Verizon rolls out new data plans...brace yourself

Verizon has completely restructured nearly all of its phone plans with something called a Share Everything Plan. The plans will give you unlimited text and unlimited voice. As for data, you have to pay for how much data you want a month. Then you have to pay another fee for each device that will use that pool of data.

Verizon said it would allow families to share data plans, ranging from $50 for 1 gigabyte to $100 for 10 gigabytes. It will charge $40 for every smartphone connected to the plan and $10 for each tablet. The new plan is optional for Verizon’s 93 million subscribers.  Under the new plan, a family of four could easily spend $200 a month for three smartphones and a tablet with a shared data limit of 6 gigabytes. One user with a 2-gigabyte plan for $60 would blow through the limit by streaming 30 minutes of video and five minutes of music and visiting five Web sites each day for a month.

Verizon is encouraging you to have multiple devices that can all share from the same plan, it's but can make your bill more expensive if you're an individual.  AT&T customers may soon face the same data-plan fate, as one AT&T executive said at CTIA. The plan change for Verizon begins June 28. If you upgrade your plan in the next two weeks, you can hang on to your current contract for the next two years. And if you've been hanging on to an old unlimited plan, you will also need to upgrade before June 28 -- otherwise the next time you upgrade, you'll have to get the Share Everything Plan.