Last minute upgraders are hurrying to pre-order the Samsung Galaxy S3 to buy an additional two years for their unlimited data plans and get one last subsidized phone.

If you are a Verizon Wireless customer, today is the last day to exercise options under Verizon’s existing plans before the company’s new “Share Everything” plan regime takes effect. While some customers will save money on the new plans, at least at first, many others will not. Verizon is not forcing existing customers to change plans tomorrow, but you may find it worthwhile to lock in any unlimited data plan for the next two years, even if your contract is not scheduled to end until later this year. Remember, Verizon may be saving you a few dollars today, but its bean counters know that data is a growth industry, so the more devices you add to your plan, the quicker you will be paying more and more to upgrade your allowance.

Droid Life helps cover some of the basics before we discuss your options:

What are Share Everything plans?

Think of them like the family minute and text plans that you have been a part of for years now, but for data. With a Share Everything plan, you purchase a bucket of data at a flat rate for your whole family to use, just like you did with minutes and texts. You no longer have to buy individual smartphone or feature phone data plans on Share Everything. Deciding which plan will best suit your family is the key here, which requires some analyzing of the amounts of data you are currently using.

How are they priced?

The tiers are as follows:  1GB for $50, 2GB for $60, 4GB for $70, 6GB for $80, 8GB for $90, and 10GB for $100. Along with a data tier, you also have to factor in your “per device” cost which is $40 per smartphone, $30 per feature phone, $20 per Jetpack, and $10 per tablet. Mobile hotspot is included with Share Everything at no extra cost as it pulls from your data bucket. If you would like more than 10GB, you can purchase extra 2GB add-ons for $10 a piece. If you go over your data bucket limit, you are charged $15 per 1GB overage.

Minutes and texting are unlimited on Share Everything plans, so your only worry is data usage.

You can read more about pricing at our step-by-step guide to selecting a plan.

Can I keep unlimited data? Do I have to switch to Share Everything?

Yes, you can keep unlimited data. No, you do not have to switch to Share Everything. We wrote up an entire detailed post on this scenario of keeping unlimited data that I recommend you read.

Should I upgrade now?

Maybe. If you want to enjoy one last discounted (subsidized) price on a phone and keep unlimited data, you have to upgrade before June 28. If you upgrade after at a discounted price, you will have to change your plan to either a single person tier (2GB for $30) or join a Share Everything plan. Further details on upgrading now, including Galaxy S3 pre-orders, can be found at this post.

What if someone on my family plan upgrades after Share Everything is live?

While I have yet to get a definitive answer from any higher-ups at Verizon, it is my general understanding that you can always choose something other than Share Everything as long as you are a current customer before June 28. If you are in a family plan now and one of your lines upgrades after June 28 and chooses Share Everything, it will not affect your line. From what I have gathered over the last few weeks, you would not have to choose to join their shared plan. Also, if you want to upgrade after June 28, you can choose between a Share Everything plan and an individual tiered plan starting at 2GB for $30.

Now it’s time to consider some options:

1. Do nothing. If you want to keep what you have until your current contract expires, do nothing. Absolutely nothing will change on your account until a contract expires and you seek to upgrade your phone (or you can depart for Sprint, T-Mobile, or some carrier not using this new pricing). If you stay with Verizon, you can continue with a month-to-month plan until you seek to upgrade your phone. At that point, you will either have to pay full price for an unsubsidized phone (can be up to $600 or more) or get a subsidy with a new tw0-year contract on one of Verizon’s new plans. You will lose unlimited data at this point unless you bring an unsubsidized phone to the party. But financially that may not make sense. Verizon charges the same monthly rates, designed to recoup phone subsidies, whether you have a subsidized or unsubsidized phone, so you are paying the phone company back for a discounted phone you never got.

