We live in a data hungry world these days, and there are no two ways about it. After all, just about all mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets do come with the capability to help you enjoy high speed data wherever you are. This has led to some serious competition between various mobile carriers, where all of them jostle with one another in order to obtain your signature on the dotted line for their respective monthly data plans. So much so, in fact, that one can always enjoy an unlimited data plan.
However, when it comes to such unlimited data plans, there will be some customers who would take this kind of offer literally, and start to binge on their data consumption. This has led Verizon to put its foot down, as Verizon Wireless customers who are making use of their unlimited data plans in such a manner and consume over 100GB of data each month will be disconnected from the network this coming August 31 unless they agree to make the jump to limited data plans that will require overage fees after passing a certain limit.
In other words, these would be relatively mature customers already, as Verizon did cease to offer unlimited data plans to new smartphone customers all the way back in 2011. We all know how half a decade can be deemed to be an eternity in the world of technology, and there are some customers out there who managed to maintain the old plan as opposed to switching over to new ones that have the disadvantage of monthly data limits.
Those who have been holding out have been tempted by Verizon before to move over to other plans through the increase of the plan's pricing by $20 a month, while throttling heavy users from time to time, but did not continue with such practices after net neutrality rules were introduced. I suppose the executives over at Verizon were wondering just what can be done about this situation, resulting in the latest policy that will forcefully disconnect the heaviest of data users.
100GB if a whole lot of data to consume to say the least, and chances are if you pass that mark, you would most probably have indulged in a whole lot of video streaming, not to mention downloading or transferring large sized files frequently. In some other countries, unlimited is not really unlimited, as a fair usage policy is introduced to combat such activities.
Verizon shared, "Because our network is a shared resource and we need to ensure all customers have a great mobile experience with Verizon, we are notifying a very small group of customers on unlimited plans who use an extraordinary amount of data that they must move to one of the new Verizon Plans by August 31, 2016," a Verizon spokesperson told Ars. "These users are using data amounts well in excess of our largest plan size (100GB). While the Verizon Plan at 100GB is designed 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."
There you go -- from the horse's mouth itself! Since 99 percent of Verizon's customers are rocking to plans with data limits, this will target the remaining 1 percent of its user base.
