Verizon’s Unlimited Plan Get Updated, With Videos Now Throttled

There was much rejoicing when Verizon Wireless had decided to resurrect its unlimited data plan back in February early this year. After all, subscribers of the plan get to enjoy unlimited data without any major caveats. But then again, the Big Red has now opted to introduce some changes to its offering (albeit quietly), and they may not be welcome news for mobile users.

About a month after the biggest mobile operator in the country had confirmed that it was indeed throttling connection speeds from Netflix and other video content providers, Verizon has now dividing its unlimited data offering into three basic plans that come with new sets of caveats. The options now include the basic Go Unlimited plan (which has a starting price of $75 a month for a single line of service), the Beyond Unlimited plan (which has a starting price of $85 a month), and the Business Unlimited plan (which is aimed for enterprises).

These new plans, however, come with new restrictions with regards to video content streaming. On the standard Go Unlimited plan, video streaming is throttled at 480 p on smartphones and 720 p on tablet devices. While on the Beyond Unlimited plan, video streams are capped at 720 p on smartphones and 1,080 p on tablets. As for the Business Unlimited plan, video streaming speeds are throttled at 480 p, too. According to Verizon Wireless, there is no significant difference in quality at those resolutions. But for those customers who own devices with high quality display screens like Samsung’s Galaxy S8 Plus or Apple’s iPad Pro, they might be begging to disagree.

And even though the standard Go Unlimited option grants subscribers access to unlimited hotspot, it is only at 600 kbps. The Beyond Unlimited and Business Unlimited plans do offer LTE connection speeds, but only for the first 15 gigabytes or 10 gigabytes, respectively. For customers with plans to go to Mexico and Canada, they better be aware that will need to avail of the Beyond Unlimited plan at least, in order to make full use of Verizon’s wireless service in those two countries as they would in American soil.

Existing customers will be grandfathered into a previous unlimited plan, and they will actually enjoy 5 more gigabytes of data at LTE connection speeds (15 gigabytes in total) as compared to before. But it bears noting that those older plans will now have to comply with the new throttling policy, which would still be a bummer.