Verizon to Kill Unlimited Data Plans With Upgrades to 4G

Verizon to Kill Unlimited Data Plans With Upgrades to 4G

In yet another display of near complete disregard for its customers, Verizon Wireless announced this week it plans to eliminate the $30/Month unlimited data plan any user subscribed to prior to the company’s transition to tiered data plans last July. Verizon CFO Fran Shammo said at the 40th J.P. Morgan Technology, Media and Telecom conference that once unlimited 3G data plan customers upgrade to 4G LTE, they will be forced to purchase the company’s shared data plan.

“Everyone will be on data share,” Shammo said. The carrier’s shared data plans are scheduled to launch in the coming months, and will allow users to share a single pool of data between multiple devices. “If I can add as many devices as I want, that is more efficient from a family perspective and a small business perspective,” the CFO said.

When asked how Verizon will migrate customers off their unlimited data plans, Shammo said that LTE will draw customers away from it. “A lot of our 3G base is on unlimited,” he said. “When they migrate off 3G they will have to go to data share. That is beneficial to us.”

Sure, beneficial to you, but how does that benefit customers again? Oh yeah, it doesn’t. It just means people should get ready to pay ever increasing costs for mobile data.

How do we feel about this?