Bite Me, Verizon

[infinite monkey]

Verizon will be doing away with unlimited data plans, and when you upgrade you will be forced into a tiered plan. Verizon will no longer allow 'legacies' to keep their unlimited data plans when they upgrade.

Verizon Wireless is planning this summer to begin forcing smartphone customers with unlimited data plans to switch to tiered plans when they upgrade, the company's chief financial officer told Wall Street analysts on Wednesday.

At the JP Morgan Technology, Media and Telecom conference in Boston, Verizon CFO Fran Shammo said the company will unveil a "data share" pricing model by mid-summer, which will give customers the ability to buy an allotment of data that can be used across multiple devices linked to the same account.

As that plan rolls out, Verizon (VZ, Fortune 500) will discontinue its practice of allowing customers who have legacy unlimited data plans to keep those plans when they buy a new smartphone. Verizon stopped allowing new customers to buy unlimited data plans a year ago.

I suspect the backlash will cause them to reconsider this, just as their plan to charge customers a fee if paying with a credit card was scrapped after an uprising.

Meh, I'll just get a throwaway phone if it comes to that. I don't use a ton of data but it's the principle to me: quit trying to gouge me on every little thing.

Imma be smarter than my phone.

You catching this, Verizon?

[glatt]

My wife just got the Virgin Mobile
LG Optimus Slider Prepaid Android Phone.

It's unlimited data and messaging for $35/ month. And more talking minutes than she ever uses. NO CONTRACT.

The phone we chose is really nice and was something like $165 from Amazon.

[Undertoad]

Along with all the other carriers, Verizon will also now charge $30 to upgrade phones for no particular reason.

Fuckers made $1.7B profit last fiscal year. I think they are looking forward to the point where they have to buy old TV channel spectrum to keep enough bandwidth to support everything.

[Stormieweather]

I kinda like Metropcs. Customer service sucks but it's a fixed price and actual phone service isn't too lousy. There is also no contract or grace period. You pay, you get service. You don't pay, service is disconnected until you do pay. You don't want it anymore, just don't pay. Done.

[Ibby]

I have an unlocked iPhone 4.
If AT&T - who we're already way overpaying, I'd bet, but the folks handle that and I've never actually seen a bill - were to kill my unlimited data plan, I can take it to any other GSM network.
...whaddaya mean there aren't any other GSM networks worth a damn?
...you win again, AT&T.

[Undertoad]

Oh I just cracked the code... if we have unlimited LTE on our phones, why buy FIOS at home?

Nice play Verizon... competing against yourself but getting us to pay such big money to suckle TWO teats of data...

[ZenGum]

Could someone please tell me again about how good capitalism is? All that stuff about competition delivering great results for consumers and stuff? Thanks.