We reported on this topic once last year when the Verizon CEO, Ivan Seidenberg, said that the company would be shifting to tiered data plans and removing our favorite: the unlimited option. But that was six months ago and we still haven't seen any changes. So should we still be worrying about the inevitable switch to happen this year?
Apparently that answer is, "Yes." As Reuters has reported, Verizon is (still) determined to cut their unlimited data packages sometime this summer, leaving us with unspecified tiered plans for individuals, as well as new family plans for multiple smartphone (and tablet) users. Keep in mind that we still have not been told what the data cap will be on these plans, nor what the cost will be for overages. So don't jump ship just yet.
AT&T long-ago bit this bullet a while back, and while the outcry from bloggers like us was strong, in the end we can't say we've seen any major lasting customer issues from the loss of unlimited data. Of course, that leaves Sprint as the only suitor at the unlimited data buffet (both Everything Data and Simply Everything offer limitless data), but they've yet to release a new webOS device since November of 2009 - and that was the crippled Palm Pixi. T-Mobile has unlimited-in-name-only data plans, with "high-speed" caps of 2GB or 5GB, after which they throttle down your connection speed to make sure you don't consume more data than your feeble human brain can handle.
If you'd asked us a year ago if the loss of an unlimited data plan would have spurred major customer churn, we would have said yes. But AT&T's growth has not slowed since their unlimited option went the way of the dodo, and we don't expect Verizon's will either. The overwhelming majority will never approach a 2GB data cap with their cell phone, let alone 5GB (most struggle to even hit 2GB with their home cable connection). Customers are going to go where they see the best value of service quality, plan options, customer service, and phone selection (mostly in that order). Of course, we'd love for something like the Pre3 to be a phone selection option on all of the major carriers...
Will you be sticking with Verizon through the transition? Or did you start thinking about hopping over to the "Now Network" as soon as you read the title of the article? Either way, it looks like "in the coming months" we'll be seeing quite a lot of changes coming to the mobile tech world.
No comments:
Post a Comment