Verizon is launching a new service plan today called Above Unlimited, which is the third unlimited plan the carrier currently offers. As the presence of three “unlimited” plans might indicate, none of these plans really offer unlimited data, but Above Unlimited at least offers the most not-unlimited data out of the three plans: you’re only subject to throttling after using 75GB of data a month, or 20GB of usage as a hot spot. After those limits, your plan is subject to throttling “in times of congestion” until your allotment resets.
The new plan starts at $95 per month for a single line. That’s $10 more than the Beyond Unlimited Plan, which offers 22GB of data and 15GB of hot spot usage before throttling, and $20 more than Go Unlimited, in which you are subject to throttling immediately, all video is compressed down to 480p quality, and hot spot speeds are limited to 600Kbps. Clearly, Verizon’s worried about streamers (at least the ones who aren’t using Go90).
I’m not actually clear on how often or how substantially Verizon throttles Unlimited subscribers who go beyond their cap, but the fact that Verizon is offering this third tier suggests it must be doing enough to cause people problems. It’s good that Verizon is at least offering a larger data option for those who need it, though it could be clearer about what “unlimited” really means.
The carrier is announcing another helpful update today: for families using unlimited plans, it’ll now allow different phones to have different versions of the plan, instead of requiring every line to use the exact same service option. That might allow parents, for instance, to put their kids on the cheaper plan, while they opt for a more expensive one for themselves. Those changes and the new Above Unlimited plan will all become available on June 18th.
Customers of Verizon’s Go Unlimited Plan are subject to throttling immediately, without reaching any kind of cap. This article initially said the plan “doesn’t appear to have a cap,” which was technically right… but not in the way I meant it.
via: techtends
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