The Verge reports that Verizon Wireless has announced that its current unlimited data plan is no more, and will be replaced by three new options: Go Unlimited (from $75 for a single line); Beyond Unlimited ($85 for first line); and Business Unlimited. Apparently, these new plans are all much more complicated than the previous plan, which was introduced back in February.
Also, and possibly the main cause of the complaints about the new schemes, the Go Unlimited plan throttles all smartphone video streaming to 480p DVD quality. “Moving forward, HD video on all legacy plans will also match Beyond Unlimited’s HD quality,” said Verizon in its press release about the changes. This means that eventually, the maximum video quality that Verizon users will be able to achieve is 720p streaming on iPhones and 1080p on iPads, and nothing higher than that whatsoever, even if you’re using a laptop connected to your mobile hotspot.
“We’re doing this to ensure all customers have a great experience on our network since there is no visible difference in quality on a smartphone or tablet when video is shown at higher resolutions,” said Verizon. Verizon also claims that “nobody can see a difference” between 720p and 1080p, but as The Verge says, it does not provide any evidence to support this statement.
Source: Verizon’s good unlimited data plan is now three bad unlimited plans
