Verizon will soon be ending unlimited data plans for all customers.  They had already stopped offering unlimited plans for new customers since last July.  At that time if you wanted to sign up for Verizon you had to use their “tiered data” plans.  But if you were already on their unlimited plans you could keep those plans as long as you remained a customer and didn’t make any major changes to your service.  However, today they announced that all existing customers who are grandfathered into an unlimited data plan will soon be forced to upgrade to a “shared plan” when they upgrade from 3G to LTE service.

According to Fran Shammo, the CFO of Verizon:

And really the theory behind this is LTE is our anchor point for data share. So as you come through an upgrade cycle and you upgrade in the future, you will have to go onto the data share plan. And moving away from, if you will, the unlimited world and moving everybody into a tiered structure data share-type plan.
So when you think about our 3G base, a lot of our 3G base is unlimited. As they start to migrate into 4G, they will have to come off of unlimited and go into the data share plan. And that is beneficial for us for many reasons, obviously. So as you pick what tier you want to be and we think that there will be some price up in those tiers.

Verizon will no doubt lose a number of customers because of this decision.  My question now is will AT&T follow suit?  Probably so but time will tell.  Sprint has already announced that when the new iPhone comes out later this year it will still continue to offer unlimited data.

So are you a Verizon customer who currently has an unlimited data plan?  Do you fear how this will affect you?  Will you switch to another carrier because of this decision?  Tell me in the comments below.

– Source:  Verizon

Update 5/17/12

Verizon has released a statement today clarifying the news from yesterday regarding eliminating their unlimited data plans:

• Customers will not be automatically moved to new shared data plans. If a 3G or 4G smartphone customer is on an unlimited plan now and they do not want to change their plan, they will not have to do so.
• When we introduce our new shared data plans, Unlimited Data will no longer be available to customers when purchasing handsets at discounted pricing.
• Customers who purchase phones at full retail price and are on an unlimited smartphone data plan will be able to keep that plan.
• The same pricing and policies will be applied to all 3G and 4GLTE smartphones.

So basically they will let you keep your unlimited data plans but you will not longer be able to buy discounted (or subsidized) phones when you want to upgrade.  So instead of upgrading your phone to say…a 16GB iPhone, you can either pay $200 with a new 2-year contract and lose your unlimited data plan or you can pay $650 and keep your unlimited data.  Does it seem worth it to you?  For most customers it will not.

– Source:  New York Times