Verizon Brings Back “Unlimited” Data Plan Starting Tomorrow for $80 (Updated)

Because weekends are always an opportunity to introduce something huge (), Verizon today took the time to announce that unlimited data is coming back to their network. Nope, this isn’t a joke – Verizon unlimited is back in modern form, which means “unlimited” with some asterisks. The plan goes live tomorrow, so lets talk about it.

UPDATE 2/13: The new Verizon Unlimited plan is now live. Sign-up here.

Starting tomorrow, February 13, Verizon is offering a new unlimited data plan to customers. It starts at $80 for a single line, but they are offering a family of four the chance to get in for $45 per line $180 per month. These are introductory prices and both require Autopay. EDIT: The original breakdown said $45 per, but that’s not how it works. It’s actually a $100 account level price for unlimited, plus $20 per line from there. So an account with 4 lines is $20 per line, plus the $100 for the unlimited account.

The unlimited plan includes unlimited data, talk, and text. Should a customer hit 22GB of data used in a month, Verizon says that they may throttle you if you are connected to a tower or area experiencing congestion throughout the rest of the billing cycle. It’s called “network management,” and they have been doing this for years.

The rest of the plan features HD video streaming, 10GB of data for high-speed tethering (3G after 10GB used) per month, calling and texting to Mexico and Canada, and up to 500MB per day of 4G LTE data roaming in Mexico and Canada.

UPDATE: Verizon reached out to point out that even though their press release states “HD” video streaming is included, that this isn’t a throttle to 720p. In fact, they specifically said that they deliver across the network “whatever the content provider gives” them and that there is no manipulation to the data. I should point out that a source of ours also relayed some of the training materials for the new Verizon Unlimited plan and it does say that “Full-quality HD Video” is included. I would assume that means as Verizon is telling us, that they are delivering whatever the highest quality is that the provider sends. That’s a big change!

You’ll notice I said “HD video streaming,” and that’s because Verizon is also throttling video streams just like T-Mobile and Sprint do. They are giving you HD (720p), though, instead of the 480p streams that the others hand out. While we’re never fans of a carrier throttling anything, 720p is better than 480p. What we don’t know just yet is whether or not Verizon will let you upgrade to get out of video throttling or not.

If you don’t want to sign-up for a Verizon unlimited plan, they will still offer S, M, and L Verizon plans.

Thoughts?

UPDATE 2: We put together an Everything You Need to Know style post. You’ll want to cruise through it as we continue to add all of the little details you may have questions about.

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