New Verizon Unlimited Plans Are Going To Kill Consumer Goodwill

Back in February, Verizon surprised everyone by announcing that it would begin offering a new unlimited plan. This set off something of a competition between the big four carriers in the US, and at the end of it all, Verizon came out on top with an unlimited plan that was surprisingly good. Today, Verizon is throwing a lot of that out the window by not only splitting its one unlimited plan into multiple tiers, but also by placing new restrictions on unlimited users.

Before we dive into what's changing, let's run through a quick refresher of what Verizon's unlimited plan currently looks like. At the moment, Verizon's unlimited plan costs $80 for a single line, climbing to $140 for two lines and up to $200 for five lines. That gets you "unlimited data" that may be throttled after 22GB of usage, 10GB of mobile hotspot at 4G LTE speeds, and HD video streaming that isn't restricted, meaning you can stream at 1080p resolution and above.

Beginning tomorrow, August 23 (according to Ars Technica), that single unlimited plan will split into three. Two of those are consumer plans, while the other is a business plan (which we won't really touch on much here). Go Unlimited is the name of the first plan, while Beyond Unlimited is the name of the second.

With the Go Unlimited plan, a single line will cost you $75 – $5 less than the current unlimited plan Verizon offers. Two lines will cost $130, which is again less expensive than the current plan, but by the time we work back up to five lines, you're still paying $200 monthly. Verizon says that its Go Unlimited plan includes "unlimited 4G LTE data" and "unlimited mobile hotspot," but as you might imagine, there are a few caveats that come along with those claims.

For example, while you're not going to bump up against a data cap, Verizon reserves the right to throttle your data during times of congestion. There is no 22GB threshold to cross here – if Verizon's network is congested, you're at risk of getting slowed down. That unlimited mobile hotspot is limited to speeds of just 600Kbps, and any video streaming you do will be limited to DVD quality – 480p, in other words.

When we move up to Beyond Unlimited, things look a little bit better, but still not great. At $85 for a single line, $160 for two lines, and $250 for five lines, Beyond Unlimited is decidedly more expensive than Verizon's current unlimited offering. Here we see the 22GB threshold for throttling return, and in a pleasant turn, you'll get 15GB of 4G LTE hotspot data before you're slowed down.

However, on Beyond Unlimited, your video streams will be limited to 720p if you're streaming on a phone and 1080p if you're streaming on a tablet. There doesn't seem to be any way to bump up the limit on phone streaming either, making this plan worse for video streaming than the current one. In fact, since the only extra you're getting is an additional 5GB of mobile hotspot data at 4G LTE speeds, this new plan is unquestionably worse than what Verizon offers now.

While those who are currently on Verizon's unlimited will get to keep it once these new plans go into effect tomorrow, it's absolutely worth pointing out that Verizon's new video streaming rules will apply to everyone, even grandfathered users. Say goodbye to FHD video streams then, unless you happen to be streaming on a tablet, which will cost more each month.

So, at the end of the day, whatever goodwill Verizon has built up with its current unlimited plan is about to all go down the drain. Hopefully Verizon really considered these price hikes and restrictions before implementing them, because to hear the financial reports tell it, the company wasn't exactly in a good spot before unlimited rolled out. It was good while it lasted, we guess.