The new Verizon "Share Everything" plans represent a 180-degree shift from what the company had been offering only a year ago. Then, smartphone users paid $30 per month for unlimited data while choosing among various limits on calling minutes and texts. Starting later this month, new subscribers will pay $40 per smartphone for unlimited calling and texting, and $50 to $100 per month for 1GB to 10GB of data.
Old-school phone users who burn through their minutes will benefit from the change, as will incessant texters. But that group is a dwindling breed. Data now makes up 85 percent of the traffic on mobile networks, according to FierceMobileContent, with customers on some of those networks averaging 800MB a month. And the volume of data is growing rapidly, doubling year after year.
The surge in data has prompted three of the four carriers that dominate the mobile market - Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile - to drop their unlimited data plans in favor of tiered pricing. From the carrier's perspective, it makes sense to charge heavy data users more. The problem with Verizon's new approach is that even a light user with a smartphone is being hit with a bigger bill. It's not just the ceiling that's going up in price, it's the floor too.
The question for regulators is whether the entire industry follows Verizon's lead, creating a pricing structure that slams the brakes on growth and innovation in wireless technology by making consumers think twice about their data usage. Verizon can and should experiment with new offers as it tries to adapt to evolving demand, but so should its competitors. (One, AT&T, is coming up with its own shared-data plans.) For now, at least, consumers who don't like Verizon's new plans can choose from among several alternatives. Meanwhile, the onus is on Washington to make the airwaves available for a vigorously competitive wireless broadband market so that consumers, not carriers, control the pace of the mobile revolution.