2. If you are eligible for an upgrade, you may want to use it today! Log into your Verizon Wireless account and check your phone lines for any eligible for immediate upgrades. If one or more are, today is the last day to consider using that upgrade -and- keep your unlimited data plan. Keep in mind you can activate a new phone on any number on your plan (preferably one with unlimited data, of course) and move them around if one of the people on your account can make better use of a new phone than the person eligible for the upgrade. You will commit to a new two-year contract for each line you upgrade and you will pay Verizon’s phone upgrade fee ($30) per phone.

You can buy yourself eligibility for subsidized smartphones by activating a “dummy” extra line with Verizon Wireless for $9.99/month or use it with an older basic Verizon phone without incurring data charges.

3. If you are not eligible for an upgrade, you can still buy at least two more years of grandfathered unlimited data without buying an unsubsidized phone, but you will pay a penalty. Verizon will allow customers not eligible for an upgrade to add additional lines to their account specifically to qualify for new subsidized phones they can use on any number on their account. Let’s say you have two lines active with Verizon not eligible for an upgrade until later this year, but you don’t want to lose your unlimited data -and- you want one last subsidized phone. Simply call Verizon Wireless and ask them to establish two new lines of service on your existing account with a “dummy ESN” registered in their system. You will pay $9.99 per month (plus taxes and fees) on each line with new two-year contracts for each line, but this will qualify you for an immediate subsidized upgrade to any in-stock smartphone. You can also pre-order Samsung’s wildly popular Galaxy S3 ($199 subsidized, $599 unsubsidized).

You will then have two more years of unlimited data on your new phone. If you have older non-smartphones laying around, you can activate them instead of using the “dummy ESN” method and allow someone like a parent or child to share your existing calling plan without running up data charges or text messages (although you can add those options as well if needed).

You should coordinate this over the phone with a Verizon Wireless customer service representative (1-800-922-0204) explaining you don’t currently qualify for an upgrade but want to establish “dummy service” on a new line(s) to win a subsidized phone. Most representatives are familiar with this. But when the new phones arrive, you will want to have Verizon Wireless handle activation themselves because they are equipped to transfer those new phones to replace the existing ones on your account and not lose your unlimited data plan in the process. If you activate them yourself, they will be up and running on different phone numbers and you will have to visit a Verizon store to obtain new 4G SIM cards to switch phones to the correct lines. Let Verizon handle it, and any messes that might occur along the way.

You will not pay any early termination fee for not using your old phones anymore, but you will probably want to call Verizon about dropping contract-expiring lines on your account when their respective contracts expire so you minimize the number of months you are paying an additional $9.99 a month for extra phone lines you probably will not be using. You will neither pay an activation fee or upgrade fee using this method.

Is it an expensive price to pay for an early upgrade? Perhaps, but maybe not if it means buying another two years of unlimited data service.

It is important, however, that you complete any arrangements to order your phone(s) prior to the end of day today. We strongly recommend you work through Verizon Wireless’ own sales department (they shut down for the night at 11pm EDT) to arrange for new phones or pre-orders (which are acceptable to activate later and still keep unlimited data). If you deal with a third party like a non-Verizon store or website, the order may not process in time to qualify within the remaining hours Verizon’s old plans are still active.

By July 2014, we will be back here again trying to maneuver the renewal of unlimited data plans Verizon now hates. But spending time to preserve these plans may be important to your wallet when you consider just a year ago, Verizon charged $30 for unlimited wireless data. Effective tomorrow, they charge $50 for 1GB of data. Where will we be two years from today? The sky is the limit.

Phillip “We’re Still Here to Fight” Dampier

“We’re moving away from one-size-fits-all,” admits Jon Gary Herrera, a Texas spokesman for Time Warner Cable, which has introduced a usage-limited plan called “Internet Essentials” that limits customers to a paltry 5GB of usage per month in return for a $5 discount.

Time Warner Cable has learned from its mistakes in 2009, when the company attempted to force usage limits on broadband customers that would have left those seeking an unlimited experience with a broadband bill of $150 a month. After a consumer backlash organized by Stop the Cap!, the company quickly pulled back and put the plans on hold.

After three years, the playbook is off the shelf once again and being dusted off, although the nation’s second largest cable company is taking things a lot more slowly the second time around.

