Verizon says unlimited data plans are on the way out!

[AZSALUKI]

michaeljtimko wrote:

We don't want that, but money management might be a good place to start.    I just went to Motley Fool to see what Verizon dividend rate is.  As of March 2012 it is $0.50 per share.  That may not sound like a lot, but when you have in excess of 2.8 billion shares on the market, that quarterly dividend payment is over $1.4 billion dollars.    Last quarter Verizon made $1.7 billion dollars.  That leaves $300 million that could be allocated for product development & research.  Maybe Verizon could find a new way to process data and thus not have to come after us unlimited data subscribers if they invested more money in the business.  I won't begrudge the shareholders a decent rate of return on their investment, but 82% of quarterly profit is kind of high.

you can't cut dividends. at&t already yields a higher rate of return to investors than verizon. if you cut dividends, investors will sell. when investors sell, the stock's value drops. the fact is that verizon has done a good job in nearly every financial aspect of the company. will this cause some customers to leave? yes.....but so did passing up the iphone 5 years ago, and they continued to do just fine. their customers can't go anywhere else and avoid an upgrade fee and they know it. they also know that the only carriers that still offer unlimited data have poor networks. i guarantee they have done the cost/benefit studies and tests and have concluded that the benefit far outweighs the cost of losing some customers. i'm not so sure that won't acquire more data customers as a result of this. it will be much easier for families to split a data plan at $50-100/month, than to pay $120/month for 4 separate data plans. i'm the only smartphone user on my plan, but if they offer a reasonable shared plan, then they will be adding my wife and oldest son to the data pool. you can please some people all of the time and all people some of the time, but not all people all of the time.

[#2]

They will definitely gain more customers than they will lose.  And the customer they lose are the ones they want to lose.  They are the people who use lots of data.  They will resell that data on family share plans and increase profits.

[JimDandy]

I have also have this app but it does not show what data I have used since this morning but I am also talking about the three times my daughter came to me to tell me shes suddenly getting text messages when Verizon tells me in writing this feature is blocked. The last time it mysteriously became unblocked I was told on the phone by a Verizon tech she new it was blocked because she was looking at my account. When I sent her a text from the phone in question she just laughed and said although she cant explain it I was still responsible for the overages . It wasn't till I let them turn off service to ALL the phones and told them to sue me that the amount suddenly disappeared from my account and all lines were turned back on. No apologies, they didn't even tell me it was back on. I had to find out from a friend.

GOD loves YOU and there is NOTHING you can do about it!

[Gorilla72]

Well my arguing is done here, my HTC One S came today, I'm buying out of my contract tonight, and switching to Tmobile Pre-Pay!  No more of this contract games, So everyone on here who seems to find the need to SUPPORT big corporations that want to give ALL of us Less for our money, enjoy the continued reaming you are and will continue to get from contracts with these big cell companies. I would say May you get what you pay for, but we all know that's not going to happen.

Later Verizon!!

[michaeljtimko]

Motley Fool (which has been down for two days) finally came back up, so I could now get dividend information for our friends at AT&T. 

Believe it or not, AT&T quarterly dividend is only $0.41 per share.  When you take last quarters profit vs how much profit was returned to shareholder equity, they only hit 65.1%. 

Ultimately, I feel both companies are returning excessive amounts of profit back to the shareholders, but our concern here needs to be Verizon and their 82%.  I will never begrudge a shareholder a reasonable rate of return.  While a corporate is technically owned by its shareholders,

I don't think a rate of return on dividends should ever top 50% of quarterly profit. 

Maybe if the US Congress started taxing unearned dividend income as ordinary income, these excessive dividend payments would slow down.

If the company started holding on to more of its money, then they could treat their customers better and stop trying to wring every dollar they can out of us with $30 upgrade fees, and plans to force us to buy phones at full price (so we can maintain unlimited data) when our month to month agreements will still contain a carrier subsidy payment that they will still collect.

