Android Tablet Update

“Verizon is going to have to pry that plan from my cold dead hands.” Don’t worry Sean Riley, you can keep that grandfathered unlimited data plan as long as you purchase your phone a full retail price.

Today Verizon issued an updated statement to address concerns from subscribers that thought they might be forced to give up their unlimited data plans as Verizon migrates to shared data plans this summer. Customers who take advantage of upgrade pricing will in fact lose their unlimited data, but as long as they pay full price for their device then they can keep the same plan.

More information on the data-share tiers will be coming closer to the introduction of the new plans later this year. Check out Verizon’s statement below for the full details. Does this news calm your fears?

As we have stated publicly, Verizon Wireless has been evaluating its pricing structure for some time. Customers have told us that they want to share data, similar to how they share minutes today. We are working on plans to provide customers with that option and will introduce new plans later this year.

When the new options are introduced, Unlimited Data will no longer be available to our customers purchasing handsets and signing a new contract. Customers who choose to purchase phones at full retail price and are currently on an unlimited smartphone data plan will be able to keep that plan. The same pricing and policies will apply to all 3G and 4G LTE smartphones.

We will share specific details of the plans well in advance of their introduction so customers will have time to evaluate the plans and make the best decisions for their wireless service. It is our goal and commitment to continue to provide customers with the same high value service they have come to expect from Verizon Wireless.Brenda RaneyVerizon Wireless

Starting this summer Verizon plans to eliminate the $30 unlimited data plan that it still offers to subscribers who were grandfathered into it, when tiered data plans were rolled out last year. The news comes from Verizon Communications CFO Fran Shammo who said that as these 3G unlimited data plan customers migrate to 4G LTE devices, they will be forced to adopt the company’s new data-share plan that is expected by mid-summer.

“LTE is our anchor point for data share, so as you come through an upgrade cycle and you upgrade in the future, you will have to go onto the data share plan, moving away from the unlimited world,” Shammo said. “A lot of our 3G base is on unlimited. When they migrate off 3G they will have to go to data share. That is beneficial to us.”

AT&T recently began encouraging their subscribers to migrate to tiered plans (which pissed some customers off), so it’s not much of a surprise to see Verizon doing the same thing.

Verizon goes on to say the new data-share plan will allow subscribers to connect more devices. Shammo said, “If I can add as many devices as I want, that is more efficient from a family perspective and a small business perspective.”

Some say that you should be scared of Verizon’s shared data plans, but I’m not so sure that I share that opinion yet. I might be alone in this thinking, but I don’t mind tiers and paying for the data that I consume. Of course I wish that there were cheaper tiers and data overages cost less, but I don’t have a problem with the basic concept of shared data buckets for multiple devices.

If you are a Verizon customers, I’m curious to know what you think. Will the end of unlimited data plans encourage you to switch to a carrier like Sprint that offers truly unlimited data?

AT&T announced last year that they would start throttling the devices for their top 5% of data consumers, but the complaints keep coming in. AT&T has tried to justify this practice, but it’s clear they are trying to inconvenience subscribers who are on grandfathered unlimited plans, so they switch over to newer metered plans.

Cameron Summerson of Android Police spotted a video of Fox News’ Sheppard Smith that clearly shows the frustration that a percentage of AT&T customers are feeling. On his show this week Smith responded to AT&T by saying, “Remember the contract? And now the word is, we are going to charge you more. Your system is no good and you fibbed to me and I don’t appreciate it.”

The days of unlimited plans are nearing an end, but some carriers like Sprint and MetroPCS still offer truly unlimited plans to differentiate their service. I’m glad that the unlimited option still exists for those that want it, but I wonder how long they can keep it up.

I’ve never been an AT&T customer, but I understand how it must suck to sign a contract and then have the terms changed on you later.

Do you think we are being too hard on AT&T? What would you say if you were forced to give up your grandfathered unlimited data and switch to a metered plan?

A few days back, we told you the story of an AT&T customer whose data was throttled once he used a little more than 2GB on his unlimited plan. It’s no secret that AT&T has been throttling data for the top five percent of consumers since last year, but none of us were expecting that the cutoff would begin at the 2GB threshold.

In order to explain the company’s actions, Mark Siegel, an AT&T spokesman has pointed out to the Wall Street Journal that AT&T’s top five percent data consuming customers use an average of 2GB per month. While AT&T reserves the right to throttle all customer who fall into that category, it’s not an automatic process. AT&T actually takes into account the user’s location and network capacity before enabling data throttling. Based on this system,  ”less than 1 percent of AT&T smartphone customers” were effected by data throttling policy last month.

There’s a very good chance you wouldn’t be slowed.Mark SiegelAT&T

While we’d like to take Mark Siegel at his word, the details are too vague.  We don’t know how many of AT&T’s customers are still grandfathered into AT&T’s unlimited data plan, but we can guarantee that the ”less than 1 percent of AT&T smartphone customers” calculation also accounts for all of AT&T’s customers with metered data plans.

We know that data throttling is here to stay. All we want is for carriers to be 100% transparent and tell consumers exactly when they will reach the throttling threshold.  What do you think AT&T should do to fix this issue?

Sprint has spent millions of dollars promoting their truly unlimited data plans the past year, so many were surprised when a Dow Jones Newswire report claimed that CEO Dan Hesse said they throttle the top 1% of users. A day later and we find out Hesse was actually misquoted. It turns out he was actually referring to roaming data and not talking about postpaid customers.

“We don’t throttle our unlimited postpaid customers,” Sprint executive Bill White told CNET. A Sprint blog post clarified the facts:

• Sprint does not throttle any postpaid phone data users for on-network or off-network usage. Sprint is the only national carrier offering smartphone users truly unlimited data with no throttling, metering or overages while on the Sprint network.
• Sprint does have terms and conditions which prohibit certain types of data use that may impair other customers’ usage or harm or interfere with the network. At yesterday’s investor conference, Sprint CEO Dan Hesse was referring to Sprint’s right to terminate service of data abusers who violate Sprint’s terms and conditions. Customers who abuse our network by violating the terms and conditions will be contacted by Sprint in an effort to have the customer change their usage to comply with their subscriber agreement. Customers who do not change their usage and remain in violation of the terms and conditions may be subject to actions reserved by Sprint, including but not limited to termination. Consistent with our advertising, engaging in such uses will not result in throttling for customers on unlimited data-included plans for phones.

So it appears all the fuss yesterday was a little overblown, but that doesn’t mean that Sprint won’t eventually start to throttle or create new limits. Sprint is expected to roll out their 4G LTE network by mid-2012 and we expect some new data plans will follow.

It would be pretty awesome if Sprint offers the Galaxy Nexus with unlimited LTE data, but we will have to wait and see.