While rumors of this moment have surfaced in the past, Verizon has now officially confirmed that they will be doing away with unlimited iPhone data plans this Thursday, July 7.
I suppose it was only a matter of time before Verizon went the route of AT&T and stopped offering unlimited data plans. The company announced today that they will be switching to a tiered pricing scheme for smartphone data. They’ve also confirmed their new pricing.
The new pricing plans will start at $10, which gets you 75MB of monthly data, $30 for 2GB, $50 for 5GB, or a whopping $80 for 10GB of data. The overage charge will be $10 for each gigabyte that you go over.
Customers who already have unlimited data with their smartphone, and who upgrade their phone after the July 7 date will still be able to keep their unlimited data, just as AT&T has done.
What concerns me is the high price that customers have to pay per GB – Considering the low cost that Verizon pays for their data, and the fact that they have to keep up their cell network for voice calls at any rate, charging such obscene rates for data is just ridiculous. 10GB of data could allow you to stream up to 6 Netflix movies over 3G. 6 movies. For $80! Where is the consumer outcry?
The overage fees are another matter of concern: watching one extra Netflix movie (over 1 hour) would cost you at least $20 in overage fees. A pretty steep consequence, in my opinion. Where are the consumers who are willing to stand up for themselves
Your thoughts? Sound off in the comments!
