Andre Yoskowitz
19 Jun 2010 1:16
Verizon, the biggest wireless carrier in the U.S., has said today that it may follow AT&T's recent move into tiered data plan pricing, while at the same time eliminating unlimited plans.
Says Verizon CFO John Killian: "We will probably need to change the design of our pricing where it will not be totally unlimited, flat rate."
The plan will likely not take effect until Verizon rolls out its 4G networks. When 4G goes live, the carrier expects an "explosion in data traffic," due to video downloads, video conferencing, and other bandwidth-intensive applications.
Verizon says smartphone owners currently use about 700MB of data per month, and the company says eventually smartphone users will be 80 percent of all Verizon consumers, up from just 17 percent today.
AT&T's cheapest new plan is $15 per month, but will only include 200MB of data. If customers go over the limit, they will be charged $15 extra for every 200MB of data, a very expensive proposition.
A more reasonable plan is $25 per month and will give smartphone, tablet, netbook users 2GB of data for the month. For every 1GB over the cap they go, they will be charged $10, another expensive proposition.