Verizon To Drop Unlimited Data Plans, May Add Family Data Plans

If you're currently enjoying an unlimited data plan with Verizon, then be wary that things may change very soon, as in this summer. Verizon plans to eliminate smartphone plans that allow unlimited data usage for a flat fee and replace them with tiered plans that will have heavy data users paying more.

However, to soften the blow, Verizon plans to introduce family plans for data service. Currently, family plans are common for voice service with minutes shared among two or more smartphones. But, data services remain to be a $30-per-month-per-user affair with a separate data charge for tablets. But now, Verizon hints that it may unleash some sort of "mega" data plan that can be shared among all devices within the plan.

"We had individual minutes for individual users. Then we eventually got to what we call family share where everyone in the family shares the same minutes," said Verizon CFO Fran Shammo. "I think it's safe to assume that at some point you are going to have mega-plans (for data) and people are going to share that mega-plan based on the number of devices within their family. That's just a logical progression."

However, an exact time frame of when such a mega-plan would be introduced was not revealed.

[via Reuters]