VZW tiered plans coming mid-summer

[kodiak799]

“All you can eat” fans may not want to read this as there is strong risk of this piece of news causing extreme anger and sudden urges to break smartphones. Verizon’s CFO Fran Shammo – speaking at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media, and Telecom conference – has said to investors that tiered data plans would make their way to the carrier this summer.
Fran Shammo said that they would have done it when they launched the iPhone 4, but they didn’t want to turn customers away. He reportedly said that “everyone knows that [the $30 unlimited data plan] isn’t long term.” We first caught wind of Verizon’s plans to at least consider this structure last summer. Then-CFO John Killian said:

We have indicated in the past, as we move to an LTE world and LTE pricing, we will probably look very hard at tiered pricing, and that continues to be our thinking right now. So more to come on that. By the way, I should say that all of our efforts, all of our plans on getting LTE launched in the fourth quarter are on schedule.
​

The difference between then and now is that 3G data may be subject to whatever new terms Verizon’s looking to impose, as well. There’s no word on what exact structure they’ll be using, but all signs are pointing to unlimited data soon going the way of the dodo. You had to expect that this was coming, folks.

Verizon: We’re Moving to Tiered Data Plans This Summer | Android Phone Fans

 

[kodiak799]

Well, looks like I'll be picking up the Bionic retail hoping to be grandfathered into unlimited. Of course, who knows if the Bionic will be out in time before the change.

 

[hookbill]

Well, looks like I'll be picking up the Bionic retail hoping to be grandfathered into unlimited. Of course, who knows if the Bionic will be out in time before the change.

I have a feeling this is going to be just for people who go to 4G. And I also have a feeling that you won't get grandfathered this time.

Verizon seems to be looking harder in general on how to reduce costs and when you do that you look at everything. The first sign of this change was removing the 30 day trial period, or changing it to 14 days. It's just the way they have to do business.

I think AT&T is offering unlimited again. There is always the competition.

 

[a44kaliburll]

wouldn't there have to be a clause in the contract stating there wouldn't be a chance to be grandfathered?

It seems that if you have a 3g/4g unlimited data plan priced at $x amount it would be hard for them to change your contract without voiding your agreement terms...which subsequently would allow you to opt out of your contract free of charge..

Its how I got out of my sprint contract...I said that because of the increase to my bill in which I had not/will not agree to...the terms of service are in violation. Its not the increase of a few pennies, its the fact of the matter that my long standing contractual agreement with you is now being altered without my knowing. It is your obligation to allow me to opt out of this contract...I then gave them the "few pennies increase has given me a moral reason to seek out of my contract without paying your ETF".

It worked...

Only my opinion though....I guess it would be time to really read into your contract before signing up for anything at this point.

 

[kodiak799]

Yeah, I always thought the concept of grandfathering was a bit curious. They have to honor the contract you signed, but once that 2-yrs is up I don't really see how you just go on month-to-month and would be grandfathered.

The flip side is a 5gig standard $30 tier is more than enough for me. No idea how they will approach this. Everyone is up in arms over losing unlimited data when in reality they may not really be giving up or losing anything, aside from data they don't use in the first place.

 

[HayWire]

Hopefully they only do it to those who upgrade to 4g.. I plan on running my x till the wheels fall off, might even get another x (or x2) when it does finally go..

 

[sidsixseven]

Hopefully they only do it to those who upgrade to 4g..

The longer term vision is absolutely all data plans in my opinion. If you read this article at ZD Net, Fran goes on to say that the reason they are interested in the Tiered pricing is because of the number of people upgrading to Smartphones. A trend they expect to continue and think they can encourage by offering a Tiered data plan.

They aren't interested in YOU -- they figure you'll spend between $30-$50 for data. They are interested in offering a low-tier data plan (ex: $15 for 150mb) to entice the people who aren't using a smartphone to upgrade and start using more services.

The question is how they'll treat existing smartphone users who already consume a lot of Data. Do they add data caps to the $30 price point? How much more will 4G cost?

Tiered pricing doesn't necessarily mean that they will not have an Unlimited option. That said, any time they start talking about adjusting the pricing model -- it's rarely a good thing. Have no doubt, they are only interested in doing so to attempt to squeeze more blood out of the consumers.

 

[MoeDaddy]

Only problem is that when 4g hits and all the video calls and media streaming the numbers will fly up and 5GB will not be that hard to hit at all.

