Most mobile carriers in the U.S. have been offering so-called “unlimited” and “everything” plans for a while now. These plans let users have all they want of texting and voice calls for a fixed monthly rate. The catch is that some of the plans that claim to offer unlimited wireless do actually put limits on how much data you can use each month.
Early in 2009, Sprint announced an unlimited plan that also had wireless data service rolled in for $149. Today Verizon has announced that it will be rolling out some new unlimited plans for its customers starting on January 18. Individual users can get the Nationwide Unlimited Talk plan for $69.99 monthly. Individuals can add unlimited texting to the voice plan for a total of $89.99 monthly.
Verizon users on family plans can get the Nationwide Unlimited Talk Family Share Plan for $119.99 and the Unlimited Talk and Text for families is $149.99 both for the first two lines of service. The bad news in with the new announcements is that Verizon now requires all smartphones on its network to be sold with a data plan. The cheapest data plan is $9.99 monthly for 25MB of data and replaces the $19.99 data plan. Verizon points out that data plans for high-end smartphones running Windows Mobile, Android, and Blackberry devices will still require a data plan costing $29.99 monthly.
Before this announcement, the only smartphones other than the 3G devices that required a data plan were the LG enV Touch and the Samsung Rogue. Verizon is also offering new pay as you go unlimited plans that will cost $74.99 monthly with unlimited pre-paid talk and text plan at $94.99 monthly.
