Verizon May Switch From Unlimited to Shared Data

expected

I'm a huge fan of this. As someone who has still not purchased a smartphone simply due to the ridiculous cost of a data plan, this will make the cost much more manageable as all members of the family plan can split that data cost evenly (or proportionally) and each have their own smart phone without its own gouging price. That is, as long as it's something reasonable, like $50 or less for the smallest data package.

@burnley - Until you realize how fast your phone gobbles up data (which is one month), you'll love this plan. After that you will hate it.

They better include free service over Wi-Fi like AT&T and T-Mobile just did (huh, already sharing ideas I see), that would shift the burden onto existing landlines and Comcast (bad thing).

This is why I don't own a cell phone, they're all corrupt money grabbers just as much as the oil companies, and AT&T is the worst of them all.

29.99 is less than 1 dollar a day... For unlimited. I would hardly call that ridiculous. Most people could pay for a full family share data plan by simply giving up that single Starbucks coffee every day. So keep it in perspective. Even land line internets are limited now, yet more and more things are going to data use media. So I personally never want to see another thing go to limited... Going limited when all the things that use it are getting more and more size to them... Is scary.

But what about people loke me. I am a sole user...no sharing. I will end up paying for a bucketful and tossing most of it away?

Well guess its a good thing i got rid of my smart phone.

It's too bad our broadband infrastructure blows or I wouldn't mind paying so much for data plans.

$29.99/month=359.88/year.... so you can surf the web anytime on a small device
20.00/month-50.00/month=$240 to $600/year... because you just have to be up to date
60.00/month=$720/year for one regular cell line
Then pay $1200/year for your cable/internet
hmmm.... all so that you and your children can have access to all of the great information this world has to offer.

This will only be for new subscribers/new contracts, correct? People on old unlimited contracts can't be forced to change, can they?

So....customers have 2 big names to choose from. One has unlimited data, the other rollover minutes. Otherwise pretty identical. But now the one with unlimited data wants to be like the other without unlimited data.

So....customers will then have 2 big names to choose from. One with rollover minutes and one without...

I finally got rid of verizon, I used to pay $250.00 a month for internet and a smart phone, now I have same access for only $60.00 bucks a months... scew verizon

wait and see that these data plans wont be squat, you7 will gobble up that usage in no time and like the old data plans of your phone you will pay dearly on the overage charges. everyones getting setup to have their pockets picked. they are going to screw you out of your money period. Those people say that it is great, i b et you work for a pr firm to pump up this crappy idea.

CAUTION , RANT: This is too much money per gigabyte. Data consumption will only increase over time. This is just rape. First, it was all about general access to the internet. Now, it's about how much Data you have access to? I wish people could realize that this Data does not belong to Verizon.. so,how can they charge by Data usage? If it starts to get to this point, then how much of that Data is actual data that you use, such as actual payload Data? How much of this Data traffic is Internet Protocol Data or other proprietary tunneling, Multiplexing, and code modulation data for routing on their network. I'm sure this will go to court, as we should not be paying for those packets of Data.

It's ridiculous how these corporations are attempting to get away with highway robbery... In this case Cloud robbery ( Geek reference to the internet is the Cloud). WTF is going on here? DO these companies have a soul? Don't they realize by doing this, they are only limiting the internet even more. This means raw data is being commoditized as a resource. I'm sorry, but Information should be and forever remain free. Much of the economic growth from the 90's was mostly in part, due to the growth of the internet. New and innovative services are offer over the internet. This will impact innovation and businesses that rely on the internet to make money. This will slow economic growth, and prevent the regular Joe from starting a business over the interent. It will be too expensive. Which leads to another point. With these changes, will all business be forced to pay per gigabyte to serve customers Data? This will simply raise the prices of everything transacted over the internet. It's paying toll on a freeway, but you pay more if you're hauling some heavy crap. Imagine if Truckers had to pay toll based on the weight of their payload. prices of everything will increase. The same thing will happen to all Data traffic across the internet.


Something needs to happen.

Duse, I feel your pain, but your logic is not entirely correct.
you are free to go to the next city if you want, but you could choose to fly there (pay for the plane ticket) or drive (pay for the road toll, gasoline, and so on). Whatever means you use to achieve your goal (to pursue that freedom of movement) you have to pay for it. Same goes for data; in itself may be free, but the cost of getting that information to you must be covered.
I totally agree with the fact that this whole thing is going backwards; just when there are more and more services that rely upon bandwidth, companies like these are choosing to make access more restrictive. Pretty much all over the world there is real competition that drives the prices down; here we have a dual or triple monopoly from a handful of companies that have already divided the country in spheres of influence, just like different drug cartels divide a territory (you don't step on my toes and I won't step on yours). Until the Congress stops getting their fat pockets fatter with contributions from these corporations and starts doing their job ( that would be serving the people, in case they forgot) and break those monopolies, nothing will change. They need to start calling things as they are and do something about it.
BTW: did anyone notice that this trend picked up after the Supreme Court decided that corporations can donate (read: bribe) without limit to political campaigns?

