Earlier this week, a Verizon Wireless executive confirmed that current customers who have been "grandfathered" in with their $30 a month unlimited data plan will soon be forced to change to the company"s upcoming shared data plans. Now News.com reports that Verizon has offered up a couple of exceptions to that plan, but neither one is likely to please customers.
One of those exceptions is that Verizon"s unlimited data subscribers can simply keep their current smartphone. If they do, Verizon won"t force them to switch to the upcoming shared, and limited, data plan. The other exception comes if they want to upgrade to a new smartphone. Verizon will let customers keep their unlimited data plan, but they must also pay the full, unsubsidized price, for their new smartphone.
So when the new iPhone comes out later this year, with its rumored 4G LTE support, and if you have a current unlimited plan with the wireless carrier, you can keep it if you pay the full price for the iPhone.
So far Verizon has not announced when its new data sharing plan will go into effect nor how much it will cost. When this change does happen, that will mean Sprint will be the only one of the four major US wireless carriers with a truly unlimited data plan, with no throttling or data overage charges, for its smartphones.