• by Thom Forbes  @tforbes, January 12, 2017

Verizon is putting the squeeze on heavy data users, giving customers who are on unlimited data plans and habitually use more than 200 gigabytes a month or so to choose another plan or be disconnected. 

“Because our network is a shared resource, and we need to ensure all customers have a great mobile experience with Verizon, we are notifying a small group of customers on unlimited plans who use more than 200GB a month that they must move to a Verizon Plan by February 16, 2017,” Verizon spokesperson Kelly Crummey tellsArs Technica’s Jon Brodkin.

We’re not talking peanuts. 

“Depending on how much data a customer uses, the customer could start paying ‘significantly’ more with a new plan,” Crummey tells the Los Angeles Times’ Samantha Masunaga. “Current unlimited data customers generally pay about $49.99 a month, she said. A plan with 100 GB monthly costs about $450 a month.”

Digital Trends’ Lulu Chang offers the news in the form of an “intervention.”

“So heads up, friends. If you’re used to streaming Netflix for hours on end from your phone, and you’re a Verizon customer, you may just need to find a different way to entertain yourself, or be willing to spend more than a pretty penny on your phone bill.”

But there may be hope for the occasional binge data user.

“It's not clear whether you'd find yourself on the wrong end of a disconnect notice if you had one particularly crazy month,” writesEngadget’s Chris Velazco. Crummey tells him “the carrier is specifically looking at users whose usage works out to ‘an average of more than 200GB a month’ — in other words, Verizon is targeting for people with a pattern of seriously heavy data use.”

Velazco points out that the new limits constitute “a very bad break for people who live in rural areas or otherwise use Verizon's mobile network as their main Internet connection. It doesn't help that Verizon's detection and communication process is nearly opaque — not to mention frustrating — to customers on the outside looking in.”

Infuriating to some, actually.

“This is pretty much the worst move a service provider can make, for a number of reasons (it also isn’t the first time Verizon is doing this). For starters, the company itself admits that it’s only ‘a small group of customers on unlimited plans who use more than 200GB a month,’” Abhimanyu Ghoshal posts on The Next Web under a hed calling the move BS. 

“Um, those are your most loyal customers right there, Verizon. Do you think they’ll ever want to ditch your service and switch to another? Secondly, if it’s a small group, why is it so difficult for a multibillion-dollar company to continue to honor the contract it has with those few customers?” 

The LAT’s Masunaga points out that “T-Mobile, AT&T and Sprint still offer unlimited data plans, and at much lower prices than Verizon's 100-GB plan — but after certain usage thresholds, those three providers warn, the speed of the data could slow.” And to get AT&T’s plan, you also have to subscribe to its DirecTV service. 

Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal reports both Verizon and AT&T have some other fine-print price hikes in mind. 

“Verizon has increased the price it charges subscribers to upgrade to a new device or add a phone to a new line. AT&T is nudging up the price of its unlimited data plans, which are no longer available but are still held by certain longstanding customers,” writes Nathan Olivarez-Giles. The upgrade bump from $20 to $30 will “help cover the ongoing cost of building out” its network, Verizon’s very-busy Crummey tells him. But you can avoid the upgrade fee entirely if you’re an enterprise or government customer or buy your phone elsewhere.

Think all of this is confusing? Find all of these fine-print details maddening? The Journal’s personal tech columnist, Joanna Stern, endeavors to “[make] sense of smartphone plan madness” in a piece posted on its Web site yesterday. 

“T-Mobile, AT&T, Verizon and Sprint have better deals than ever before,” the subhed tells us. 

That’s the good news. 

“… but only if we pay attention to the details,” it continues.

The kind of details that can also turn a $59.95 Verizon FiOS direct-mail come-on into an amount about three times that when you factor in everything you have with Optimum, presumably.