In a move most people saw coming after AT&T took the same plunge, Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg confirmed that they’ll be removing unlimited data plans in favor of tiered data pricing within four to six months.
Important details weren’t divulged regarding the pricing change, though Seidenberg did note he isn’t sure if they’ll follow AT&T’s pricing, saying “We’re not sure we agree yet with how they valued the data.”
Though various outlets predicted Verizon following suit after AT&T nixed their unlimited data plan, others thought it’d be a clever business strategy for Verizon to continue to offer an unlimited data plan in an attempt to pull more customers away from AT&T’s much maligned service (there’s even an iPhone App to tell AT&T where their service is subpar), which would in turn help Verizon pry the iPhone away as well.
AT&T’s tiered pricing plans aren’t as bad as “no unlimited data plans” sounds ($15 a month for 200 megabytes, $25 a month for 2 gigabytes), only really causing problems for power users, but with tablet devices like the iPad becoming more prominent and our society transitioning to a mobile market, dispensing with unlimited data plans seems like an overall negative move for consumers.
Seidenberg did attempt to soften the blow, by mentioning that new products and services, as well as fourth-generation wireless services (likely alluding to a 4G network), would accompany the new tiered pricing plan, at least providing more services in place of uncapped data.
(Wall Street Journal via Engadget)
Published: Sep 24, 2010 11:32 am