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Verizon To Hike Prices On Plans But Offer More Data (cnet.com)
Roger Cheng, reporting for CNET: Big changes are afoot at Verizon. The nation's largest wireless carrier is set to unveil changes to its plans that will make them more expensive, but will also include more data, according to someone familiar with the changes. The low-end "S" plan will go up by $5 to $35 a month, but will include 2 gigabytes of data, twice as much as before. The "M" plan will go up by $5 to $50 a month, while its data will rise from 3GB to 4GB. The "L" plan will go up by $10 to $70 a month, while data increases from 6GB to 8GB. The "XL" plan will go up by $10 to $90 a month, but you'll get 16GB, up from 12GB before. Lastly, the "XXL" plan will cost $10 more at $110 a month, but you will get 24GB instead of 18GB. The changes are part of a broader overhaul of its plans, which will also include a rollover data program called "Carryover Data," a new way to avoid overage fees, and better access to Canada and Mexico. The move reflects a heightened competitive environment, one in which smaller rivals T-Mobile and Sprint have begun winning away customers through aggressive offers. Many of these changes mimic offers already available at the other carriers.
We're in an extremely competitive environment these days. What should we do? Hike rates! yeah, that's the ticket!
And made them tone deaf, because the idea of raising prices even with a new program to allow rollover data is a non-starter in the U.S. market, which already has some of the highest cellular fees in the world.
This will actually save me $10 a month. The 1GB plan was too small so I was forced into the 'M' 3GB plan which was $15 more a month and larger than I needed. With the new changes for only $5 more a month I will get a 2GB which is perfect.
Money, duh.
There are various bills a typical household in America has, a mortgage, utilities, cable, and cell phones.
Until recently, people would couple cable and cell phones with the broad brush of "utilities", but cable bills costing $200+/month as well as cell phones costing families another arm; It seems they also want that proverbial leg as well...
> The move reflects a heightened competitive environment, one in which smaller rivals T-Mobile and Sprint have begun winning away customers through
> aggressive offers. Many of these changes mimic offers already available at the other carriers.
This is what saddens me... The process that would make things cheaper, are someone twisted into making it more expensive, but, but MOAR DATA!
I don't think I've ever used more than 5 GB of data in a month. That was while I was living in my car for a couple months too, so I didn't have wifi most of the time.
With WiFi usage, I can't possible see anyone using 24 GB of data... That's a shit load of data.
If you calculate it as $s per gigabyte. WIth this change I can actually save money by lower my data plan to the 4GB plan. 3GB was just about our monthly data usage, but 4GB should give me enough overhead to not worry about overages.
Verizon is an ISP... Data is free to them. This is simply a way to extract more money out of customers...
Unlimited Data. $50 a month. Roaming data in 100+ countries. Free rental of WiFI router.
I'm glad that Verizon is being forced to acknowledge that customers are beings other than walking wallets, but TMobile is just better., Sorry.
Bloody hell. Here in the newly-independent UK[1], £11 per month gets me 1GB of data, among other things. Another £3 per month turns that into unlimited data. ANOTHER £2 per month turns that into unlimited data with 4GB of data usable by a device tethered to the phone. That's right, £16 per month for unlimited data on the phone and 4GB for tethered devices. "Heightened competitive environment"? Could still use some work, I think. [1] Yes, yes, I know.
Slashdot - News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters, in ISO-8859-1 Has just realised that beta makes this signature redundant
In case anyone is unfamiliar with AT&T / Verizon pricing, these fees are in addition to the 'device' charges, which run ~$20-25/mo per connected phone.
So Verizon is offering a marginally less pathetic amount of data for a marginally more outrageous sum of money. Hooray?
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
Maybe we're thinking about this the wrong way. Verizon revenue is about $32 billion and their profits about $4.4 Billion. How many customers do they have? If we could get reliable data and do the math, it would show how much profit they are making per customer.
I'm not a US citizen so in a sense this is not directly relevant, but across the world the mobile telcos seem to be pushing up prices, charging huge roaming premiums and raking in massive profits, yet, curiously, it doesn't seem to be resulting in a better service...
