Verizon out of contract unlimited data ends ??

[dms76]

I talked to a rep tonight in the store and we all know that they are 100% reliable in the store! He said rumor has it in May 2013 Verizon switch all out of contract unlimited data users to 2GB plans.
I am looking to get the Samsung Note II for $199, I still have a new every two discount on another account. I was going to get the Note II on this other account and then switch it to my unlimited data account.

Questions:
1. Verizon says that they will only add a 30 data option to the 1st account which will not effect the old America's Choice plan that its on now. I thought everything under renewal went to a Share Everything plan?

2. If they are going to cancel my unlimited data in May, is it really worth getting the phone now or wait until line 2 is upgrade eligible?

3. If I don't have to switch to a share everything plan, what will they put me on?

 

[PWC Realtor]

I talked to a rep tonight in the store and we all know that they are 100% reliable in the store! He said rumor has it in May 2013 Verizon switch all out of contract unlimited data users to 2GB plans.
I am looking to get the Samsung Note II for $199, I still have a new every two discount on another account. I was going to get the Note II on this other account and then switch it to my unlimited data account.

Questions:
1. Verizon says that they will only add a 30 data option to the 1st account which will not effect the old America's Choice plan that its on now. I thought everything under renewal went to a Share Everything plan?

2. If they are going to cancel my unlimited data in May, is it really worth getting the phone now or wait until line 2 is upgrade eligible?

3. If I don't have to switch to a share everything plan, what will they put me on?

Just a hunch here but maybe they'll do like ATT and say "its unlimited but we reserve the right to throttle your service after X gigabytes probably 2-3"


Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Android Central Forums

 

[Bond32]

You can speculate that but the truth is as long as you are out of contract (month to month) Verizon can do whatever they want. If however you are one of the select few like myself who are locked in another 2 year agreement under your old plan (unlimited data) they are legally bound to provide that unlimited data for 2 years. In the event they decide to disband unlimited data then I reserve the right to walk away from my contract (leave or cancel with no penalty).

To speculate they will at the least throttle unlimited data is accurate in my opinion. While Verizon made it clear a while back that they don't throttle 4g, they have in the past month made a statement on people using their data to torrent. Their response was the six strike method including data throttling after the third strike.
Edit: that rep is an idiot. There would be a huge uproar if Verizon up and decided to drop grandfathered plans. They would have a lot of people leave. What's his basis on this?

Sent from my A500 using Tapatalk 2

 

[eshropshire]

That is what I think they we eventually do for unlimited - technically keep unlimited, but throttle it after a x amount. Who knows for sure, they may just leave it alone let natural attrition take its course.

I doubt that anyone in the stores has any knowledge about Verizon's future plans. The last people to know will probably be their stores employees.

 

[Ry]

1. Verizon says that they will only add a 30 data option to the 1st account which will not effect the old America's Choice plan that its on now. I thought everything under renewal went to a Share Everything plan?

Untrue. You just need to move to tiered data if renewing.

2. If they are going to cancel my unlimited data in May, is it really worth getting the phone now or wait until line 2 is upgrade eligible?

Up to you - but there is no reliable evidence that they are going to do this.

3. If I don't have to switch to a share everything plan, what will they put me on?

Your data plan will move to a tiered plan.

 

[BaMaDuDe87]

I'm pretty sure that would be illegal. I believe they have the option to cancel your current plan (in their disclaimer), but I'm not sure about entering you into a different contract without your concent.

 

[natehoy]

I'm pretty sure that would be illegal. I believe they have the option to cancel your current plan (in their disclaimer), but I'm not sure about entering you into a different contract without your concent.

"out of contract" means there's no current plan to cancel. Once you are month-to-month (out of contract), you (or Verizon) may renegotiate the terms of your agreement every month. Any line that has not had an upgrade used on it in the last 2 years is a month-to-month contract. So the little "trick" of using another line to do your upgrade doesn't mean the line with unlimited is in a locked-in contract.

In July of 2011, Verizon stopped offering the new unlimited plans. Their typical contract is 2 years, so they still have customers under unlimited contracts and will until July 2013. In the interim, a good number of people have gone out of contract with "grandfathered" unlimited plans, and many of them have purchased phones without subsidies (or used upgrade switcheroos) to keep them and are month-to-month. Verizon has to keep offering an unlimited option in their system at the moment since many of their customers are still under contracts that guarantee unlimited.

Once the last under-contract customer is no longer entitled to guaranteed unlimited, Verizon probably wants that SKU removed from their system. It makes sense to keep offering it to "grandfathered" customers now since they are obligated to offer it to some of their customers at the moment.

