Verizon Wireless has confirmed they’ll be ditching unlimited data and switching to tiered data plans beginning on July, with prices starting at $10 per month and going up from there.

New smartphone customers will choose from one of four options:

• 75 MB for $10
• 2 GB for $30
• 5 GB for $50
• 10GB for $80

Overage charges will be $10 per GB.

Existing Verizon customers will be “grandfathered in” and able to keep their unlimited data plans even when upgrading their device. Users who take advantage of their free LTE mobile hotspot feature on devices like the ThunderBolt or Droid Charge will also be seeing changes, as Verizon will begin charging for the service, starting at $20 for 2GB per month for new customers or $30 for unlimited usage for existing customers.

Although most data plans are less expensive on AT&T, the addition of 5GB and 10GB per month options offer more flexibility for users who consume large amounts of data on the go. AT&T also charges $15 for an additional 200MB ($75 per GB) in data overages under their lowest plan, compared to Verizon at $10 per GB. In addition, AT&T doesn’t currently offer an unlimited tethering option for grandfathered subscribers.

[FierceWireless via BGR]

Verizon CFO Fran Shammo told investors today that Verizon Wireless will be moving to tiered data plans as early as this summer, no longer offering the unlimited data plan Verizon iPhone users have enjoyed since Apple’s smartphone came to the network last month.

Verizon Communications Inc. will stop offering unlimited data plans for Apple Inc.’s iPhone as soon as this summer and switch to a tiered pricing offering that can generate more revenue and hold the heaviest users in check.

Verizon is following in AT&Ts’ footsteps, who removed unlimited data and implemented tiered pricing for the iPhone last year so they could market the iPhone to a broader audience suck up more cash by offering less (a move which wasn’t necessarily met with open arms by AT&T iPhone users).

If you already have an unlimited data account with Verizon you’ll almost certainly be grandfathered and able to keep it going forward. But if you’re new to Verizon after tiered data comes into play, you’ll be out of luck.

Let us know what you think in the comments!

[Bloomberg]

AT&T’s new $15/200MB, $25/2GB tiered, data-capped pricing plans are a huge change for the US mobile industry, and something BlackBerry maker RIM thinks will drive consumers away from high-bandwidth, open internet devices like iPhone and Android and towards low-bandwidth, proxied devices like BlackBerry. Our good buddy CrackBerry Kevin sums it up this “happy day for RIM” as follows:

Effectively, BlackBerry users have been subsidizing iPhone users bandwidth demands over the past few years. Now finally, with a dataplan like this, RIM can start to really boast and market the benefits of BlackBerry efficiency. Previously, the “looming data crunch” argument seemed a bit like an excuse for RIM to cover up some of the areas where it was lagging behind the competition. But with RIM fixing up it’s gaps, for example with the new WebKit browser which will be fast AND use 3x less data than the competition for rendering the same page as we were told by AT&T Mobility’s President and CEO back at CTIA 2010, RIM will be able to deliver customers with a great all around smartphone user experience that costs less to use on a monthly basis as compared to some of the more data heavy devices. The “average” BlackBerry user (which may not be you if you’re reading CrackBerry on a daily basis!) should be able to get away with AT&T’s $15/mo. plan.

Personally, as much as I think the BlackBerry Bold 9700 is the ultimate messaging device, my carrier (Rogers) has always had tiered pricing and I choose to pay $30/m for 6GB on an iPhone instead of saving some cash by getting less data and a BlackBerry. For me it’s not about cost but about value. I personally find more value in what I can do with more data on an iPhone.

But what do you think? Is price — or total cost of ownership (TCO) — enough to make BlackBerrys a more compelling deal for consumers than iPhones under this new data reality? (Assuming all US carriers switch to this model, sooner, later, or when 4G is universal).

How about new users and first time smartphone users? Are they more likely to go BlackBerry now than iPhone?

AT&T Mobility CEO Ralph de la Vega has told the Wall Street Journal that despite what he said back in October and earlier in December:

“We have not made any decision to implement tiered pricing.”

Which is a weasel-wordy way of saying, contrary to previous statements that suggested they might do just that, AT&T isn’t planning on charging customers by the byte — yet. And they’re still going to call their plans “unlimited” even as they try to get customers to use less 3G data via:

• More WiFi hotspots
• Microcells (femtocells) which re-route connections through your own broadband cable or DSL modem, effectively creating a mini cell tower in your home.
• Incentives (though de la Vega declined to comment on what those might be exactly)

Thanks in large part to the iPhone, AT&T data volumes have shot up 5000% and, according to a lot of recent blog-spun controversy, they’ve seen profits increase as well while simultaneously investing less and less in the network meant to support that usage.

PCWorld has an article up saying that, based on AT&T CEO Ralph de la Vega’s comments during yesterday’s CTIA Keynote, AT&T was laying the groundwork to “manage” or “throttle” iPhone users’ data.

de la Vega did use most of his time, after announcing VoIP over 3G for iPhone, to rail against the FCC‘s net neutrality push. He claimed a small percentage of heavy data users (i.e. iPhone users) were hogging most of the limited data resources, and “crowding” out regular (i.e. non-iPhone users). He also stated that AT&T would need to “manage” the network so that the few couldn’t crowd out the many.

This is what makes PC World think:

In the face of exploding data service demand and scarce wireless spectrum, does AT&T intend to quietly begin rationing the data usage of bandwidth hogs like the iPhone? Will AT&T begin to quietly “manage” the duration and speed of my 3G connection based on how much data I’ve used in a given day, or on the type of content or services I’m using the bandwidth to access?

Aside from “AT&T should spend some of their billions making a better network and getting 4G here faster”, it’s hard to argue that the iPhone hits the network like a freight train, and when you multiply that by tens of millions of users, it’s a huge load (something RIM emphasizes to carriers when pitching their highly compressed, proxied BlackBerrys as “better network citizens”).

That’s an immediate problem for the iPhone on AT&T, but arguably if another device with a great internet experience ever succeeds enough to reach those numbers on a single network — Android or webOS for example — it will become an everyone problem everywhere.

Dieter Bohn, editor-in-chief of our Smartphone Expert network was live at AT&T’s keynote yesterday, but his takeaway was a little different:

It’s pretty clear from [de la Vega's] complaints about the top percentage that he would want tiered data prices instead of unlimited for everybody. That seems more likely what was meant by ‘managing.’ I think that rather than rationing, ATT would just like to charge that top percentage more.

What do you think? Do you want AT&T “managing” your iPhone usage? Does it sound fair to charge heavy users more for that heavy use?

Phil Schiller, during his Macworld Keynote (see our MASSIVE live blog!) today, announced — as rumored — that iTunes is going DRM-Free! 8 million songs will be available in higher-quality 256-bit, DRM-free iTunes Plus format immediately, the remaining 2 million or so songs following by the end of the quarter.

In order to wrestle this concession from Big Music, however, Apple had to give them a concession of their own: variable pricing. Apple had long resisted this policy, preferring the unified $0.99 model (a brief flirtation with $1.29 iTunes Plus pricing not withstanding). Today, however, Schiller announced a 3 tiered structure:

• $0.79 for older, catalog songs
• $0.99 for mid-tier
• $1.29 for premium (hot new singles?)

Upgrading will cost $0.30 per song, $060 per music videos, and whole albums for 30% of the album price.

So, is it working for you yet? And are you upgrading? Or just buying new song?