Verizon Unlimited Data Plans Are Being Killed

Your Verizon unlimited data plan for your smart phone, will soon be going away, forever. The company has announced that if you have an unlimited data plan "grandfathered in" from when they still offered unlimited data for their smart phones, at the end of your current contract, it's gone. Instead you'll be offered a shared data plan as you migrate from 3G to the new 4G LTE data network.

Verizon Communications CFO Fran Shamo announced the change at the J.P. Morgan Technology Media and Telecom conference the other day. But details for the new plan were not released and are expected in the midsummer. The will allow people and families all on the same family plan to share from a pool of data like you currently would with minutes and texting. For individuals, it would mean you would share a pool of data across multiple devices.

Shamo didn't release the new pricing plans yet, but did say "When they migrate off 3G they will have to go to data share. That is beneficial to us." She went on to say the new plan is to encourage people to buy multiple 4G devices and have only one data plan.

Currently, T-Mobile and Sprint still offer unlimited data plans, but T-Mobile throttles heavy users, while Sprint says they are the only ones that truly offer unfettered unlimited data. AT&T switched to a tiered data service pricing system but has allowed customers who already had an existing unlimited data plan to be "grandfathered in", but has also struggled to keep up with demand. They recently started to throttle heavy users as well, and were sued for it, and lost. AT&T has since changed their policy to only throttle people who use more than 3GB a month.

What are your thoughts on the soon to come data plan changes at Verizon?

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