If they are looking to rid themselves of the SKU, it makes sense for them to start discontinuing those unlimited customers next May since it gives them a couple of months to clean up all of the out-of-contract folks before the last committed contracts end. It's also decent customer service for them to start announcing it now because they won't have customers buying themselves or each other phones out of subsidy to keep unlimited for Christmas and getting butthurt because they end up losing unlimited in a few short months.

Truly unlimited plans are dying. Sorry, it sucks if you've built a dependency on one, but that's the way the cookie crumbles.

The good news is that you can use your newfound freedom to research prepaid plans, which can save you a boatload of money once you've adjusted your usage patterns to the scary new world of metered plans, and help you avoid massive overage charges (since with prepaid, the only thing the carrier can do is cut off service - they don't have any more money than you've already given them, hence "prepaid").

 

[BaMaDuDe87]

Ahh missed that little portion. Disregard my post.

 

[mesocyclonic]

I've wondered (hoped?) if they will get enough people to drop unlimited for tiered/Share Everything due to the upgrade policy that it really won't be worth the effort to kill the unlimited plans for the remainder of unlimited users for quite awhile. Anyone with an unlimited plan when all the contracted unlimited lines reach expiration will have been a long-term customer. In general, VZW tends to be "nicer" to long term customers in my experience. I've been told several times that when asking for something like an early upgrade or swapping phone types of a warranty replacement, payment history and time with Verizon are two big parts in whether or not your request is approved. These are the people Verizon tends to not want angry, especially when they're not under contract. Of course, Verizon has also shown that they're willing to bet that their network will trump any "rage" due to plan changes, including the unlimited data no upgrades policy. But, even then, VZW gave warning of the change so people could re-up one last time at subsidized pricing.

Since my contract is up June 2014, I'll keep rocking my unlimited for awhile longer regardless.

 

[SupermanID4]

So your saying you'd rather settle for what a company says they will give you rather than explore other options, or force the company to work for the costumer. As we progress, wireless plans are to reduce in price not increase. Considering back when cell phones came out, you paid a boatload for 100 or so minutes a month. Companies like Verizon have gotten comfortable, because people settle for what they are offered. The Family Share plan is a complete rip off, and you people need to let them know that. They want our money, they need to start providing the service we request, not the other way around. I'm sure you all work hard for you money, i know i sure as hell do, so do something about it. Address these opinions to these wireless companies, trust me nothing moves a company towards change like the risk of losing profit. I'm off my soap box now. But really address these opinions with them, and force them to serve you.

 

[trucksmoveamerica#AC]

The last I checked and understood, data was never a part of the contract, it is a feature you can turn on and off anytime you want to, you would have to switch to a basic phone of course, but you are not required to keep data on your account for the duration of the contract.

If above is true as to the way I have always understood it, under contract or not, Verizon can yank unlimited data whenever they choose to do so and it is not changing your contract, it is changing the feature you have added to your account. The contract does not gurantee unlimited data while under contract. I am always seeing people brag about getting a subsidized data phone on a extra line, transferring the phone to their data enabled line and putting a basic phone on the extra line and dropping the data. I have done this myself, if data was part of your contract, this would not be possible, you would have to leave the data on the extra line.

So Verizon could put all unlimited data users on a tiered plan tomorrow and we cant do anything about it till our contracts are up and then we could move to another carrier, but then what choices do we have, all carriers will be tiered data plans by then, so live with it or go prepaid and lose some coverage areas that are extended for us now.

If I am wrong, please let me know, but I don't think I am.

 

[Eclipse2K]

The last I checked and understood, data was never a part of the contract, it is a feature you can turn on and off anytime you want to, you would have to switch to a basic phone of course, but you are not required to keep data on your account for the duration of the contract.

If above is true as to the way I have always understood it, under contract or not, Verizon can yank unlimited data whenever they choose to do so and it is not changing your contract, it is changing the feature you have added to your account. The contract does not gurantee unlimited data while under contract. I am always seeing people brag about getting a subsidized data phone on a extra line, transferring the phone to their data enabled line and putting a basic phone on the extra line and dropping the data. I have done this myself, if data was part of your contract, this would not be possible, you would have to leave the data on the extra line.

So Verizon could put all unlimited data users on a tiered plan tomorrow and we cant do anything about it till our contracts are up and then we could move to another carrier, but then what choices do we have, all carriers will be tiered data plans by then, so live with it or go prepaid and lose some coverage areas that are extended for us now.

If I am wrong, please let me know, but I don't think I am.

I believe you're correct but I highly doubt Verizon would change this unless you're not under a contract. Even if they did I would still stick with Verizon though.