Lesson one: Broadband pricing and usage plan changes must happen gradually and carefully.

The New York Times reports that cable executives privately admit they are working to charge consumer expectations, starting with the notion that “all you can eat” broadband is what customers want or need.

Time Warner telemarketers have begun re-educating consumers when calling to sign up for broadband, now asking them what they do with their Internet connection and suggesting different plans based on their anticipated usage, not their speed expectations.

So far, sources working for Time Warner Cable in South Texas tell Stop the Cap! the plan is not working too well and few customers are interested in the usage-capped “Internet Essentials” plan that has been marketed in several markets in the state.

“Overage charges will be capped at $75 per month. That means that for $150 per month customers could have virtually unlimited usage at Turbo speeds.” — (April 9, 2009) Landel Hobbs, then chief operating officer of Time Warner Cable

“Customers really are not interested in understanding what their usage level is and don’t see much benefit from the small discount our company is offering those who sign up,” one Time Warner customer service agent privately tells us. “A lot of them have learned lessons from what AT&T and Verizon Wireless are doing with wireless data plans, and they don’t want their home broadband accounts measured.”

Another source tells us those consumers most likely to consider the “Internet Essentials” plan are casual Internet users, particularly older customers on fixed incomes. But they are also the least likely to understand how to measure their usage.

“If you tell people what a gigabyte is, it goes in one ear and out the other and they really have no comprehension about it, and when their family members find out what they signed up for, we inevitably get a call back asking to switch to something else,” another agent tells Stop the Cap! “There is a real hostility about usage limits on home broadband out there, at least among those that understand what they are.”

Lesson Two: Forgive overlimit fees or overages liberally, because consumers will adjust their behavior to use less Internet just by threatening to charge them more.

Time Warner has been very liberal about forgiving customers who exceed their 5GB limit. AT&T has yet to enforce its limits in many markets, in part because of a defective usage meter. Other ISPs with usage limits are also wary about imposing overage fees on customers because of the potential political backlash. In short, the industry hopes the threat of overlimit fees will be sufficient to get customers thinking about their usage and self-limit what they do online, an important tool to wield against customers considering cord-cutting traditional cable TV to watch everything online. Efforts to earn additional revenue from more expensive usage-based broadband plans will come later.

Cable to Netflix: You better think about going back to the U.S. Post Office and mailing DVDs. Our customers can’t afford to throw away their usage allowance on your streamed movies.

The Justice Department’s antitrust lawyers are conducting an investigation into the cable industry’s treatment of online video companies, especially with the increasing number of usage caps coming into the market. With most consumers confronted with a broadband monopoly or duopoly, it is easy for providers to slap limits on usage if the competition follows suit. The new found love of usage caps and usage billing is proving curious to those abroad, because the rest of the world is moving away from consumption limits and towards flat rate broadband.

One Wall Street analyst wants the industry to adopt the meme that if the Justice Department gets away with banning usage limits, the industry should retaliate with usage-based billing, which is just another version of Internet Overcharging.

As with the wireless industry, Wall Street is the primary driving force pushing broadband providers to adopt usage billing and other price increases on broadband to boost earnings. Verizon Wireless and AT&T, responding to investor concerns about slowing growth, see endless profits in their future monetizing broadband usage. With broadband usage rising, charging customers more for using more can bring in endless profits, even as the costs to provide the service continue to decline. Without competition and with no organized opposition by consumers, regulators, or legislators, there is nothing to stop prices from skyrocketing.

Lesson Three: Try to convince customers upgrades are expensive and difficult.

A major enemy of the forces working to adopt income-increasing usage billing are broadband advocates who regularly analyze quarterly earnings of major providers, the costs of upgrades, the price of backbone connections, and the ever-increasing prices for Internet service.

In every case, cable and phone broadband providers adopting the latest broadband technologies are seeing major increases in revenue and profits even as their costs to upgrade and manage their networks decline overall. With providers like Comcast and Time Warner Cable now regularly increasing broadband prices, earnings are higher than ever for flat rate broadband sold in speed-based tiers, and consumers are gravitating towards higher speed service, which brings even more profit.

