tiered

Verizon to deploy tiered data plans July 7

Sign up for those data plans now, Verizon Wireless customers, as the carrier will replace its unlimited options with tiered services as early as next month.

According to information passed to Droid Life today, Big Red will begin providing three options to customers on July 7: a 2GB plan at $30 per month, a 5GB plan at $50 per month, and a 10GB at plan $80 per month.

Users hoping to tether their device will pay an additional $20 per month, but also receive an extra 2GB of data. Should a customer go over his or her allotted plan, overages … Read more

Ask Maggie: iPhone 5 rumors and iPhone-tracking woes

The summer is quickly approaching and Apple fans are asking when the new iPhone 5 will be out and what new features it will support.

Since 2007, when the first iPhone hit stores, fans of the device have come to expect a new version every year in June or July. But some reports are suggesting that the device may be delayed until the fall. In this week's Ask Maggie, I look at some of the recent rumors surrounding the iPhone 5 to help readers plan and plot their purchasing strategies for the latest iPhone.

I also offer my perspective … Read more

AT&T to introduce data caps on DSL

Unlimited data will soon be a thing of the past for all AT&T customers, as the company confirms it will put a cap on data usage for its DSL and U-verse broadband services.

The blog Broadband Reports confirmed over the weekend that AT&T will introduce a data cap for its broadband services. Customers who exceed a monthly limit of 150GB of data in three separate months will be charged $10 extra for every additional 50GB of data they consume. Customers subscribing to AT&T's faster U-verse broadband service will have a limit of 250GB. … Read more

Report: Verizon to end unlimited iPhone data plans this summer

Verizon's "darling" status with iPhone users may quickly be coming to an end as a new report from Bloomberg cites Verizon's Chief Financial Officer Fran Shammo saying unlimited data plans will no longer be available from the new iPhone carrier.

Current switchers can grab the $30 per month unlimited data plan for their iPhone 4, but that could all change shortly. The offering, which Shammo said was "not a long-term solution," was likely just a marketing tool to entice the first wave of iPhone users to jump from AT&T, which currently does … Read more

Study: U.S. wireless subscribers overpay on service

The average U.S. wireless subscriber is overpaying on his or her cell phone bill by $336 a year, according to a study by BillShrink, a search engine designed to help people find the best service deals to meet their needs.

About 80 percent of U.S. wireless subscribers miscalculate how many anytime voice minutes, text messages, and megabytes of data they need, BillShrink found. As a result, consumers are purchasing wireless plans that don't fit their needs and are actually costing them more money. Collectively, this results in the wireless industry pulling in an extra $79 million for … Read more

Verizon Wireless subscription growth slows

Verizon Communications saw revenue slip in the third quarter of 2010 as it experienced a decline in wireless subscribers.

For the third quarter of 2010, Verizon today reported a profit of $881 million, or 31 cents a share. This was down from $1.18 billion, or 41 cents a share, during the same quarter a year earlier. Excluding certain items, such as merger and restructuring costs, earnings dropped to 56 cents per share from 60 cents and revenue declined 2.9 percent to $26.5 billion. Analysts had expected Verizon to report earnings of 54 cents on $26.3 billion … Read more

Verizon Wireless steps toward tiered data pricing

After months of hints, Verizon Wireless is jumping on the tiered data pricing bandwagon, a source close to the company confirmed on Tuesday.

Starting October 28, the company will launch a new promotion that will allow customers to subscribe to a $15 a month data plan, which gives individual smartphone subscribers 150 megabytes of data for the month. The new pricing is only a promotion for the holiday season and is meant to entice traditional feature-phone customers to upgrade to smartphones, the source said. The source was unable to say whether Verizon would continue to offer the pricing after the … Read more

Verizon readies tiered pricing, hints at Apple again

Months after Verizon first hinted at a move toward tiered pricing, Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg said that it'll introduce the new plans in four to six months, according to the Wall Street Journal. This comes in the wake of its burgeoning LTE implementation, though we don't yet know if this will affect the current 3G CDMA network. Seidenberg was careful to note that the company is not just copying AT&T, which also moved to tiered data pricing earlier this year.

Interestingly, Verizon also indicated that the move to 4G would hopefully move suppliers like Apple to … Read more

Google, Verizon in tiered-Net traffic talks

Links from Thursday's episode of Loaded:

Verizon & Google agreement may raise net fees RIP Google Wave FTC & Intel reach settlement Jailbreakme.com patch coming soon

Tiered data plans can help close digital divide

Editors' note: This is a guest column. See Robert J. Shapiro's bio below.

The familiar, one-size-fits-all flat monthly fee for Internet use is likely headed for the technology junk pile--and it's a good thing for most consumers.

One fee for unlimited broadband access--and the same fee for everybody signing up for a particular service--helped drive the extraordinarily rapid spread of broadband, especially as those fees declined over the last decade. But broadband has changed the Internet, particularly by enabling the spread of bandwidth-intensive video and voice applications.

New analysis shows that as Internet providers ramp up their … Read more