Does anyone know how much it's costing them to maintain enough bandwidth? Is this a genuine "cost of doing business" or is this "squeeze 'em till the pips squeak"???
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So it looks like Verizon jacking up their prices while the costs are remaining the same.
Pure profit for Verizon.
"Safety mode" eliminates the prospect of an overage fee, and reduces the speed of the service until the end of the month....Customers with smaller plans can pay $5 extra to access "safety mode."
"a new way to avoid overage fees" by paying a fee
I get it. So they just changed everyone to be half a plan above where they chose to be. If these people wanted more data, then they'd have chosen those more expensive plans with more data, but they didn't, so Verizon chose for them. It's like ordering a medium size and they say "oh, we give you more than medium, so you pay us more, no? Don't break contract or you pay us more then too. Have a nice day."
I won't use Verizon mobile because of poor policies like this. I have a non-verizon plan that has unlimited data... but only the first 3GB is fast. After that, it's slower. I asked Verizon how I could make sure I don't pay more than my budget for data and they said I could have them turn off all data at 3GB or pay their relatively expensive overage charges. So they won't have my business.
That is unlimited data at 2G speeds (around 100kbps usually), 2GB of data at 4G speeds. I love T-Mobile and have been a customer for quite some time but it isn't unlimited data in the sense many people would expect. On their base $50 plan you get as high a speed as the network can support for the first 2GB of data, then they throttle it down to a slower speed.
If you want unlimited (barring abuse, if you go too nuts they still might throttle) high speed data that is another $45/month.
Their base plan is the best plan going though. Really these days I think many people will find 2GB more than sufficient since WiFi is everywhere.
Two months ago we decided to put service on our daughter's old iPhone. Verizon wouldn't simply let me add a $15/month line to our shared pool of data - they said my plan was "too old". Instead they wanted me to switch to a new plan, which would have raised my monthly total cost by $35/month.
Instead I moved my mom, wife, sister and daughter all to TMobile. We are spending $30/month less with an added phone and more data to boot. Binge-on is also nice since daughter and wife use youtube and Pandora quite a lot.
The coverage isn't quite as good as Verizon - but it is good enough.
Why doesn't the FTC stop this?
Why would the FTC stop this? Verizon has plenty of competition from AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint. Verizon and AT&T compete for customers who can pay for the best product, and T-Mobile / Sprint compete for more cost-conscious customers. Considering AT&T has a larger wireless market share than Verizon, I'm not sure how Verizon raising prices hurts consumers in an anti-competitive way.
Right now Verizon provides the best service of the four major carriers, and they charge a premium for that. I will stay a Verizon customer until another carrier gives faster data with better coverage, regardless of the price.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
Also from Project Fi. Yes, they use the networks of three other carriers, but they charge for data in a completely different way. You pay exactly 1 cent per MB, plus the $20/month for the service and unlimited talk/text. As you said, plenty of competition.
I've learned that they're worthless, so I don't read AC comments anymore.
If I could move to anyone but Verizon, I would. Unfortunately, no other carrier has decent signal where I live and work. Looks like I'm stuck.
you've never seen my father in law surfing youtube. he'll blow through 20GB in a week if given the chance
I don't know about anybody else, but my data usage fluctuates pretty widely based on unpredictable travel and other circumstances. For my family, Ting (mentioned above) works out well -- I'm sure my son would love to be able to stream all the time over cellular data, but he's bearing up well under the strain of his deprivation. If we have to spend a week or two on the road, we'll bump up into another data bucket, and pay an extra $10 or so at the end of the month. If not, we get the usual low rate we expect. Same for minutes and messages.
I was on Verizon years ago, and clung to a very old plan with very old flip-phones because I knew pay-as-you-go had to be coming soon. It took a bit longer than I expected, but it eventually arrived, and I couldn't have been happier to kiss Verizon goodbye.
At T-MO my data rate is simply lowered when I go over instead of being charged an extra $1/meg or whatever insane shit VZ is still running. They are so far behind their competitors its like the twilight zone over there. So glad I switched.