Starting July 7, Verizon Wireless is going to switch to a new pricing model for smartphone data based on usage of the customers, according to a company spokeswoman. Brenda Raney, the spokeswoman for Verizon, told the media that new customers for smartphones will get to choose from three options; a 3GB plan for $30, 5GB for $50, and 10GB for $80. Along with this there will be an overage charge of $10 per GB after the surpassing of the set limit for the plans. Verizon will also charge feature phone users $10 for 75 MB data usage per month. Currently AT&T Mobility charges its customers $15 every month for 200 MB and $25 for 2 GB of data usage per month.
It was confirmed by Verizon last month that it will make such a switch away from the unlimited plans it used to offer earlier. Rumors and reports had been widely circulating that the changes will come into effect from the 7th of July; however it was only today that Verizon confirmed the changes and the details of the plans. Raney said that the existing customers who upgrade on after 7 July will be able to change their smartphone while keeping their existing unlimited data plans.
Along with this, Verizon is also planning to make pricing changes to its LTE mobile hotspot service which is available on smartphones like the Samsung Droid Charge and the HTC Thunderbolt. The LTE hotspot feature is currently free and unlimited. According to Raney, the customers who have been using the LTE service will be charged $30 per month for unlimited usage starting July 7. However, new customers will have to shell out $20 for an extra 2GB of usage on the LTE hotspot or any other data service.
With this, Verizon Wireless has become the latest wireless carrier to switch from unlimited data use pricing plans to such a metered approach. This trend was started by AT&T last year and was subsequently followed by T-Mobile USA, even though T-Mobile throttles the connection speeds of the users when they go over their allotted limits rather than charging them overage fees.
Sprint Nextel is the only Tier 1 carrier now which has not yet committed to a data pricing scheme based on customer usage. Dan Hesse, CEO of Sprint, has always maintained that its customers value the simplicity of Sprint’s plans, although he did say that the carrier might consider revising these plans at some point of time in the future.
