If you don’t believe Verizon Wireless’ newest family-share plans work for you, you are not alone.

More than a few Verizon Wireless customers are in open revolt on the company’s interactive forum, and some are preparing to leave a wireless company they have stayed with for up to 15 years. In a word, the consensus from these vocal customers is: “enough.”

Customer ‘bgudgel‘ explains why:

I have been a loyal Verizon customer for seven years now. I have defended them and recommended them to friends and family, but I feel my time as a Verizon customer has come to an end. The simple reason is that Verizon no longer sees me as a valued customer. I am just a source of income to them. I was prepared to swallow the $30 upgrade fee, but the new shared data plans are the final straw.

You can argue pricing and details all you want, but the simple fact is this – Verizon is clearly not interested in providing great service at fair prices to their customers anymore. The want to provide great service at the highest possible price, and they are taking pages out of the Big Cable handbook to do it – requiring services you don’t want/need in order to get the service that you actually do. And on top of that, the price levels they have chosen for data thresholds and adding additional lines are completely indefensible.

Verizon, I have heard your message loud and clear. You no longer care about me as a customer, so I will gladly take my business somewhere else. I do not know if I can get a better deal anywhere else, but I will no longer give money to you based on the simple principle that you have no respect for your loyal customers. It feels like you are just using us, and that is when I say goodbye.

A California customer considers this the last straw for Big Red:

I too have been a Verizon customer for years. But this final slap in the face is it for me. First, the stupid $30 “upgrade” fee for the “privilege” of buying a new phone from Verizon, and now this absurdity.

I am researching other companies’ prepaid plans now, and I fully intend to be gone within a couple of weeks, at most. And I won’t encounter cancellation penalties as our 3-line plan is more than 2 years old.

I have grown weary of “data” and its rising costs and caps, and will purposely look for a voice/text plan only. Enough.

And Lyondellic tallies up Verizon’s nickle-and-diming customers over the past year:

During my year with Verizon, I have seen a failed attempt to impose a $2 ‘convenience’ fee for paying my bill online. I have also seen a $30 fee added for device upgrades. Then there was the February 2012 change in the customer agreement that does not limit so-called ‘Network Optimization’ to 3G devices, which also allows throttling (let’s call it what it is) during the current and NEXT billing cycles. Verizon seems to have no issues with someone getting full 4G LTE speed, as long as they pay for it by the GB, but apparently feel that those of us with unlimited data plans should be considered data hogs that can be slowed down into billing cycle that has not even started. So network optimization in Verizon-speak means freeing up bandwidth for their pay by the GB customers by throttling customers with grandfathered unlimited data plans that are using their devices in a manner that is consistent with their agreements! Finally, we are told about the cries for family shared-data plans. I figured Verizon might do something that would make it attractive for me to move into a tiered data plan, boy was I ever wrong.

Now Verizon wants to charge $40 per smartphone to actually use the shared-data plans! So, for someone who is paying ~$87 per month for a smartphone with unlimited data, the cost per month will now be somewhere around $120 for the 6GB plan! How are these plans a good thing for either new or existing customers?!? I was considering paying full price to upgrade to a Galaxy Nexus in order to keep my unlimited data plan, but I have changed my mind. I can order the Galaxy Nexus from Google for $399 and use a prepaid, no-contract plan from T-Mobile plan that provides me with 100 minutes, unlimited text messaging and 5GB of data at 4G speeds for $30 month. Since I do not make a lot of calls on my phone, why would I want to continue to pay Verizon $87 per month without subsidized device upgrades, which would move me into a $120 month plan?

So I look at this as a simple lesson in economics. I can pay the ETF, buy a GNex and still come out ahead by moving to T-Mobile. The beauty of this is that I will also be taking money away from Verizon, as they clearly want to treat me like a second-class customer that needs to fork over more of my money. So I will vote with my dollars and send a clear message to Verizon that their conduct is unacceptable. I encourage others here to consider doing the same. Your speed may not be blazing fast with T-Mobile, but neither will be the speed that money flies out of your wallet or purse. My .02 cents!

