The holiday season brought a big surprise to some Verizon Wireless customers.
Shortly after AT&T raised rates for unlimited data plans, Verizon is taking things even further.
$40 Rate Increase
Jessie Shipmon opened his Verizon cellphone bill the other day, and was stunned.
"We got our bill for this month and it said there was an increase of a total of $40. So we were wondering what that $40 was for."
He and his wife have been on Verizon's unlimited data plan for eight years, grandfathered into in when Verizon dropped unlimited data for new customers fours years ago.
But a note with the bill explained that as of December, remaining unlimited plans are going up $20 a month per device.
With two phones,"over the course of the year, that $20 equals almost $500!"
Why the Rate Hike? What You Can Do?
Verizon announced the rate hike two months ago, blaming it on an explosion in video and data use.
It comes after an FCC ruling saying it's legal, and AT&T's hiking its unlimited plans $5 a month.
Now, Verizon is giving you some other options if you don't like the rate hike, but it's nothing like what you had before.
"They give you other options that you can get different data plans. So basically they want us to drop the unlimited data plan," Shipmon said.
In addition, Verizon will let customers facing this hike upgrade to a new phone, and new contract, without facing any penalties.
CNET magazine says if you use three gigs of data or less, a standard plan will now cost you less.
CNET says Verizon, like other companies, really wants unlimited plans to go away because when they launched them almost 10 years ago, no one imagined we'd be watching movies on smartphones or tablets.
As always, don't waste your money.
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