No more unlimited [int'l] BB data from VZW
 

I just called in, as I normally do a couple days after getting home from a trip, to switch from the $65 global unlimited BB plan back to my regular domestic only plan. The agent shocked me when she noted that if I did so I would not be able to ever go back on the unlimited. The $65 plan was retired on January 17, 2011 with nary a peep from anyone at VZW.

There are no more unlimited plans for BB users.

The only options that do exist suck. For Canada/Mexico only there is a $30 plan for 75MB or $100 for 200MB. If you want to include the Caribbean & Europe those same price points drop to 25/75MB usage caps. For Asia or S. America or anywhere else in the world you can either pay the monthly PLUS $2/MB or a straight $20/MB.

This sucks badly.

A few more details here: http://boardingarea.com/blogs/thewan...bal-travelers/.

Wow this is terrible news! I usually do the switch back-and-forth routine myself. Any idea if this is for BB only? I've recently switched to the Droid 2 Global so I don't need the BB one...but my guess is that this is probably across the board for data plans.

...it definitely looks across-the-board: http://b2b.vzw.com/international/Glo..._coverage.html

The other devices never even had the unlimited option. Now BB users do not either.

There are a couple major insults that come with this change. One is that 3x the $25 plan for the larger region gets less than 3x the data. Another is that a huge swath of the world is simply excluded from any decent plan option. It REALLY sucks for folks who go outside Europe, Canada, Mexico or the Caribbean.

ATT told me that as long as I kept Global International data, I was free to switch phone platforms. In fact, I did. I moved from Blackberry to Apple. I was hoping to wait six months and go to Android, but decided that I didn't want to wait and that I could "live with" iPhones from that point forward.

Six months ago, I posted a warning that the trend was to eliminate these plans and urged people to avoid the temptation to be penny wise and pound foolish by switching on the plans only when needed. There are many months I hate the extra $34 I give ATT, but one trip a year pays for it.

Really? Because I used the $65 / month plan for my Droid when traveling to China twice last year. I was downloading at least 100MB per day and never got charged more than the $2 / day for data plan. Maybe I just got lucky?

The droid people are all upset about it going away too, lots of Droid boards have been buzzing about it this week. One person posted

Wow, I got it in the nick of time! I'm military in Iraq right now and just had it activated about a week ago. Thanks for the info on this!

so for them, it's a very good thing they read it.

Some of the posts have indicated they will hold it for some contracted customers, so if you fall under that, it may be worth checking.

The unlimited plan has been available on all global capable devices...including the droid phones.

This is a big :td: form me - I used this in India and Canada extensively. Verizon has been quite arrogant recently: they refused to offer/renew any promos for my TV/internet/phone combo at home, refused to give the deal outlined here http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/hot-deals/1042255/ , eliminated/reduced device credit for renewals etc etc.
I should take a closer look at Sprint again.

I was told by several sales reps that there was no global unlimited from the Droid when I called to switch devices a couple months ago. Maybe they changed their mind. Either way, it doesn't exist for anyone anymore unless you already have it. Not warning people that it was going away is shoddy.

Got back from Europe on Tues, called on wed to go back to my reg 29.99 plan, no problems and didnt say anything about it be discontinued or modified. Droid 2 global.

You might want to call back and see if you can cancel your cancelation. You're close enough that may be able to convince them that it was a misunderstanding.

It looks like for Asia it is $20 a MB even with the plan. This is really pretty crappy. It wont effect me much at all in Europe, at least if I can turn the plan on and off. I looked back 6 months and only use 1-2 mb a day. So 25 mb a month for $30 will save me money if I can turn it on and off. But forget about Asia, do they expect people to actually pay $20 a mb even with a monthly plan?

This is much worse for Android than BB. They use a lot more data. I probably spend 20 or 25 days in Asia or Australia a year. That is like $400. Not great but it wont break the bank at a MB a day. But at 10 or 100 times that on an Android device, yikes. Plus they will blow over the limits pretty fast in Europe as well.

Good news for me is that I have the unlimited data plan from ATT on my iPhone.

I may do as it seems like im going once a month now for about 5 days. Ill be taking my BB from now on and trying not to use data that much.

Just got off the phone VZW they said I can add the $69.99 at anytime, even now. I leave again on Feb 9th, Ill ask again that day.