While Verizon Wireless stopped offering unlimited data plans for the iPhone shortly after the iPhone 4 launched on the carrier last year, customers that have already subscribed to unlimited plans have been allowed to keep them – until now, that is!
Verizon Communications CFO Fran Shammo, speaking at a JP Morgan conference (via Fierce Wireless, MacRumors), revealed that Verizon is planning to eliminate those plans once they launch their shared data plans, forcing all of their grandfathered customers to give up their unlimited data (emphasis added):
As these 3G unlimited data plan customers migrate to 4G LTE, they will have to purchase the company’s data-share plan (which Verizon plans to launch in mid-summer) and move off the $30 per month unlimited data plan. “Everyone will be on data share. When they migrate off 3G they will have to go to data share. That is beneficial to us for many reasons.”
Verizon has been working on their shared data plans for awhile, which are expected to launch sometime this summer, effectively giving customers currently on their unlimited data plans a couple more months at most to enjoy the data buffet. Apparently all good things must come to an end.
It’s unfortunate that Verizon has resorted to ripping unlimited data right out from under their customers’ noses – hell, even AT&T still allows their customers to keep their unlimited data plans (although they have begun throttling their users after 3GB of data usage).
I find it particularly irritating that Shammo used the phrase “that is beneficial to us.” Beneficial to Verizon, sure! But what about their subscribers? Doesn’t the customer matter anymore? Or are all wireless carriers allowed to break their promises at will and screw their customers for their own benefit?
I never though I’d see the day when Verizon respects their customers even less than AT&T. I guess it just goes to show that there’s no such thing as a large wireless company that actually cares about their customers…
Sprint remains the only large mobile provider in the United States to continue offering unlimited data plans.
