Verizon Planning to End Grandfathered Unlimited Data Plans With LTE Switch

U.S. cellular carrier Verizon is planning to move its customers who still have unlimited data plans for their smartphones to its new family data-share plans as customers switch to LTE data plans.

The iPhone was initially offered with unlimited data plans when it launched on Verizon early last year, but the carrier soon dropped the unlimited option in favor of data plans with allocations of data.

Fierce Wireless has the details, quoting Verizon Communications CFO Fran Shammo at a JP Morgan conference:

As these 3G unlimited data plan customers migrate to 4G LTE, they will have to purchase the company's data-share plan (which Verizon plans to launch in mid-summer) and move off the $30 per month unlimited data plan. "Everyone will be on data share," Shammo said.

Verizon currently throttles its unlimited data users only when a particular cell tower is overloaded, whereas competitor AT&T slows its unlimited users after they use 3GB of data in a month. AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson recently noted that his one regret about bringing the iPhone to AT&T was offering unlimited data.

Sprint, the number three carrier in the country -- and the only carrier to still offer unlimited data packages for the iPhone -- has said it will continue to offer unlimited data plans for the iPhone, even if the next iPhone includes LTE, as is expected.