CNET author Marguerite Reardon recently made a blog post entitled "Is Verizon 'shaking down' customers with family plan?" in response to an angry letter about Verizon sent by a reader. While Maggie tried to defend the carrier's choice under the guise that "it will work better for some people", the truth is, those people are few and far between. If you hate the new Shared Data Plans, speak up in this thread.
Here was my response to her article:
"Maggie, usually your advice is good, but in this instance, for me and my family, you are wrong.
AT&T determined (and everyone followed suit) that the average user spends 2GB of data per month or less. In general, every carrier offered 2GB/month at $30. Even though I hated going from unlimited to 2GB/month, I saw my monthly data usage and actually agreed that it made sense.
As a single person, I would have to pay $60/month for 2GB of data with Verizon. That's DOUBLE of what I pay now!
So let's assume my wife and I get a shared plan - I would have to pay $70/month for 4GB of data with Verizon. That's a $10 increase from what we pay now.
I know they're trying to "sweeten" the deal by making voice and text unlimited, by offering 4G LTE speeds, and by allowing you to share (for people with multiple devices). But the sad fact is - I don't need all that other stuff - I JUST WANT DATA AT A REASONABLE PRICE, VERIZON.
What makes this stranger is that a few months ago, Verizon was offering 4GB/month of 4G LTE data for $30 ... I'm really sorry I wasn't able to jump ship before July 1 to take advantage of that plan.
I thought for sure that my next carrier would be Verizon, since they are the only LTE provider in Seattle. I am sad to report they will not be (and that I'll be waiting for LTE from someone else). I'll be voting with my dollars on who is the best carrier, and Verizon definitely isn't it."
