Carrier appears hellbent on throttling their most savvy and enthusiast users that have maintained grandfathered plans throughout the years.
Many customers are seeking to break bread with Verizon, and meet them part way in the new curbing of unlimited data. But, Verizon doesn’t seem to want to hear them now.
Verizon has taken extreme criticism from the FCC after agreeing to open-pipe conditions for its lucrative 700 MHz C-Block spectrum, and now appears to be doubling back on those agreements by throttling customers with unlimited data.
Verizon defends the move, but hasn’t provided a justification for how throttling unlimited data customers is consistent with their C-Block license agreements. The FCC, meanwhile, is mulling taking additional action against Verizon over the matter.
At the announcement, Verizon said that customers who are under contract will be excluded from the unlimited data throttling. More than a few customers have contacted us, asking if they can simply re-up their contract – sans any device subsidy. Previously, Verizon Wireless said that it was the device subsidy part that would prompt a plan change (and loss of unlimited data).
The logic may be sound, but Verizon has said no. Verizon confirmed to PhoneNews.com that they will not renew the contract for a line of service that has unlimited data today. Any contract renewal at this point, even without a device subsidy, will invoke a plan change off unlimited data.
Previously Verizon went to great lengths to explain that the device subsidies were hurting Verizon’s ability to offer unlimited data to customers… and that removing them was needed to keep data unlimited and unthrottled.
However, Verizon’s terse statement today, denying customers the ability to renew their contracts sans-device, came with no similar explanation. We asked Verizon to clarify their remarks, and provide a rational for why this wouldn’t be a viable resolution, but Verizon declined to comment further to PhoneNews.com about the matter.
A few Verizon customers are allowed to keep their unlimited data and avoid throttling. Those with family plans can “sacrifice” one line’s unlimited data, and use the Upgrade Transfer tool to renew the contracts on each line of service. The customer would Upgrade Transfer each family plan line through the one line that is sacrificed from having unlimited data.
Those customers will not endure a plan change (except on the sacrificial line for which the upgrades pass through), but will have each line’s contract renewed… thus allowing their lines to be unthrottled for at least another two years.
History buffs will recall that AT&T Wireless (before Cingular) did allow customers to do something similar.
When AT&T Wireless debuted GSM network technology, they rolled out Charter plans. These plans were priced exceptionally well (largely to make up for the terrible coverage of the GSM network). The plans topped out at $99.99 for unlimited calling (this was huge at the time).
But, they had a catch – to keep the plans, you had to stay under contract.
By the time Cingular and AT&T Wireless had merged, the only way to get a device subsidy was to “migrate to orange” (despite Cingular’s CEO saying publicly that there wasn’t a blue-vs-orange divide of accounts and customers).
In the end, bitter clingers to the AWS Charter $99 plan were willing to re-up their contract and forgo a device subsidy. Unlike Verizon today, Cingular obliged, and allowed customers on Charter plans from AT&T Wireless days, to re-up their contract and stay a “blue” customer with the coveted plans.
Of course, eventually, the market pivoted and these plans lost their coveted status. Here, the inverse seems to be happening…
Wow, I so miss the old days when I paid $20 for 100 mintues and unlimited nights and weekends and then tacked on $5.00 for mobile web (unlimited) and $10 for unlimited text messaging. Wireless carriers really stopped caring about their customers and are only concerned about profits for shareholders now and it is quite sad..
It’s not so much that they stopped caring, the overall data usage has skyrocketed. Almost everything now a days is in the cloud. From file storage, messaging, to streaming movies, and the list just goes on. Price increases for data are understandable.
What I find offensive is Verizon’s tactics in trying to almost trick/force people out of the grandfathered plans. Quite frankly, it’s pathetic.