Despite repeated provider claims that usage-based billing will save customers money on their broadband bill, new evidence shows the exact opposite is true. Broadband prices for metered broadband across Canada are rising, not falling, and now outpace pricing in the United States.

The reason for more costly broadband? Internet Overcharging schemes like usage caps, overlimit fees, and so-called usage billing, which providers have uniformly implemented on both wired and wireless broadband in most parts of the country.

A new study from PricewaterhouseCoopers finds Canadian consumers now pay 3.9% more for broadband than American consumers do, and prices are expected to increase another 9% by 2016 — from the average $38.43 paid last year to $45 for usage-capped broadband.

Usage billing has been profitable to Canadian providers like Rogers and Bell, with broadband revenues up 17.5% last year as consumers adopted higher priced plans to accommodate their monthly usage.

Canadian providers have also systematically reduced or “re-tiered” usage allowances, engineering service upgrades for customers trying to avoid costly overlimit fees.

“Canada’s broadband fees were lower than those in the United States in 2007-09, but as a result of large increases during the past two years, the average Canadian broadband subscriber paid more in 2011 than the average U.S. subscriber did,” says the report.

Bandwidth caps have allowed Canadian providers to now charge premiums to high bandwidth users, according to the report. Rising use among all broadband customers “should continue to put upward pressure on pricing.”

In the United States, providers are having a more difficult time implementing similar usage caps and overlimit fees, primarily because of consumer-organized backlash.

Holder

The Justice Department has been quietly conducting a wide reaching investigation into whether cable operators are using Internet Overcharging schemes like usage caps and metered billing to squash online video competition, according to a report in this morning’s Wall Street Journal.

The Antitrust Division has spoken to major online video providers like Netflix and Hulu as well as cable operators, including Time Warner Cable and Comcast.

At issue are data caps — limits on how much a subscriber can use their broadband account.  Justice officials are exploring whether major broadband providers like Comcast and AT&T are using usage limits to protect their video businesses from cord-cutting — canceling a cable subscription to watch shows online.

Providers of online video like Netflix are particularly concerned about operators showing favoritism to their own video platforms. Comcast, for example, exempts partnered content from its usage allowance while continuing to count Netflix viewing against its cap. Comcast’s Xbox “free pass” is attracting particular attention in the Justice probe, in part because it could violate the merger agreement with NBC-Universal which requires the company to not discriminate against third party video content.

Some cable operators claim usage caps protect their networks from heavy users overwhelming their facilities. Comcast claimed its decision not to count Xbox video traffic against the operator’s monthly usage cap was fair because the video content did not travel across the Internet. Now the company has temporarily suspended  usage caps altogether in preparation for testing a new usage limit that also carries overlimit penalty fees.

Federal Communications Chairman Julius Genachowski last month publicly announced his support for usage limits and metered billing, describing both as innovative and enabling customer choice. The Justice Department probe would indicate otherwise, because it suggests customers are finding their options increasingly limited, possibly in violation of federal antitrust laws.

The Justice Department is also investigating the industry’s TV Everywhere project, which provides access to cable network online video exclusively to those with an existing cable television package. Most cable networks specifically prohibit online streaming of their live content, which itself might run afoul of antitrust rules.

The Journal notes Attorney General Eric Holder on Tuesday suggested he would like to be a cord-cutter himself, picking and choosing only the channels he wants to watch. At a recent Senate hearing, Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) said cable bills were “out of control” and consumers want alternative options to watch shows online. Holder responded, “I would be one of those consumers.”

Verizon Wireless unveiled their new “Share Everything” Plans this morning, claiming consumers wanted “simpler, easier-to-understand” plans that let them share their data plan across multiple devices:

But a closer examination of the plans, to be introduced June 28, shows many Verizon customers will face substantially higher cell phone bills if they choose one of Verizon’s newest plans. Perhaps more importantly, customers upgrading to a new subsidized phone/contract renewal on or after that date will be forced to forfeit any grandfathered unlimited data plans they still have with Verizon.

“It is an effort to move ARPU up,” Walt Piecyk, an analyst with BTIG LLC in New York told Bloomberg News, referring to average revenue per user, a measure of how much each customer spends each month.

