Although this will only affect people who have been grandfathered into these plans, since Verizon hasn’t offered them for years, it’s the next step in a long series of middle fingers to people who assumed that unlimited meant unlimited. A study from 2014 found that just 22% of Verizon users remained on grandfathered unlimited plans, compared to 44% for AT&T and 78% for both Sprint and T-Mobile (who both advertise unlimited as a differentiator).
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Verizon is now in the process of notifying users that use in excess of 100GB of data per month that they have two options: change plans or let their accounts be closed. Mainly the problem was that there were some users who used more data than they should, or at least more data than is considered reasonable on an unlimited data plan. The carrier has announced that they will be notifying those users that are using “an extraordinary amount of data” every month, warning them that they will be disconnected from the service. Those who still have unlimited data are paying month to month as their contracts likely expired. If your line is shut off, you will have the option to reactivate it with one of Verizon’s limited plans. Alternatively, heavy users will rack up significant overage fees on top of the already-expensive high data plans.
The largest Verizon plan now comes with 100 GB of data and costs $450 per month, so the heaviest users will have to cut back their data usage even if they migrate to the most expensive plan.
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AT&T has also tried to push customers off of its oldest unlimited data plans but has taken less drastic measures than Verizon. While the Verizon Plan at 100 GB is created to be shared across multiple users, each line receiving notification to move to the new Verizon Plan is using well in excess of that on a single device.
