Verizon will soon raise prices on certain unlimited plans — yes, again

If you haven’t changed your Verizon data plan in a few years, take note: starting August 29th, the company is increasing the cost of its “Mix and Match” unlimited plans that debuted in 2018. They had truly confounding names like Go Unlimited, Beyond Unlimited, and Above Unlimited. I had some feelings on Verizon’s perplexing branding at the time.

“There were changes both on the single line and multi line for the legacy Mix and Match,” Skiadas said. “I believe they were $3 and $5. Those will be effective, I think, in early September if I recall correctly, so it’s coming soon. And they’re already out there on the market.”

The carrier has progressed through several data plan lineups since those first Mix and Match offerings. Most recently, Verizon attempted to simplify and streamline its data plans by announcing new “myPlan” tiers, which decouple entertainment services like the Disney Bundle and Apple Music from the core plans and instead make them available optionally at a discounted monthly fee. The whole point of these gradual increases is to pressure legacy customers to switch over to one of the company’s latest data plans. For some people, that could mean giving up one-of-a-kind plan perks like unlimited 5G hotspot data usage.

As ever, whether the new plans will end up saving you money depends on a variety of factors and can differ from one account to the next. As it rejiggers plans, Verizon is trying to contend with network saturation and hoping that its ongoing C-band spectrum buildout will solidify its future position against T-Mobile and AT&T.

I’ve been a Verizon customer for over a decade at this point, and for now, I’m sticking around since I like having those streaming services bundled into my already pricey service. But these plan increases — and the even more egregious random fees that carriers keep tacking onto consumer bills — certainly leave a bad taste. T-Mobile recently went as far as charging people extra for paying their bills at one of the company’s stores. These are wild times we live in.

There will probably come a day when my monthly bill hits a certain threshold that I’ll just throw up my hands and switch to Visible or some other cheaper mobile virtual network operator, or MVNO. If you’re on one of those early Mix and Match plans, maybe that moment just arrived.

Verizon’s FAQ page doesn’t include a reason why this is happening other than the standard line that “we’re committed to bringing you the best experience for your Verizon mobile phone service.” During the interview, Skiadas frequently mentioned “reliability” and “coverage,” the two hallmarks that Verizon has always built its network reputation on. But he also made clear that hiking legacy plans will benefit the company’s earnings and shareholders. “That’ll be a tailwind both in the back half of the year, as well as setting us up well for next year,” he said.