Verizon Wireless brought back nominally unlimited mobile data by letting users have access just fast enough to check e-mail and make text posts to Facebook once they’re run through their data allotment, but what the company really wants is to get customers who still have unlimited data off their network for good. They’re starting with friendly letters to heavy users.

Droid Life has the scoop, and a copy of one of the letters.

No, Verizon doesn’t specify how much data the recipient was using in the letter, but the recipient said that the “extraordinary” data use was sometimes over 100 GB on one of his two lines, and generally over 250 on the other. Yes, that’s a lot of data: staying well below that usage may allow you to keep your unlimited plan for now, since Verizon may be after only the top data-gobblers.

Instead, this letter promotes Verizon’s new tiers of mobile plans, promoting plans that start at 30 GB for $135 per month, ending with the carrier’s largest consumer plan, 100 GB at $450 per month.

Can Verizon do this? Yes, once you’re no longer on a contract, the company is free to change your plan. Customers who have plans that the company no longer offers can keep them and the old pricing unless they have an unlimited plan and are one of those top data users.

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