Ina Fried

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If You Want That Verizon Unlimited Data Plan, You Really Need to Hurry

Verizon Wireless, which has said it plans to move away from unlimited data plans for new subscribers, confirms that new tiered options will be the norm starting next month.

Verizon spokeswoman Brenda Raney told AllThingsD that the company is making changes to its data plans, including those for new smartphone customers.

“We will move to a more usage based model in July,” Raney said in an e-mail. “We’ll share more later.”

Enthusiast site Droid Life reported earlier on Monday that Verizon will offer plans ranging from $30 a month for 2GB of data to $80 a month for 10GB of data, with tethering to other devices available for an additional $20, including a further 2GB of data. The site says the new plans will go into effect July 7. Verizon declined to comment on specifics of its new plans.

Verizon has been offering unlimited data as a $30-per-month option for several months for 3G smartphones, including the iPhone 4, but has always said that it was offering the plan for a limited time only.

Mobile data use has been growing at staggering rates in recent years, including an 89 percent jump in the past year. The increase has prompted carriers across the globe to look to alternatives to flat-rate unlimited plans.

“Unlimited billing on data is simply unsustainable for the industry,” Verizon Vice President Nicola Palmer said at a conference earlier this year, a sentiment that has been echoed by nearly every wireless carrier. Sprint continues to offer unlimited data with many smartphones, while AT&T moved away from unlimited plans some time ago. T-Mobile doesn’t charge overages, but does throttle data rates significantly once users hit the data tier they have paid for.

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The problem with the Billionaire Savior phase of the newspaper collapse has always been that billionaires don’t tend to like the kind of authority-questioning journalism that upsets the status quo.

— Ryan Chittum, writing in the Columbia Journalism Review about the promise of Pierre Omidyar’s new media venture with Glenn Greenwald