Well, it was nice while it lasted. Today, Verizon (the biggest carrier in the US) announced it was doing away with its simple and fair unlimited wireless data plan and complicating things by instead offering three plans. Two of those cost more, and all three come with compromise. Customers who pick the cheapest plan can have their data speeds throttled at any time. Video won't stream above 480p and tethering data is limited to the ludicrously slow speed of 600Kbps. Meanwhile, opting for the more expensive plan limits you to 720p video on phones and 1080p video on tablets, and you'll only be throttled if the network is congested and you've used more than 22GB of data in one billing cycle. (The third plan is aimed as business customers.)
This is a big change from what Verizon announced in February, when it surprised just about everyone by bringing back unlimited data. As a reminder, the big US wireless carriers killed unlimited data back in 2011 and started moving customers to tiered plans, wherein you paid for what you used. But Verizon's new unlimited plan that came out earlier this year was blessedly simple: There was just one plan, your data speeds were only throttled if you both went over 22GB and Verizon's network was currently congested, and you got a full 10GB of LTE tethering data every month. It wasn't a cheap plan, but it probably was the most straightforward wireless option with the fewest compromises out there.
Verizon's always-on throttling is an afront to customers and net neutrality posted first on http://ift.tt/1tUdcCk
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