Verizon Tiered Data Plans Will Start at $30/2GB

What a massive rip...

...I got in just in time. Hoping for grandfathered in

No pre-2GB plans for under $30? Seriously, does Verizon WANT to be the most expensive carrier? Maybe they secretly love Sprint?

I don't mind the data pricing so much as the per device pricing. How about just selling the 2, 5, 10, 12 &c data blocks? After which it does not matter how many smart phones, tablets, laptops &c you have connected to that data connection or whether each has it's own individual connection or is tethered.

I could not see spending $30 per phone for internet for a family that is just ridiculous. Until that changes I'll stick with my unlocked iPhone on a regional GSM carrier with unlimited CDMA data for $10 per phone. Which is all the bandwidth I need to check e-mail, sync my contacts and calendar. Plus the occasional map or web search.

I can understand charging extra for tethering on an unlimited plan or per device on an unlimited plan but not on finite data blocks. Otherwise you'd get families of eight on an unlimited plan all using smartphones and tethering all their laptops and desktops to a 4g router.

What a joke. I figured Verizon would want to compete with AT&T and maybe do 5GB for $30, but now it's 2GB for $30 while AT&T is $25. I doubt I'll be grandfathered in for life. Maybe the life of my phone, but as soon as I upgrade, then I get screwed. I hope Sprint wins its fight to stop the AT&T merger, because slowly but surely, we're all going to pay more for less.

still milking my AT&T plan for non smartphone data plan (last phone i had with them was my old v300) $20 month unlimited with my 3g htc bought it out of pocket online 5 ys ago.
it has also been tethering thought wifi, Bt and usb no extra charge.I saved over $2000
i will buy my next phone unlocked out of AT&T plan and continue

Verizon Wireless introduced blazing speeds with LTE and the LG Revolution - an android 2.2 phone to stream videos from your favorite websites along with the Netflix app to stream your favorite movies. Now Verizon Wireless introduces a plan that will cost you more than a home mortgage if you actually use the phone as the multimedia streaming device we designed it to be.

*sigh* I know, just use wifi... but if I were to do that, then I would pull out my bloody laptop. Heck, odds are I am at home so I'd use my desktop computer. Guess they'll give me the boot for my grandfathered account when I actually use the phone to watch Netflix on the go.

Also, as velocityg4 stated, I don't mind paying for tethering on an unlimited plan - but if you are charging me for usage, then you shouldn't charge extra for tethering/hotspot. Also, if you are going to charge for LTE hotspots, then they better fix the bugs with the 3G/4G switching disconnections. (I don't have the Charge, but the Revolution and Thunderbolt have the same issue - use the hotspot and 4G cuts to 3G and kills your internet connection, but tether it with a USB cable and it works just fine.)

Well, seeing as how AT&T is the devil and now Verizon wants to be the rich man's game...

Here we come Sprint! My buddy just switched from AT&T to Sprint and is paying way less for way more. Think I may be joining him when my VZW contract comes up even though I'm technically grandfathered in. Sprint seems to be the last of the national carriers that cares about not robbing its customers blind.

I'm from the UK and pay £5 (about $9) a month for 500mb (T-Mobile). This is waaaay more than enough if you've got a wireless network at home.
Though, all I do on my phone is check email/internet, look at Facebook every so often and download a few apps a week and I never even reach half my cap. I never even worry about using too much.

I couldn't imagine paying $30 for 2GB, to me, it's far too much money for something I'd never take advantage of.

So glad I am not in the US, I pay £12.50 a month for unlimited data(including tethering), 5000 minutes, 5000 texts. You get severely shafted over there.

Technology is becoming so advanced, new wireless frequency's made available for public use, graphene transistors and what not, new algorithims to speed up fiber optic data transfers to unbelievable speeds.. yet all these phone companies want to do is bend you over.

I swear one of these days im going to start my own corporation, put up graphene switches and superior wireless transmitters all over the us.. then eventually give the whole U.S at least gigabit internet.

After that.. free wireless phones and internet for everybody, screw these phone companies.. sad part is this is probably actually possible if people really wanted to make it happen. Oh well guess ill have to wait till the U.S upgrades from Pac-Bell system... oh too bad that's never ganna happen we will sell people terabit internet before we upgrade ours.

"5GB – $50/month"
What a ripoff!!
I pay $50 a month and I can download 1,000,000 GB per month if I want to (unlimited).
Plus it's faster than Verizon.

I don't understand how they justify thier prices.

All these phone companies can suck my d***!!
(Except for Boost Mobile thier prices are acutually reasonable.)
You can get unlimited everything for as little at $35 a month with no contracts.

why the hell does it matter what I do with my data? This different pricing for tethered vs non tethered is crap

This charging extra for tethering is wrong. If I am paying for the data, then where I choose to utilize it is up to me. Once the data passes into my ip network, then whether I feed it directly to my eyes or feed it to another ip network then to my eyes should not invoke anther fee, especially since I am supplying the hardware and resources for the second network -- it has no effect on their ability to deliver it whatsoever, so why am I penalized?

