When Verizon first brought back its unlimited plan, there was some concern from the get go, and the carrier put out the fire pretty quickly. The initial entrance of these plans is due in large part to T-Mobile’s Un-Carrier changes, and the result is that the wireless industry is changing. However, this week Verizon reworked its Unlimited Plans, and these new offerings are not good for customers.
Verizon is always excited to announce when their network gets good marks, especially when they win RootMetrics. However, these changes to their Unlimited offering hint at something changing, their network is becoming more congested and creating a slower experience for customers. There are now three Unlimited plans– Go Unlimited, Beyond Unlimited, Business Unlimited, and a Prepaid Unlimited. All of these promises Unlimited data, talk, and text– But video streaming, hotspot data, and regular data all eventually become throttled.
The core Go Unlimited Plan is $75 per month with AutoPay turned on, without it comes in at $80 per month, and this is just for the first line. Verizon is limiting video streams to 480p on smartphones and 720p on tablets. This means your new smartphone that has 4K HDR display on Verizon will not be giving you the ideal experience. While Verizon says you will not notice a difference in quality, it will 100% be noticeable, especially on a newer smartphone. Your Unlimited hotspot on the Go Unlimited Plan limits your speed to a very slow 600kbps. Verizon is also dropping free calling and texting to Canada and Mexico from this plan. The worst part of this plan is that Verizon can throttle your data usage at any time.
Beyond Unlimited is $85 a month for the first line, but with AutoPay you can save $5. This more expensive plan limits Verizon to throttling your data once you hit 22GBs. Verizon;s Beyond Unlimited allows you to have 10GB of 4G LTE hotspot usage before throttling. You also get the free calling and texting to Canada and Mexico. However, and this a big one, your video streaming is still capped at 720p, which will still be a noticeable difference.
Put simply, Verizon news Unlimited plans are bad for customers, and they were announced and put into effect almost immediately. Verizon in the past has claimed they were just testing throttling video streams, but it seems to be in place for good now, and it crosses a very dangerous line that goes against Net Neutrality. As now they are starting to treat different types of data differently, and it results in them slowing down all video streams. The worst thing about all of these changes is that it affects all legacy plans as they are now limited to streaming video at 720p. You cannot pay extra to have traditional video streaming, and there is no opt-in, it will automatically occur.
This begs the question, is Verizon’s network still all that good if these new plans need to be put into effect for “network management”? It appears that Big Red is starting to slow down and these changes that T-Mobile has begun are having adverse effects on Verizon’s network and customer experience. It will be interesting to see how T-Mobile combats this, as they currently will cover your ETF and hook you up with a solid plan.
