Verizon is doing everything they can to take away unlimited data plans from their customers. If you haven't been keeping up, Verizon is deliberately selling the Galaxy S III phone almost two weeks after companies like AT&T; while other companies will begin selling their phones during the last week of June, Verizon is not selling the S III until July 10th. By denying customers the phone they want most, they're forcing customers to either upgrade before June 28th to 4G plans with phones that can't currently handle the android OS, upgrade afterwards and pay full price for a phone, or give up their unlimited plans by switching after their cut-off date.
Los Angeles Times has summarized Verizon's attempts at getting rid of their unlimited data customers here.
The new "share everything" plans Verizon is offering are all insults as well. With Verizon's new share everything plan, a person with three smart phones, who never uses more than 1500 minutes, who sends over 5000 text messages, and who use about two to five gigs of data would end up paying $200, not including taxes and other fees, according to the calculator (available here).
Verizon claims there are benefits for families and larger groups, and attempts to make an offer that would be appealing; but as Steve Mesnik, the head of marketing at Verizon himself has noted, "a healthy percentage" of Verizon customers with smart phones currently have unlimited data. In this article from Computerworld.com, Verizon defends the new shared data plans, but it is also pointed that customers aren't happy and shows why. An analyst at Recon Analytics claims that the Verizon users who are complaining are thinking "in a single-device, single person world," but this petition isn't about single-deviced, single-personed worlds; it's about all of us getting together as Verizon customers and telling Verizon that we're their customers and they need us--the very least they could do is listen to us.
Let's tell Verizon: either leave unlimited data for grandfathered customers, don't take away our unlimited data plans if we want to upgrade, or take out appealing phones like the Galaxy S III before June 28th (like their competitors are doing).
