Under Verizon’s unlimited tariffs, users will find their data rates throttled after 22 GB of usage for the rest of their billing cycle. But Verizon seems unable to restrict these users on LTEiRA, so they’ve started kicking them off the network entirely.
“They’re urging those with billing addresses outside of their coverage zones on unlimited and accepting to pay off their phones if they will port out unless they will stop the service,” one poster said.
The efforts seem to have ramped up in new months, with around 2,000 Verizon Wireless users in Maine being said lately that they need to find a new wireless provider if they need to retain their current cell phone number. Organizations like Wireless Partners say they were contacted by Verizon to increase service to rural markets, after which Verizon agreed on many of these users unlimited data connections the organization subsequently decided it couldn’t afford.
“They’re doing this all over the nation and we’re the first people who have been reacting to it,” Maine Public Advocate Barry Hobbins tells the News.
“It appears that Verizon caused these groups to build out in the rural areas around the nation and then significantly raised it by saying that they’re including the rural areas, when it fact now, after placing those ads out, they’re now not reaching the rural areas, in fact, they’re casting it back,” he added.
Verizon has confirmed the effort but says this should only be a minority of consumers, some of which the company says were using as much as one terabyte of data per month.
“Earlier this month we reported a small group of consumers who are out of contract and essentially use mobile data on other wireless companies’ systems that we won’t be their service provider after July 30, 2017,” a Verizon spokesperson said last month. “This only changes a few people who primarily travel on other networks and does not affect customers who primarily use Verizon’s own network.”
The dilemma is that Verizon Wireless has confirmed its frozen deployment of fixed-line broadband settings like FiOS by insisting it’s offering similar wireless services uniformly when that’s pretty obviously not the case. And companies like Wireless Partners, which backed Verizon construct 13 new towers in the area, say the organization decided to sever these users’ relationships poses a safety risk.
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