It is a good time to be grandfathered in on the $30/month unlimited plan.....that should be good for a few years until they have a new wave of phones that FORCE you to have a new plan (aka limited scam)

damn....this blows big time...SPRINT here i come

If they are going to do tiered plans, They better keep the 1GB i didnt use one month to the next month, but I feel they wont do that...

I have sprint live in 4g market.

My plan has 3 lines unlimited data (no 5gb cap either) and my bill is $160/month (actual bill i pay with taxes and fees included, i do get an 18% discount through my company though). Plan also includes unlimited mobile-to-mobile minutes to any mobile so we never use more than 5% of our actual plan minutes.

OT, but withing the flow of the comments: I often wonder if I'm the only one on Tom's Hardware that likes capitalism. Verizon's profit margin last year was 5.33%. So for every $100,000 they make in gross income, they end up with $5,330 in profit. My own company makes around 15%. Am I triple raping my customers? Starbucks makes 9.33% (almost twice VZ) Is they double raping their customers? Apple's over 22% and Microsoft is nearly 32%. And of course, the hated "Big Oil" rapists like Exxon make 9.3%.

I'd love to hear from the haters: What companies do you support? Any?

Drat. No edit: Is they = Are they

Well Verizon I absolutely loved the unlimited plan, looks like I have to switch to sprint. I'm a person who uses well more than 5 GB's and for the money it was great. But I believe this well bring a lot of customers switching.

I am a sprint customer and have been for the past 5 or so years and (knock on wood) they have had the best data anywhere consistently, I still use my evo i got on launch day and i would be interested to see how much data i'm actually using because i would venture to bet that between my wife and i, we could potentially save a little bit of cash based on a plan like these. These become more useful when we get into larger family plans 3+ phones as $30 per phone could be the straw that broke the camels back for larger families. I would welcome the option for people to save money but at the same time, let those who dont want to think about their data useage opt in for the $30 unlimited.

BZZZZZZT. Wrong. Try again. If you think they will let you get away with paying less for something, you must be new here. They will keep the same $30 minimum price per line for data. The rumors of the family plan put it at $70 base plus 10 for each additional line, so 90 for the first 3 phones meaning you break even, and if you go to 4 phones you start saving money.

Verizon is for suckers. I used to be a loyal customer back when they actually had a distinguished service. Now there are too many other, cheaper options for me to even think about continuing to waste my money on them. I am counting the days until my contract is up and I can at least switch to a verizon MVNO with my current handsets.

Great, tiered pricing. It is all about money and nothing about bandwidth. Why? Well, ask them to configure it such that when you reach the cap, it just "stops" until the next billing cycle. They will tell you no, this cannot be done. Why? Because they want to bank on "milking" people for "overage" penalty money. Other countries are so much better, but USA gets ganked with whit crap, overpriced and misleading. I hate cellphone companies. The companies, the people that work for them and the people that defend their ways are all slime of the earth. They do nothing but come up with complex ways to screw people out of their money.

And say you have an iphone and you dont want data, but just want a device with some useful apps, and just want to use your own wifi for data stuff. No way. They detect the id and gank you, even if you bought and paid for the phone already. This is such crap.

Why doesn't the FCC or FTC properly regulate these ass clowns? They want to cap you, charge you a penalty, then charge you based on what device you use no matter if you are using more of their bandwidth or not.

Fixed that for you. This is the capitalist way. If you can't compete with a better service or a lower price, simply confuse the customers, or better yet conspire with everyone else in the industry and keep prices artificially high. It's great for shareholders! Never mind if the customers are actually getting what they want.

Truth is, Sprint is going to get a lot of business based on this. I know thats where im going. keeping unlimited plans, better 4g, and the phones are better than tmobile or Att.

Same here with Sprint. Contract with ATT up at end of August. Plus Sprint has better cell tower coverage in my area than ATT and tmobile combined.

http://www.cellreception.com/towers/

Do you honestly think Sprint will not follow suit eventually? Wow...............

I use less than 500Mb per month. I surf the net, download apps, updates and what not. Why can't they have a $10-15 plan for like 750Mb or 1Gb. They know the majority don't go over a gig. $10 a Gig plus rollover is fair.