Verizon Giving Up Its Unlimited Wireless Data Plan this Summer

A top-level Verizon executive revealed today that the clock is winding down on on his company's unlimited data plan. At some point this summer, Verizon Wireless is going to switch to tiered data plans.

This announcement came from CFO Fran Shammo, who was speaking at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media and Telecom conference where he said, "We will move to tiered pricing in the mid-summer time frame."

According to Shammo, Verizon has not yet figured out what its new plans will be structured. Subscribers might pay extra for more data or for faster access to this company's wireless data network.

This news does not come as a shock -- Verizon executives have mentioned before that tiered data pricing is on the way. This is, however, the first time one of them has said anything firm about timing.

Following in AT&T's Heels
AT&T was the first of the big four U.S. carriers to switch to tiered pricing. It offers a choice of two plans: one costs $25 a month and provides 2 GB of data. The second gets the user 200 MB of data transfers in a month for $15.

New customers don't get an option of an unlimited data plan, but when AT&T made the switch to tiered data plans, it allowed subscribers to keep their unlimited plans -- a process referred to as being "grandfathered in".

It's not clear if Verizon will also grandfather in its current customers, or force them to choose new limited data plans.

Verizon's Unlimited Data Plan Is Already Gone
On one sense, Verizon has already eliminated its unlimited data plan, as it now has a "soft" cap on how much data its subscribers can transfer each month.

Starting several weeks ago, this carrier amended its terms of service so that the top 5% of data users on the network could have their bandwidth slowed down for not only the remainder of the current billing cycle, but also the following one.

Source