As it gears up for its next-generation network, the nation’s top carrier, Verizon Wireless, is mulling a tiered pricing plan based on data usage, a top executive said in a published interview. The company’s chief financial officer, John Killian, told Business Week that as more smartphones access the Internet via Verizon’s network, “We will probably need to change the design of our pricing where it will not be totally unlimited, flat rate.”
But Killian was evidently referring only to users of the Long Term Evolution network that Verizon expects to bring online by the end of the year, with new phones accessing it in mid-2011.
Verizon spokesperson Brenda Rainey told us that Killian’s comments pertained to the 4G network and will not affect 3G users in the foreseeable future. “We plan on supporting 3G for at least a decade,” Rainey said.
Verizon Wireless is a partnership between Verizon Communications and Vodafone.
A tiered pricing plan would put the company on a par with AT&T, which eliminated unlimited data plans last month, just ahead of the release of Apple’s iPhone 4 and almost coinciding with the introduction of the iPad. AT&T is the exclusive U.S. carrier for both.
AT&T now charges smartphone users $15 for a basic data plan of 200 megabytes, with a $15 fee for each additional 200 megabytes. Another plan, for $25, allows two gigabytes of data with a $10 charge for each additional gigabyte.
With faster, hungrier phones emerging by the handful, analysts say it’s only a matter of time before the so-called “all you can eat” data plans go the way of dial-up Internet access.
“We have been advocating this strategy for a while,” said Carolina Milanesi, vice president of mobile-devices research at Gartner. “As smartphones move down into mass-market price points, carriers cannot assume that smartphone users will all be…