On the big battlefield of mobile electronics, Verizon recently announced that it was doing away with its “unlimited” data plans. This could potentially have a huge impact on your Verizon bill if you are Verizon customer and you currently subscribe to their unlimited plan.
This is no doubt in part a response to the explosion of data usage on the cellular networks being caused by the latest in mobile technologies such as (smart phones, tablet computers, etc., but when I look at their new pricing models, I see the same problems with them as I have seen in the past.
For example, I see no guarantee that the service will inform you of when you are about to go over on your plan’s usage. This type of thing has been a problem in the mobile market since the beginning of time, providing a way for users to get those “surprise bills” in the mail that are hundreds or thousands of dollars more than they ever expected. Also, I don’t think that the “cap” that Verizon is setting on their new data plan is all that realistic ($30 for 2 gigabytes of data download per month…but as the original article points out, you will almost double this usage each month if you simply stream 2 hours of audio to your phone every month).
If you are a Verizon customer, you will want to take a very close look at your data usage patterns as this change goes into effect.
On the positive side, this shift away from “unlimited” data plans removes one of the biggest lies in the mobile technologies market: unlimited data plans.
You see, if you didn’t read the fine print of your unlimited data plan carefully, you would have missed the fact that “unlimited” really doesn’t mean “unlimited.” Their terms of service, or some other fancy-named document in very small print, will outline what they will call an “abuse” of their service…which in layman’s terms is simply trying to use an unlimited amount of their service. Another variant of this type of deception is to limit the download speeds of “unlimited” data users.
I have never understood how these companies could get away with advertising “unlimited” use of their services only to turn around in their terms of service (or some similar declaration of services) and effectively say you cannot make “unlimited” use of their services.
Well, even as I typed the above paragraph, it occurred to me that perhaps these phone companies HAVE NOT managed to get away with this entire “unlimited service” deception. It turns out that a quick Google search shows that there are at least a few class action lawsuits that have been filed regarding this very issue:
I suspect there are probably more either in the works or already settled…