Verizon's new plans raise prices for more data

NEW YORK—Verizon Wireless revamped its pricing plans Wednesday, offering customers more generous data allotments while also increasing monthly rates by $5-$10.

It also added catch-up features such as the ability for customers to roll over any of the data that they don't use to the next month.

The higher prices indicate Verizon, which has been fighting off aggressive competition from lower cost T-Mobile and Sprint, is confident its customers will swallow higher monthly bills in exchange for more generous monthly data plans.

Verizon's cheapest "S" (for smallest) plan will now offer 2GB of shared data for $35 per month, up from $30 for 1GB. The medium "M" plan will also increase in price by $5, offering 4GB of data for $50 per month (up from 3GB for $45).

Verizon's "L," "XL" and "XXL" plans will all see $10 increases. The "L" plan will now cost $70 a month for 8GB of data (up from 6GB), the "XL" plan $90 a month for 16GB (up from 12GB) and the "XXL" $110 per month for 24GB of shared data.

You can switch among any of the sample sizes at any time via a newly-designed My Verizon app. Current users happy with their existing plans do not have to change them.

The data increases come as users continue to consume more data. According to Ericsson, the average user will increase data usage by 45% each year for the next five years, resulting in a jump from less than 5GB used on average per person per month to 22GB per person per month by 2021.

Verizon says its own smartphone customers used about 2.7GB per month as of April 2016, up from 1GB per month three years earlier.

T-Mobile made a similar move in November, raising rates on some tiers in exchange for more data.

Return of 'unlimited' data

Verizon also introduced a new optional "Safety Mode" feature that in effect brings back unlimited data, albeit with a pretty hefty catch.

Included with the larger "XL" and "XXL" plans, Safety Mode for no extra cost will slow down users' data once they reach their plan's monthly limit from typically blazing fast 4G LTE to a rather anemic 2G-like 128 kbps speeds.

At that speed, "you can stay connected and take care of some things--access the Web, respond to email. That may be what you want because bill certainty is important to you," says Nancy Clark, Verizon's senior vice president of marketing and operations."

But Clark adds that if you want to watch video or engage in other data-intensive activities that would almost certainly require LTE-type speeds, you can buy a data boost of $15 for each additional gigabyte of full speed data.

Verizon doesn't consider "Safety Mode" equivalent to an unlimited plan, and it's certainly different from the unlimited data plan it offered before it started to move away that feature in 2011.

Instead, "Safety Mode" is more in line with some "unlimited" plans offered by T-Mobile and Sprint which also slow users down after they consume all their high-speed data. If Verizon really wanted to set off some fireworks it could have offered data at slightly faster, 3G speeds.

Smaller Verizon plans can add the Safety Mode feature for an additional $5 per month through the company's updated My Verizon app.

A new "Carryover Data" feature will let customers save unused high-speed data to be used in the next month, a move similar to what is already offered by AT&T and T-Mobile. This feature will be available for free to all plans.

As part of today's announcements, Verizon also said that customers in the XL or larger plans can get unlimited talk and text from the U.S. to Mexico and Canada and also continue to use their data plan and received unlimited talk and text when visiting those countries. On smaller plans, you can pay $5 per line per month for calls from the U.S to Mexico and Canada. To roam with your data and unlimited talk and text in Canada or Mexico, a Verizon TravelPass feature costs $2 per day per line.

Follow Ed Baig on Twitter @edbaig. Follow Eli Blumenthal on Twitter @eliblumenthal