Sent from my DROID RAZR HD using Tapatalk 2

 

[anon(394005)]

I recently came across this Cnet article discussing the issue. They make some interesting/good points: Could Verizon nix unlimited data for everyone? | Mobile - CNET News

Excerpt:

I reached out to consumer rights attorney Michael Aschenbrener, of Aschenbrener Law regarding your question to get a legal perspective. Aschenbrener explained that Verizon Wireless is under no obligation to continue offering you an unlimited data plan. Verizon and all other carriers can refuse to continue providing service of any kind to any customer once that customer is paying his bill on a month-to-month basis, he said. You have to remember that when you forgo the subsidy, you are no longer in a contract for service with Verizon.

This means Verizon can change the terms at any time. Of course, this also means that you can cancel your service at any time and not pay an early termination fee.

But what I didn't realize and what you likely don't realize yourself is that even if you have a contract with Verizon, the terms could still be modified. Aschenbrener explained that according to the terms of carrier wireless contracts, operators include a clause that allows them to modify the terms whenever they want. The only upside for the consumer is that if the carrier changes the contract, you can get out of the contract without paying an early termination fee. The catch is that you have to pay close attention to these changes.

What this means is that Verizon could change its policy at any time and simply get rid of its unlimited data plan. So whether you buy your new phone or even if you were still within the two-year contract period, Verizon could get rid of this pricing plan and force all customers into a tiered offering.

The question is whether Verizon will actually do this. That is a tough question to answer. It's clear that Verizon's executives don't want customers on the unlimited plan any longer. In fact, the company's Chief Financial Officer Fran Shammo has said on multiple occasions that the company is better off if all customers are on tiered offerings.

So far it looks like the policies that Verizon has in place to encourage (well, more like strong-arm) subscribers to abandon their unlimited data plans is working. Shammo said at an investor conference in September that Verizon has seen people coming off the unlimited data plan to subscribe to the Share plans. And on the company's third-quarter earnings call, he said that more customers than expected have been shifting to the Share Everything plans. And he also noted that the company has not seen a surge of unlimited subscribers paying full price to keep their data plans.

"Most devices sold during the quarter had a subsidy," he said. "But we saw some smartphone customers buying phones at full price."

This is good news for customers who really want to keep their unlimited data plans. Why? The way I see it, Verizon may feel like it can afford to appease a small minority of customers willing to pay full price for a smartphone to keep the unlimited data plan. Even though Verizon can change its pricing policy at any time, it may not want to risk the bad publicity from doing so. And why should they bother if most people are switching to the tiered offerings anyway?

 

[Mooncatt]

Not only is the number of unlimited users becoming a smaller percentage of their subscriber base and easier to absorb the extra cost, but people paying full price on a phone to keep it are still paying the same monthly rate they got when the phone was subsidized. That helps offset the data costs on Verizon's end more. I doubt they will completely remove unlimited until everyone is naturally off it. Just wish I was one of those lucky people. XD

 

[anon(883913)]

I'm in the same boat as the OP. I really want to upgrade to a new device and I will even buy refurbished / used if I must to keep costs down (on a budget of about $300). Although I know for sure that I will have to keep unlimited data no matter what (I use about 20gb/month of data and the other 3 lines on my account use an average of about 3.5gb/month a piece). I was thinking of turning to 3rd party vendors (eBay, Craigslist and even returns from various retailers) but I am unsure if I purchase a used / refurbished / returned phone if Asurion will provide coverage ( my whole family is very rough on devices and we all absolutely hate having big, bulky cases that cost almost as much as the device itself. Can anyone offer any advice to help? It would be VERY appreciated!

 

[Mooncatt]

Hate to say it, but buying a refurbished phone is a crap shoot with odds heavily against you. I've had to deal with a lot of them in the past and none of them worked "like new" as advertised, which you should expect when doing warranty returns and getting the refurb direct from the carrier. They all went back almost immediately for their own warranty claim. If you can't afford a brand new one, then get one straight up used from an individual that you can examine first, and the person isn't just trying to offload a piece of junk.

I wouldn't trust a 3rd party used vendor. No telling what they took in to resell, and if the manufacturer can't properly refurb a phone, how can I trust whatever inspection someone else does on it? It's probably no more of an inspection than I could do.

 

[snookasnoo]

A good rule of thumb is not to believe anything a Verizon store rep tells you.

 

[snookasnoo]

Cost is not why they are getting rid of unlimited plans. They simply saw a way to charge more for less. Very few unlimited users use enough data for it to affect anything.

Not only is the number of unlimited users becoming a smaller percentage of their subscriber base and easier to absorb the extra cost, but people paying full price on a phone to keep it are still paying the same monthly rate they got when the phone was subsidized. That helps offset the data costs on Verizon's end more. I doubt they will completely remove unlimited until everyone is naturally off it. Just wish I was one of those lucky people. XD

 

[diesteldorf]

If cost isn't an issue, and I agree. It'll be interesting to see how long VZW lets those that have Unlimited continue. It was surely cost related when they forced those with Unlimited Global data to switch plans a couple years ago.