[AZSALUKI]

some of those dividends are "qualified dividends" to certain investors, and depending on your tax situation, are not taxed at all (literally....0% tax). you also have to keep in mind that you keep looking at 1 quarter. i may be wrong, but i believe verizon had a significant loss in the 4th quarter of 2012 (maybe it was 3rd?)?? i'm no investment expert, but i believe that at&t yields a higher annual rate of return to it's investors than verizon. i'm talking about the dividend you receive divided by the price per share, without regard to their net income or how much in total they pay out (i may be wrong.....but if i am than i need to sell my at&t and buy verizon.....lol). a 44 cent dividend on a $30 stock is better than a 50 cent dividend on a $40 stock.

[Admiral_Fear]

I am so glad Verizon's finally getting rid of all the greedy data users. Hate on me all you want, but with unlimited gone, Verizon's data limits will finally free up as there aren't a whole bunch of data whores on the market. If you would like to see what Verizon would be like if they kept only unlimited, look at Sprint and Clearwire. I'm practically forced to have Clear, and I have dial-up speeds most of the time. What's better, Sprint owns Clear, and Sprint has one of the worst stocks around. Verizon made the mistake of offering unlimited in the first place having no idea how it would backfire. Verizon's NEVER dropped a call, even in the middle of the Nevada desert. They're worked as a perfect back-up internet provider, I almost never have to talk to their customer service, and the one time I did, they were good and willingly took off one of two overage charges from our bill. If you don't want to get charged, get a data counting app. Unless you have an iFail, there's a bunch of free ones on Google Play. I'd love to get their homefusion, but the price is still just too high. Again, hate all you want, I don't care, but those of you that kill the network with outrageous usage is why the rest of us have to suffer the high cost of data.

[skafoglou]

Can't tell if trolling or uneducated and confused.

<insert Fry meme>

[michaeljtimko]

You really need a history lesson.  At one time all the major carriers offered unlimited data.  It is true there are some data hogs out there and based on the numbers I have heard them use, they are on unlimited plans which gives all of us that use our plans wisely a black eye for their bad behavior.  Had you read this thread you would notice that I am in favor of hard limit caps on Verizon's unlimited data plan.  This would be similar to what TMobile does.  They say they still offer unlimited data, but only the first 2 GB is high speed.  After 2, you connection slows down for the remainder the billing cycle.  As to backfiring, Verizon's unlimited data plan is not backfiring.  In fact, it probably was a great selling point to get customers through the door.  Combine that with Verizon was the first cell company to offer unlimited 4G.  The problem with unlimited data is people do abuse it.  I have read websites that talk about how people have used Verizon's Data Plan to download torrent files to their laptop via hotspot from their smartphone and I read about a person who played Worlds of Warcraft off the 4G connection because their home line was on 1.5 MBPS, but they could hit speeds of 11 to 15 MBPS when the used their phone and a internet server.  Essentially, a few rotten apples spoil the bunch.  The majority of us long term, grandfathered unlimited data plan holders are very decent people and pay verzion a pretty penny for our service.  It's a shame that Verizon has chosen to go after everyone instead of just the offenders, but in this case Verizon has chosen to maximize profits over customer service.

[Germain916]

I'm with you, mostly.  There seems to be customers using thier mobile wireless as their primary internet connection.  Verizon should consider treating MiFi hotspots differently from cellphone usage and also discriminate geographically.  In rural areas where a 4G hotspot is the only decent connection available and population density is low, they should definitely continue unlimited plans.  They could charge an extra $10 and pump up their infrastructer.  In highly saturated areas though, people with cell phones needing mobile data shouldn't be compromised by people playing WOWC or downloading Netflix.  I don't use even a Gb in a month even though i have unlimited.  I have an app that will allow me to tether to full size a computer, but it's only for back up.  If I tether, I use an enormous amount of date without even trying.  It's not a matter of downloading movies.  It's as much about the operating system and screen size.  The more I think about it, the more I can understand that Verizon's primary business is cell phone service.  Satisfying people who need more than 2-3 Gb per month will never be more important than having no dropped calls and always having super fast 4G LTE on their cell phones.  I want them to kick butt all over ATT Wireless.  Leave the whooping of UVerse arse to Xfinity.