 

[kodiak799]

Only problem is that when 4g hits and all the video calls and media streaming the numbers will fly up and 5GB will not be that hard to hit at all.

Video calls might be good for the family and girlfriend, but I don't really see it catching fire. For business, unless someone is showing charts and graphs, I don't really need to see them.

Fair point about media streaming, but when I'm home I'm on wifi (as I suspect most are). If you're going to ditch wifi and shift usage to your phone then, by rights, you have some spare cash to pay for more bandwidth.

I really don't worry about it. Smartphone data is nice mostly for when I travel and that occasional break to read ESPN at work. A couple of gigs will be more than sufficient for me. I might consider dropping home broadband, and in that case I'd be indifferent up to about $80 for 10gigs of data.

 

[phreek]

Only problem is that when 4g hits and all the video calls and media streaming the numbers will fly up and 5GB will not be that hard to hit at all.

Video calls might be good for the family and girlfriend, but I don't really see it catching fire. For business, unless someone is showing charts and graphs, I don't really need to see them.

Please explain this to my boss.

 

[kodiak799]

Please explain this to my boss.

Oh man, I feel for you. I don't want people staring at me on a call, especially if I'm an active participant I'm going to mute and work on some other things. And if you're on the road or at home who wants to put on the dress shirt and/or tie?

I'm not even sure how that would work with 8 or 9 people remotely. Would you have a little pop-up for each person's camera?

I don't even want to think about it. What a nightmare.

 

[smokey1336]

I personally do not like the tier priceing it isnt at all anywhere close to the real data you can burn on your smart phone....They Give us smartphones that has high res to watch Blu ray quality but no data to watch it I stream most my videos from a server at home and one Blu ray movie is 7-8 gigs easy so if I stream this one movie to my phone Im over my limit wow that was an hour and a half now what am I going to do for the rest of the Month????????
Just my Thoughts:icon_evil:

 

[kodiak799]

t I stream most my videos from a server at home and one Blu ray movie is 7-8 gigs easy so if I stream this one movie to my phone Im over my limit wow that was an hour and a half now what am I going to do for the rest of the Month????????

I've been thinking about that myself. Normal internet usage, even music, isn't that bad - legitimately takes some work to hit even 2 gigs in a month, much less 5.

Streaming video is a completely different story. That blu-ray is actually 25-50 gigs per movie. Regular hi-def video runs something like 8-9gigs. With LTE, if I want to HDMI out a netflix movie to the tv (and I definitely might, with as much as I travel) a couple of gigs would be nothing.

I just watched 15 minutes of Netflix on my computer - @350megs...so just 1.5hours of hi-def video is going to be about 2gigs (but I assume it's further compressed for a phone). But I was thinking about mobile broadband for LTE and ditching my home connection, but there's no way 10 gigs is going to work for me unless I watch video sparingly (and part of the appeal was going to be slingbox from my home DVR).

Now what TMo is doing is offering 10gigs at $65 a month, but beyond 10gigs they start throttling (which probably means you aren't watching much video if you get knocked down to 1-2mbps)

 

[Inverse]

Streaming, wireless media and the ability to tether is at the core of the smartphone revolution. Tiered data will hurt them initially, and we'll be seeing more changes in 2012. I wouldn't buy into anything they offer this summer, and will be keenly looking at competition that curbs this. Even if their network is unreliable.

If T-Mobile is offering unlimited, I'll go with them far before I stick to anyone offering caps on my data use. I speak with my wallet. Less phones will be used, and far less will be purchased if the reasons these phones were bought can no longer be of use anymore.

Touch screens are pretty, and the phones are nice~ but smartphones are data using machines. Streaming music, video chat and video playing are what's being marketed on these phones. More speed is also being marketed. If they can't supply us with the data needs the public demands, the public will look elsewhere, or lose interest by 2013.

No idea why they are looking to pop the smartphone bubble so quickly.

 

[adjangs]

Network investment to revenue to profit...

Would you charge $15 for 150Mb
or $30 for unlimited Mb? Or offer both?

Verizon wondered something like this, so they offerred $15 for 150Mb data plans for a short time to test the waters. I wonder what they concluded? Probably that it was a viable bottom tier. I wouldn't be surprised if there was something similar brought back for LTE eventually, at least when LTE is still being beefed up around the nation.