Verizon hopped (back) on the unlimited data train in February, joining all of its national competition in doing so. But six months later, as the dust has settled, those plans are getting some tweaks — and every Verizon Wireless customer is getting their video throttled as a result. [More]
unlimited data
Virgin Mobile Transitioning To iPhone-Only, Offers Year Of Unlimited Data For $1
By 6.21.17
It seems like the four major wireless providers are changing their plans daily to undercut each other and steal customers, but one prepaid wireless company is basically trying to out-promo everyone else by paring down to just one phone and offering a year of data for just(ish) $1. [More]
AT&T Users Have No Way To Know How Much Data They’re Tethering, Despite 10GB Cap
By 4.28.17 — Updated: 5.9.17
When AT&T resurrected unlimited data plans, it also introduced a feature it had shunned the first time around: letting subscribers use their phone as a mobile hotspot (AKA “tethering”), but only up to 10 GB per month. But there’s a flaw in AT&T’s execution that prevents users from knowing how much tethering data they’ve actually used. [More]
What You Need To Know About Comcast’s $45-$65/Month ‘Xfinity Mobile’ Wireless Plans
By 4.6.17 — Updated: 5.10.17
Since the year began, Comcast has been promising it would launch a mobile service in the middle of the year. The launch isn’t here yet, but now we know a lot more about what that plan will look like when it does materialize. [More]
AT&T Tweaks Unlimited Data Plan To Better Compete With Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile
By 2.27.17
It’s been two weeks since Verizon’s surprise announcement that it was bringing back unlimited mobile data plans kicked off a huge flurry of activity, with all four national carriers introducing or improving their own offerings. But a point-by-point comparison of all four left many folks wondering: Is AT&T even trying? AT&T apparently wondered that too, and so is tweaking their plan once more. [More]
Confused By All These New Unlimited Mobile Data Plans? Here’s What’s Up
By 2.17.17 — Updated: 2.27.17
It’s amazing what competition can do to a marketplace: In the span of a week, all four national wireless carriers have either introduced, enhanced, or dropped prices or restrictions on unlimited data offerings for mobile customers. But that’s a lot of change all at once — so what does it mean for you, the actual subscriber? [More]
AT&T Updates Unlimited Plans In Wake Of Verizon, T-Mobile Changes
By 2.16.17
The unlimited data plan wars are heating up. Days after Verizon’s surprise announcement that it was bringing back unlimited data options and T-Mobile’s decision to boost its own plans, AT&T has launched a new — you guessed it! — unlimited data plan. [More]
T-Mobile Fires Back At Verizon, Improves Its Unlimited Plan
By 2.14.17
This is why competition is good for consumers: On the heels of Verizon’s surprise announcement yesterday that it’s bringing back unlimited data options, T-Mobile, refusing to be outdone, boosted its own offering. [More]
Surprise! Verizon Wireless Bringing Back Unlimited Data Plans
By 2.13.17
Once upon a time, when smartphones were a brand new idea and 4G was still a glint in an engineer’s eye, Verizon offered its customers unlimited monthly data plans. For many years now, though, the company has been trying every trick it can to squeeze its remaining grandfathered unlimited-data customers off their plans. It looked for all the world as though Verizon had well and truly abandoned unlimited data to the era of Blackberry and “Gangnam Style”… until late last night when Verizon announced, surprise! Unlimited data is back. [More]
Verizon Kicking Another Round Of Data Hogs Off Grandfathered Unlimited Plans
By 1.9.17 — Updated: 1.10.17
Back in July, Verizon made a move to limit its remaining unlimited data customers, telling them to switch to a limited plan or have their lines disconnected. Now, inside sources report that another round of cuts is underway, this time booting customers who use 200 GB or more in mobile data every month. [More]
Verizon Will Now Sell You All The Unlimited Data You Can Use… For An Hour
By 10.18.16
We usually think of data as something that cycles monthly: your mobile bill comes once a month, and it has all your data charges on it. Bandwidth you use on the 1st is essentially interchangeable with bandwidth you use on the 15th or 30th. But Verizon is apparently tired of thinking monthly, and is now going a little shorter-term. As in, hourly. [More]
Hey, Sprint Has Some New Unlimited Plans, Too
By 8.18.16
This morning, we shared the news that T-Mobile USA was doing away with the entire concept of mobile plans, and instead putting all postpaid users on plans with unlimited voice, messaging, and data. Competing small carrier and erstwhile merger partner Sprint doesn’t want to be left out, and announced its own unlimited plan today. [More]
Here’s A Letter Verizon Wireless Sent To A User Of ‘Extraordinary Amounts’ Of Data
By 7.27.16
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. [More]
Verizon Cutting Off Customers Who Test Limits Of ‘Unlimited’ Data
By 7.22.16 — Updated: 1.9.17
There are apparently some Verizon Wireless customers out there who still have unlimited data, despite the carrier’s attempts to get rid of them by doing away with phone subsidies when these customers sign new contracts and hiking their monthly plan charges by $20 apparently weren’t enough, and now the company has announced plans to get rid of the heaviest users, the ones who gobble 100 GB or more worth of data every month. [More]
AT&T Copies Comcast, Lets U-Verse Customers Pay $30 To Avoid Data Caps
By 3.30.16
We don’t know why anyone would want to be like Comcast, but AT&T sure seems to be doing its best to dress itself up just like the chaps from Kabletown. They both hate community broadband and will lobby to shut it down when it competes with their services, and they both only offer competitive pricing when Google Fiber is in the mix. Now AT&T is following Comcast’s lead on data caps, by generously offering to let customers pay more to avoid running into those monthly limits. [More]
AT&T’s Remaining Unlimited Data Customers Getting $5/Month Rate Hike In 2016
By 11.30.15
It’s been years since AT&T stopped offering new unlimited data plans, but a number of customers have held onto their grandfathered plans for years — even as the company throttled their access for actually trying to use the “unlimited” data that was promised. Come February, AT&T will raise the price on unlimited plans for the first time in years. [More]
Sprint’s $20 “Unlimited” Plan Is Anything But; Throttles Data After 1GB
By 10.30.15
For several years, wireless companies have been selling data plans that were dubiously described as “unlimited” because users’ connections were slowed after passing some sort of arbitrary monthly threshold (usually around 3-5 gigabytes). But Sprint’s new plan — selling for only $20/month — lowers the limbo bar so close to the ground that the term “unlimited” might not be flexible enough to slip underneath. [More]
Sprint Changes Its Mind, Will Start Throttling Speeds For Its Greediest Unlimited Data Customers
By 10.16.15
Is an unlimited data plan still unlimited if there’s a threshold marking the point at which your network speeds will be slowed down? Sprint seems to think so: after telling customers in June that it would no longer throttle speeds for customers on its unlimited plan using an excessive amount of data, today Sprint has changed its tune, and says it’ll slow down customers when they reach a 23GB monthly threshold. [More]
