Before a year ago, Verizon CFO announced that the unlimited model does not work. Now, the company introduced its new unlimited data plan. This means all major U.S. wireless providers offer unlimited data plans. Good news for all Americans!
Before Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint introduced their unlimited data plans last summer and their customer graph was increased. This means that unlimited data is the key to gain customers.
As written in BGR, Spring CFO Tarek Robbiati confirmed at a Deutsche Bank investor conference that Verizon's push on unlimited data is hurting Sprint's numbers. He also said that unlimited data pricing is hurting profit margins. The company has to cut prices to stay in the competition.
After Verizon's plan announcement in February, AT&T has launched unlimited data plan options and T-Mobile has improved its quality of the plan. So, Sprint has no other option left besides reducing the price to gain the customers back.
Sprint squeezed its profit margins and reduced even further the available cash to invest in the network. First, the company is losing its customers, now it can't invest in the network and then falls behind the other networks like Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile.
Verizon's current unlimited plan is starting at $80 for one line and goes up to $180 for four lines. Its plan is less expensive than AT&T's and more than T-Mobile and Sprint. In Q3 of 2016, Sprint and T-Mobile announced their new unlimited plans.
As stated in Fortune, Sprint added 347,000 regular monthly, or post-paid customers and T-Mobile added 857,000 in the third quarter. Also, Verizon lost a net 36,000 and AT&T 268,000. Verizon will do better in the first quarter of 2017 with the help of its unlimited data plan.
Unlike other competitors, Verizon's plan is not cheap but it offers high-definition quality for video streaming. Sprint, T-Mobile, and AT&T previously downgraded the streaming quality to DVD by default to save bandwidth and charged more for higher quality.
T-Mobile and Sprint included HD streaming in their plan for free shortly after Verizon unveiled unlimited data plan. Also, AT&T expanded its plan to all customers. One thing is sure that Americans are enjoying their unlimited offers by these carriers.
