Verizon to Data Hogs: Pay Up or We‘ll Cut You (off)

Verizon to Data Hogs: Pay Up or We‘ll Cut You (off)     

        Firstly reported by Droid life and confirmed by Ars Technica, Verizon will be shutting off the data hose for unlimited data customers who use more than 100gb a month. Although this will only affect people who have been grandfathered into these plans, since Verizon hasn’t offer them for years, it’s the next steps in a long series of middle fingers to people who assumed that unlimited meant unlimited.

        By august 31, Verizon customers flagged as using an “extraordinary” amount of data that would be forced to switch from one Verizon’s paid plans or have their accounts deactivated. If u are curious , a 100gb plan costs $450 a month, though that’s meant to be shared among a large pool of people. This isn’t the first time Verizon has used slippery tactic to pull unlimited data users onto different plans. Back in 2014,Verizon started throttling customers who exceeded 4.7gb of data usage in congested areas. The FCC called shenanigans on that idea and Verizon quickly retreated. This is likely Verizon’s nuclear option. Here is Verizon’s  full statement to Gizmodo: “more than 100 million Americans rely on our network to stay connected with friends, family and  colleagues and to the information they need. Because our network is a shared resource, we need to ensure all customers have a great mobile experience with Verizon, we are notifying a small group of customers on unlimited plans who use extraordinary amount of data, that they must move on to one of the new plans by August 31, 2016.

These users are using data amounts in excess of our largest data plan size (100GB). While the data plan for 100gb is designed to be shared among multiple users, each line receiving notification to move to the new Verizon plan is using well in excess of that on a single device.

 On a related note, Sprint, T-Mobile, and AT&T still offer some form of unlimited plan.