Verizon Wireless Unlimited Data Plan Launched Amid Competition From T-Mobile, Sprint, AT&T

Starting Monday, Verizon is offering unlimited data plans to consumers. Customers can keep their current plans or choose an $80 monthly single-line plan, or a $180 family plan of four lines.

“We... fundamentally want you to have more choice. We’re not limiting you to a single plan. If you don’t need unlimited data, we still have 5GB, S, M, and L Verizon plans that are perfect for you,” Ronan Dunne, president, Verizon Wireless, said in the company’s official press release announcing the plan.

Under it, customers will get unlimited voice calls, text messages and data, with the cap of 22GB per month per line, after which data speeds might slow down. But Verizon is offering a feature, which competitors such as Sprint and T-mobile don’t — it will not downgrade the quality of streaming video for users who opt for the plan.

Sprint and T-Mobile do not put a cap on data but they throttle usage speeds instead, giving the consumer 500 Kbps for music, 2 Mbps for gaming and 480p video streaming, while AT&T has a similar 22GB data cap after which it lowers the speeds.

By offering the plan, Verizon, which is the largest wireless provider in the U.S., has started marching in step with companies such as T-mobile, AT&T and Sprint, which already offer similar plans. The move seemed almost inevitable in the face of the competition since Sprint has been offering an unlimited plan at $60 per line and $150 for four lines. The company has even come out with a limited time offer in which it will charge $90 for five lines for the first 12 months.

T-mobile’s similar offering is priced at $70 for a single line and $160 for four lines. In January, the company stopped adding surcharges and taxes to plan, which lowered its cost. AT&T currently has a limited offering at $100 per line only to the subscribers of DirecTV satellite service. While Verizon is yet to reveal the surcharges and taxes applied to the new plan,

Verizon’s offering is unique simply because it actually holds less spectrum per customer than smaller players. With unlimited plans, data usage is expected to increase, which could in turn cause crowding on the network. But Dunne claims otherwise.

"We’ve built our network so we can manage all the activity customers undertake," he said in a statement to Fortune on Sunday.

Customers opting for the plan will have to agree to AutoPay or paper-free billing.