Verizon Wireless Goes Ahead With 'Bucket' Data Plans

CanHasDIY writes "Previously, it was reported that Verizon was considering eliminating their current data plan scheme, as well as the grandfathered unlimited plans, in favor of a new 'bucket' plan in which up to 10 devices would share a data allotment. Verizon has now officially acknowledged the new scheme, called the 'Share Everything' plan, which will go into effect as of June 28, 2012. According to USA Today, 'Under the new pricing plan, a smartphone customer opting for the cheapest data bucket, 1 gigabyte, will pay $90 before taxes and fees ($40 for phone access and $50 for 1 GB). Customers can add a basic phone, laptop and tablet to share data for $30, $20 and $10, respectively.' Those of us still grandfathered into the unlimited plan will be forced (when upgrading) to either sign up for Share Everything or one of the tiered pricing plans currently in effect."

Seriously?

[Penguinisto]

Unless the other carrier follows suit, how on Earth do they expect to keep customers?

Certainly,while Sprint and T-Mobile may be small, and AT&T has sucky customer service and/or coverage (I'm sitting here at home with a AT&T smartphone that has zero signal - thank Heaven for automatic call forwarding), any of the three would be infinitely better than being forced to shit out what is likely going to be a three-digit cell phone bill each month.

Then again, knowing carriers, they'll likely start jacking their rates in proportion to how badly they want new customers vs. getting a piece of that pie.

How about $40 for unlimited

[Galestar]

Just a jump over the 49th parallel (Canada) we have Wind Mobile (major cities only). $40 for pretty everything unlimited, no contract. You guys in the U.S. are getting screwed up the ass.

Re:What the Hell???

[Baloroth]

You are being a little dense. Previously, up to 2GB of data would have cost me $30 a month. Now it will cost $50 a month, for 1GB. Before that, $30 would have gotten unlimited data.

So from a consumer point of view, the deal has gotten worse and worse. And it still costs money to add devices to the plan for data sharing, leaving this an all-around shitty deal.

Re:Oh really?

[afidel]

Well, it's 2.5GB of full speed data and then you get throttled severely, but it's still better than spending twice as much for about a third the data. My wife has the best plan ever IMHO, 300 minutes and "unlimited" data and unlimited SMS/MMS for $25/month with no other charges except local sales tax. She is also on Virgin Mobile. The best thing other than no bill shock for data usage is that in the rare event she goes over the 300 minutes it's only $.10/minute until her renewal date. Oh, and no contract, not that I would even think of switching given the direction the industry is going. I just hope Sprint stays desperate enough to keep us =)

Re:Oh really?

[Svartalf]

Which is actually illegal. The terms of the deals are they extend this phone at ths price with this payment plan and you agree to not walk away from those terms for a time no less than two years- which you pay a penalty to them if you do.

The terms for payment and the services offered legally don't have an expiry. The way they get you to change contracts up is to "upgrade" your phone at a discount at the 1-2 year mark.

Sadly, this little price increase just made it more economical to not sign a new deal and just simply buy the phone at full price, keeping the old terms in place. You'll save $200-400 over the lock-in term of the agreement to do that so long as you can bear the brunt of the up-front price. I suggest saving up for it or using revolving credit on a short-term basis.

Re:What the Hell???

[Rei]

I don't get why utilities are so expensive in the US.

Here in Iceland, we're considered an expensive country. And you should expect the same sort of thing with anything having to do with data, since it's not exactly cheap to run underseas cables to us, and all the electronics hardware has to be imported, and not nearly in as much bulk as places like the US can buy in. So why is it that our utilities on things involving data are so cheap?

For my phone, I use NOVA. Since I don't call much and text in-network, I get the free, per-usage voice/text plan. The data plans available are 1GB for $7,60 or 10GB for $23, both at 5 MB/s. And coverage? We have one-7th the population density of Iowa. Here's Síminn's 2G coverage [siminn.is] and here's 3G coverage [siminn.is] (note that the population here is clustered around the coasts, there's no permanent residents in the interior and that you can't even drive on the few roads in the interior without a high-clearance 4x4). You can get 3G on some glaciers here! I was facebooking from the top of a mountain last weekend.

Or TV, for example. From Síminn, which I subscribe to, the base package is $7,60, a middle-of-the-line package is ~$27, and the everything package is ~$44.

We're on an island in the middle of nowhere. These sort of things should be way more expensive than in the US, not cheaper. Why is this? And availability, too. Back when I lived in Iowa City (a big 10 university town, I should add, so there were some fat pipes running into the place), the best uplink speed I could get on my netconnection was 1.5Mb/s (down was better, but not impressive). Here I get 50Mb/s bidirectional, and that's considered bad.

I don't get it, America. What's up with all that? I'm in freaking *Iceland* here.