[alhanson]

"The new pricing structure offers customers monthly plans of $30 for 2GB of data, $50 for 5GB of data and $80 for 10GB of data. A $10 plan for 75MB of data is available to customers with feature phones with limited Internet capabilities."

2GB for $30
5GB for $50
10GB for $80

"For every additional GB that you go over, you’ll be charged $10. As we learned before, these plans apply to both 3G and 4G devices. So if you own a Droid Charge and your friend has a Droid X2 and you guys both have a 2GB data plan, you’ll be paying the same amount."

For every additional GB that you go over, you’ll be charged $10 is good news. Because! On the old plans additional data was charged at $.50 per MB and with 1000 MB in one GB the over charge on One GB would be $500.

I can live with this! Being a Verizon Data Customer! The old $500 over charge was completely insane. I knew this had been in the works for over a year now. Ever since a kid racked up a $20,000 over usage in one month! Now he would be penalized with a $200 over usage charge.

So if you want to share your free movies and music over the Internet with people you don’t know from Adam go right a head at $10 a month.

 

[Quinn]

I'm confused because I was grandfathered in to the unlimited data plan. With that one I just pay $29.00 a month for unlimited usage. I have never seen any extra fees for data usage.

 

[alhanson]

If your Grandfathered in your Grandfathered in! Until you change something then you are not. Like new phone, modem dies, or New plan! They want me to upgrade but i have a month to month plan with out a contract. I am going to try to upgrade to the new plan on my existing modem with out a contract.

 

[Dee]

Yep, Quinn, when you go to renew your contract, or anything, they WILL make you change your data plan to one of the non-unlimited ones. Thrilling, eh?

 

[fred]

I thought this does not take effect until tomorrow. I was under the impression that if you went with the unlimited plan before then you get grandfathered in.

 

[AppsAPE]

Either way, looks like that is going to be the future. I am with Verizon and I have a year and a half left on my contract. I guess that means I don't have to worry about this just yet.

 

[alhanson]

I went to the maul yesterday to ask about this plan and new development from the corporate store. The plan applies to 4G modems and I would have to change to a new 4G modem to get the plan to apply to me. I said, “But! I live in a 3G area.” I was told that would be a problem, because the 4G modems also contain a 3G modem along with there sim card. The 4G modem is their new 3G modem too. Verizon is quick to point out you don’t get 5GB on the 4G modem and 5GB on the 3G Modem. You only 5GB between the two modems.

The problem here is I don’t think you can have both modems running at the same time. I believe you have to boot into them like OS – Windows and Linux. Also, for a 4G modem to run at the speeds it does; it doesn’t have a voice channel to screw things up, trip over, and slow down; it has only one data only channel. Thus on a 4G phone one would have to turn the phone off and boot into the 3G mode to use Verizon voice channel. If not one could use a soft phone over the data only channel like Google Voice along with Ooma. Apparently, the Verizon CEO thinks he can get away with selling the same data twice. Once as a data channel and again as a voice channel over the same data channel you just bought. On the other hand, Google has got this all figured out with Clear. They have got their ducks in a row; from the open source community, to Talk, to Voice, to partnership with Ooma, to the purchase of a small Norwegian company, to figuring out what VoP stand for, and having the honor of their Chromebook connect to the Spaceway Network through Virgin America.

 

[zora]

I think that is why there is a proposed 4G law out there. I don't think there are clear regulations and laws about 4G, so unless new laws are made there isn't much people can do but complain.

 

[alhanson]

This is a clear Anti Trust Case. The laws are already there. Verizon is first a broadband company and second a phone company. It is a monopoly in many local broadband markets. For them to tie their phone service to their broadband service in any of these markets is what the Anti Trust Law is all about. Thus the consumers in these markets should have the choice of who their phone provider should be. This would be an online soft phone service that could run on Chromebook. I believe some of the proposed 4G laws out there are to allow Verizon around its Anti Trust Problem. Rockefeller owned the small trunk lines between the Major Rail Roads. Thus he could charge any rate he wanted. So if Verizon controls “the last mile” through their broadband monopoly they two can charge any rate they want.

 

[Pen]

Sheesh, that's pretty expensive! I don't have a smartphone, but the costs of a data plan are making me not want one even more. Is Verizon's new plan competitive to other plans out there?