In 2009, Time Warner Cable faced protesters opposed to usage limits at this rally in front of the company’s headquarters in Rochester, N.Y.

Unfortunately, when cable and phone companies control the pipes that deliver broadband service and monetize their use, the threat to high bandwidth innovation has never been greater.

Netflix tells the New York Times there may be little they can do to stem to tide of usage limits.  Sony, a potential online video competitor, has already pulled the plug on its plan to sell cable channels over the Internet because usage limits will destroy the market for online video.

Netflix has been desperate enough to explore a concessionary move — partnering with the very providers that seem ready to limit customers’ access to their service. Netflix hopes it can find a way to be exempt from the industry’s usage limits, much the same way Comcast has given a free pass to Microsoft Xbox streamed video.

Lesson Four: Control the voices that claim to speak for consumers.

Consumers still overwhelmingly despise usage limits, but without unified action against Internet Overcharging schemes like usage limits and usage billing, the drumbeat of industry voices and the dollar-a-holler groups that parrot their beliefs in Washington will have the upper hand.

Consider the FCC’s “voice of the people” Consumer Advisory Council, infested with corporate interests and groups that would not exist without Big Telecom money paying to keep the lights on.

While the CAC has several authentic voices for consumers, they are practically outnumbered by industry sock puppets like the “American Consumer Institute” run by Stephen Pociask, who happens to be a telecom industry consultant and former chief economist for what is now Verizon. ACI represents the interests of AT&T and Verizon, not consumers. Call For Action is aptly named. It cashed checks written by AT&T.  “Consumer Action” relies on AT&T “grants.”  Many of the other “consumer voices” on the CAC are nothing of the sort. The CTIA Wireless Association is the giant lobbying group for the wireless industry. Not to be outdone, the National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA) is there too, representing the cable industry. Time Warner Cable, T-Mobile, and Verizon are there in person as well, along with the billion dollar broadcast industry in the form of the National Association of Broadcasters. So much for the “Consumer” Advisory Council.

Is it any surprise that with “consumers” like this providing advice, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski opined he thought such billing schemes were useful.

It is more urgent than ever for customers to prepare for another round of battle against major broadband providers. Time Warner Cable itself fears a repeat of the 2009 public relations disaster, and promises it will always have an unlimited tier available for customers, even if it remains quiet on how much the company would charge for the service. If the cable operator still believes in its former chief operating officer Landel Hobbs, we can give you a clue. In April 2009, Hobbs thought he was delivering a major concession to protesters by offering to bring back unlimited broadband… for $150 a month.

An all-out consumer backlash can bring additional consumer victories, but only if customers are willing to get involved in the fight.

Stay tuned.

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Reset Your Password.flv[/flv]

Accompanying our earlier piece about the frustration of Internet security, here is a video from the Upright Citizens Brigade that takes password frustration to a whole new level.  (2 minutes)

If you die, Verizon Wireless will bury your family’s unlimited data plans with you.

Amidst the brouhaha over Verizon Wireless’ impending transition to new Share Everything plans that will raise the wireless phone bills of a lot of Verizon customers, the wireless company is also quietly inserting a change in the terms and conditions that will strip away the unlimited data plans of surviving family members if the primary account holder passes away.

While the departed may no longer care about keeping worry-free data, surviving family members might:

Verizon Wireless has confirmed to PhoneNews.com that, effective June 28, Assumptions of Liability will be stripped of unlimited data plan codes during the account transfer. New customers receiving the account will be required to select from Verizon’s metered data plan add-ons for legacy Nationwide and America’s Choice II accounts, or switch to a new Share Everything plan.

The main problem, is that this will negatively impact those who suffer a loss in the family. If someone passes away, say a husband, the surviving widow can no longer keep the same plan terms. Worse, a customer cannot port out without an assumption of liability. This creates an awful Catch-22 potential for families looking to keep their phone numbers; either accept massively higher bills under Share Everything, or pay massively high Early Termination Fees to port out.

