Irony: Verizon Announces Unlimited Data Plan That Its Customers Supposedly Didn’t Need

“Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!” Verizon has been working behind the scenes on a new unlimited data plan for its customers, and it just unwrapped the goodies this afternoon. Called Verizon Unlimited, customers are given “unlimited” 4G LTE data, talk and text for $80 per month (when you use AutoPay).

But that’s not all, Verizon Unlimited also comes with 10GB of Mobile Hotspot per month, along with unlimited calling and texting to Mexico and Canada. Building on that North American coverage, Verizon Unlimited also gives you 500MB/day of 4G LTE data in Mexico and Canada with your plan.

The company also gets a subtle dig in at T-Mobile, as HD video streaming is included with the package (whereas T-Mobile will throttle you down to 480p resolutions by default with T-Mobile One).

The one big caveat is that although it’s called Verizon Unlimited, there are still limits to what you can accomplish during a billing cycle. In this case, once you consume 22GB of data within your billing cycle, Verizon “may prioritize usage behind other customers in the event of network congestion.”

“We’ve built our network so we can manage all the activity customers undertake. Everything we’ve done is to provide the best experience on the best network – and we’ve built it for the future, not just for today,” said Ronan Dunne, executive vice president and group president of Verizon Wireless. “We also fundamentally want you to have more choice. We’re not limiting you to a single plan. If you don’t need unlimited data, we still have 5 GB, S, M, and L Verizon plans that are perfect for you.”

As we mentioned previously, Verizon Unlimited costs $80 per month for a single line. If a family of four signs up for Verizon Unlimited, the price drops to $45 per line (with AutoPay enabled).

We thought that we had seen the beginning of the end for Verizon’s unlimited data plans when it started putting the shackles on grandfathered customers who crossed the 200GB threshold during a billing cycle. Verizon twisted the knife in deeper, telling these customers that they would be forced to use its “data bucket” plans.

This move at least proves that Verizon is willing to take a step back and assess what customer want, even if CFO Fran Shammo thinks that unlimited customers “tend to be abusive”, that his company “cannot make money on an unlimited video world,” and that "At the end of the day, people don't need unlimited plans."