And I disagreee with a tethering limitation even on an unlimited plan. If they want to market the word "unlimited", then by golly I wan unlimited. That should mean I can stream netflix 24/7 and not pay any extra. Raise the price for "unlimited" if need be, but don't penalize folks because they didn't follow your indirect crutch, that being them counting on you just using it sparsely or limiting yourself to the "small" device.

@dark_lord69 I have actually thought about going boost once my AT&T contract is up (either that or Sprint), just have to research a suitable android device to replace my iphone 3gs, which I currently have jailbroke, and can tether with without paying extra.

$10 family data plan from AT&T for me on my Unlocked Android phone. That's awesome. Sucks to be you if you're with Verizon. Sucks to be me too cuz I'm with AT&T. Damnit...it just sucks to have a cell phone nowadays. My bill just keeps going up every year for stuff I don't need.

In Other News:

Sprint sends Thank You letters to Verizon and AT&T.. lol

Hahahaha I went with Sprint for a reason.

I wish congress would get off their collective butts and do something bout these carriers. Right now $30.00 gets you unlimited gigabytes. With these new prices, $30.00 gets you only 2 gigabytes. This is by far the most egregious price increase in the history of mankind.

Consumers in the US are getting squeezed. I think that they should mandate smart phones without data-plans - voice only. That way people can have the Droids and iPhones they want, but still pass on the expensive monthly fees. That would provide more incentive to compete on the data plans.

Congress? How about doing something useful for a change.

sasktel...40$ a month...unlimited with tethering....woot saskatchewan

As hypocritical as it is to say this I'm glad I'm not on Verizon! Granted, I am on AT&T which is just as bad, but at least I'm grandfathered in at Unlimited Plan with "free tethering". I know that we live in a time of big government and we don't want to hurt private industry, but the FCC should pressure all carriers to sell phones that fully integrate call over WiFi. I have an iPhone 3g. Sure I can switch it over to wifi, but I can't call with just wifi so my phone is not fully independent. If people buy phones without a contract those phones should all be unlocked, the price difference should be more than enough to ask for that.

Only if us people could get our money pooled together, contact a phone manufacture to produce a phone that we want, allow that phone to run fully operation whether it is on WiFi or on a carrier network. Set up WiFi hot spots for public use to our only our exclusive phones so we don't have huge infrastructure costs. By doing this we could have a great phone and not be paying 2+ times to connect to the internet. It doesn't make sense to pay Comcast $30/mo for 15Mbps with a 250GB data cap and pay $30 to AT&T for a 5GB cap.

Hell, lets get all the cable companies into the smart phone business. That way companies like Comcast, Quest, etc. can directly compete with Verizon and AT&T. We all know that they're already duking it out under the table anyways. If AT&T&T is making a smaller market, lets get more competition!

I guess a lot of ppl got tricked into switching from AT&T to Verizon, just couple months ago. And now, they're in the same boat as ppl in AT&T. What a joke!
I guess that tiered data plan would soon trickled into most carriers in the U.S. So for those who think it's a safe heaven with Sprint... well think again.

You know, people will just complain about this all day. But when it comes down to it, nobody is going to do anything about it. If people actually took a stand and moved to a new carrier or let their contract expire then dump their smartphone it would put a big enough hurt on verizon for them to make some changes. But people are stupid and will just keep shelling out money and complaining about it.

I should be able to set the price and services I get, just like I do with my cable and utility providers... Oh, wait a minute...

Im on T-Mobile because they are cheaper, have good coverage in my area, 4G, and great phones. AT&T might just ruin that. No way Im going back to AT&T, and now, NO WAY I'm going back to Verizon, those prices are outrageous, not to mention Verizon is already extra expensive. Sprint and true unlimited, here I come (if T-Mobile is gobbled up).

" Droid Life also reports that current customers with unlimited data will have it for life."
Is that the life of the phone or the life of me?

As tech as I can be, I'm also cheap. Only started using a smartphone in April because I refused to pay those outrageous data fees. I saw a smartphone for $55 on newegg and wondered why it was so cheap. Digging into the reviews, I saw people were using them with a prepaid company called Page Plus Cellular. I looked into it and finally found my perfect carrier. Its a BYOD and they lease airspace from Verizon. So any Verizon phone (they won't take Blackberry or retail prepaid phones right now) easily activates. Since it's prepaid, I can say screw you if you try to screw me. Now here's the great part. $30/mo gets me 1200 minutes/2000 text/100mb of data. While a 100mb isn't a lot, its enough if you're near wifi regularly for app downloads and OTA for email and gps navigation. I picked up a used LG Ally for $50, 16gb mSD card for $15, and now I have a rocking smartphone for $30/mo.

Not sure how Verizon changing their data fee structure will effect PPC, but there's a big announcement for a new plan soon, hopefully with more data. Check them out if you're tired of spending a car payment every other month on your phone.

Oh, and it might take a while, but lets hope LightSquared can add some reasonable competition once they get their network off the ground. Might start by the end of the year.