For many, the move is seen as unsurprising. Verizon’s CFO Fran Shammo stated that “all customers” would be forced onto a Share Everything plan once they went into effect, and upgraded devices. Verizon quickly clarified that customers who waived handset subsidies would still be permitted to keep their unlimited data plans, even when migrating from a 3G smartphone, such as an iPhone 4/4S, to a future LTE smartphone.

Verizon’s move wasn’t intended to directly target dead people, but rather stop customers from selling off their unlimited plans to the highest bidder on eBay. Using the Assumptions of Liability clause, the winning eBay bidder could take over control of a Verizon line grandfathered with a more favorable plan than the company sells today. Bids running several hundred dollars for the assumption of a line with unlimited data were not uncommon.

As PhoneNews reports, “Verizon Wireless defended the lack of a specific mention of this change, citing that they have said all along that Share Everything plans will apply to all new customers. For those suffering the loss of a family member, and use a Verizon unlimited data plan, it will be adding insult to injury that they may be forced off their plans.”

Recognizable New Yorkers are fed up trying to keep track of new security measures thrown at them by their telecommunications companies.

The New York Times Fashion & Style section (really?) took a dive into the frustrating world of pre-assigned passwords, captcha codes, and user verification questions that confound New York’s more prominent citizens, sometimes with hilarious results.

“It’s a nightmare,” the comedian Tracey Ullman told the newspaper. “These passwords just keep getting longer and longer. I try to think of a startling emotional thing that jogs my memory or something that’s frightening, or my grandmother’s name with 666 at the end. But I really don’t know what to do.”

In an effort to respond to an increasingly security-conscious online world, providers are password protecting subscriber information and equipment to keep prying eyes out. But sometimes those anti-hacking, anti-eavesdropping, anti-identify theft efforts become mind-boggling to confused customers who end up locked out of their own accounts.

Among the latest trends: locking down wireless routers with passwords straight out of the box.

Bernhard

Any long time Wi-Fi user already knows America’s largest open wireless network does not come from AT&T or Verizon Wireless. It comes from a company formerly known as “Linksys” (today Cisco). Customers confounded by wireless security simply plug in their new routers and start using them without setting any Wi-Fi password or enabling security measures.

Time Warner Cable tried to lick that problem by issuing pre-assigned passwords to customers using the company’s wireless router. Unfortunately, comedian Sandra Bernhard, never smart to antagonize, ended up with one that came with a mish-mosh of letters and numbers (they range from 13 to 28 characters) that cannot be changed.

“We have that one written down somewhere, but where it is I’d be hard pressed to tell you,” Bernhard told the newspaper, noting that her relationship with the cable provider is “an S&M experience without the pleasure.”

Verizon and AT&T love their creative security questions, designed to verify you are who you say you are. But New Yorkers who think too deeply about the questions are sure to be tripped up by the experience.

Jeffrey Leeds, a fixture on the New York social scene, tells the Times he hates questions like, ‘What is the name of your first girlfriend,’ because he unsure if that means the first girl he slept with or the first one he liked who never returned his phone calls.

The confusion inevitably leaves hapless customers writing down their password and security questions on sticky notes or in a notebook, which entirely defeats the purpose of private “only you should know” passwords.

Courtney Love thought she could outwit the hackers with her own system, based on mnemonics.

“You use the lyrics to a song,” she said, for example, “ ‘Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds’ — litswd-1 — and that way you can’t forget it.”

But the newspaper reports that worked until Love was tripped up by “Hey Jude.”

“I kept forgetting if it was ‘Hey Jude, don’t make it bad’ or ‘Hey Jude, don’t make it sad,’ ” she said. “So I gave up on that.”

But the most reviled security measure of all is the deadly, incomprehensible “captcha” code — the barely decipherable slanted text and numbers that real humans are supposed to be able to identify but spammers using automated tools cannot.

“Don’t you hate those?” Ullman said. “I always get those wrong because it looks like they were written by someone on LSD. It’s awful.”