedging that new customers may come to Verizon for it's coverage/speed/etc.