Obviously acknowledging that customers are using fewer voice minutes and are increasingly finding ways around text messaging charges, Verizon’s new plans sell customers on the idea they can now talk and text as much as they want, but as far as data is concerned, customers will potentially pay much more for less service.

Those light on talking and texting are most likely to be hit hardest by the new cell phone plans.

Verizon formerly charged $50 a month for a basic Nationwide Talk Share plan that included 700 shared voice minutes. Smartphone users also paid $29.99 a month for unlimited data. Together, that amounts to $80 a month. Under Verizon’s $40 “Share Everything” Plan, customers can talk and text all they want, but their unlimited data plan is gone, replaced with a 1GB basic plan for $50. That costs $10 more than customers used to pay on Verizon’s 700 minute plan with an unlimited use data plan. Need 2GB a month? Add an extra $10, bringing you a Verizon phone bill of at least $100 a month for the first line on your account, before taxes and fees.

Other family member lines may also be hit. Verizon used to charge $9.99 a month for extra lines on a shared account. The new price is $30 for a basic phone, $40 for a smartphone. Those family members with smartphones on an older Verizon account each would also incur $29.99 a month for their own individual data plan, which was also unlimited.

Although the base fee for the additional line with a data plan still remains around $40 a month, family members will be forced to share the primary line’s data bucket. Customers will quickly find a 1GB data plan is not going to last long on an account with two or three smartphones. That means expensive upgrades, which start at $10/GB.

Accounts with a mix of smartphones and basic phones face an even stiffer price hike. The $9.99 a month customers used to pay for a basic phone for grandma will now run $30 a month. She won’t be talking or texting much, so the extra features built into Verizon’s new plan will represent a pointless $20 monthly rate increase and an invitation to set grandma up with her own prepaid cell phone instead.

Verizon’s new “Share Everything” concept clearly builds major profits into Verizon’s future:

• Customers are forced to pay for unlimited voice and texting services, even as those services lose popularity, costing Verizon little to nothing;
• Data customers are encouraged to add additional devices to their account, but as more data gets used, ongoing upgrades to your data plan at an increment of $10/GB or more will be required;
• Customers considering a new Apple iPhone or other smartphone will be forced to forfeit any existing unlimited data plan to upgrade, which guarantees future profits from customers consuming increasing amounts of data.

Forbes magazine reports that Verizon Wireless shareholders can expect the company to enjoy fatter profits and reduced capital expenses from the upcoming deletion of grandfathered unlimited data from the company’s roster of data plans.

Trefis, a Wall Street analysis firm that uses MIT-developed modeling technology to predict future company performance, reports Verizon is on the verge of “monetizing every last byte of data that is transferred on its network.”

Verizon’s decision to end unlimited — announced by the company’s chief financial officer at a recent Wall Street conference, will compel customers upgrading to a 4G-capable phone to forfeit their unlimited plan in favor of tiered data.

With Verizon’s 4G network up and running in a large cross section of the country, the wireless carrier has an interest in moving customers to its more efficient LTE platform, which can sustain greater data traffic. With a de-emphasis on 3G, Verizon will be able to reduce capital investments required to maintain that older technology, yet enjoy the financial benefits monetized data usage will bring.

Verizon also plans to introduce shared family data plans, letting customers share a single usage allowance across multiple data devices. But Trefis warns Verizon it must avoid pricing that plan too low, because it could cannibalize the average fees collected from each subscriber (ARPU) who would otherwise have to pay Verizon for a data plan for every device. Instead, Trefis recommends Verizon price family share data plans in a way that keeps ARPU levels stable, which means consumers would not see much savings from the plans.

More importantly, shared data plans will set the stage for explosive wireless data revenue growth in the future, as customers get used to paying connectivity charges for every wireless device, appliance, automobile, and other future technology that supports so-called “machine-to-machine data exchanges” that could become commonplace in the next few years.

“Done right, Verizon could see higher ARPU levels in the coming years as subscribers increasingly use data intensive applications on its speedier 4G network and the carrier is able to monetize every byte of data that the subscribers use with its tiered data buckets,” Trefis recommends.