[Thunderbolt General] jordache16:
No you will not.

If you elect to upgrade your phone for the subsidized price you will have to sign a new contact with Verizon at which point you would have to choose one of the new (non-unlimited) data plans. The only way around this for the time being if you want to keep the unlimited data is to not sign a new contract and thus either pay full price for a new phone, buy a used phone somewhere, or stick with your current phone.

However, I am fairly confident that Verizon will be axing unlimited data all together sometime in the near future, most likely within the next year. They have been slowly fading out the unlimited data plan for a while now. First they announced the tiered data plan a little over a year ago and after that point if your unlimited data contract ran up you were 'grand-fathered' in and could renew your unlimited data plan the next time you were eligible. Then a couple of months ago they announced the shared data plan and also dropped the 'grand-father' idea for those who still had unlimited data contracts. However, as a bit of a slap in the face to those who like unlimited data and wanted to keep it they said you can keep the unlimited data but you have to buy the phone at full-retail.

My guess is they will allow people to do this for another year or so but will then kill off the unlimited data notion all together (they may not kill it off entirely though, they may re-introduce it down the road as a data option when you sign a new contract and just start charging an astronomical price for it b/c they know people will pay it if they have to have it).

---------- Post added at 09:19 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:29 AM ----------

I am planning on keeping my TB until I'm eligible for an upgrade in January (unless it dies sooner than that).

Some of the newer phones have been pretty tempting (SGS3, One X, and the Nexus) but all-in-all I have been pretty happy with my TB. It has been a great phone and will serve as a perfect backup when I get a new phone. I'm not thrilled about losing unlimited data but I am hoping by January the Nexus or maybe even the S3 will be fairly cheap. One thing I don't like about HTC phones though is the screen, which is a big reason why I probably won't get an HTC phone again. I have played around with some of the latest Samsung's and their AMOLED screens are so crisp and vibrant. The blacks are very deep especially when compared to the TB. I haven't played around with a One X at all, so maybe the screens on the newer HTCs have improved (I haven't looked into it all that much yet as I don't want to get excited about a new phone and then go out and buy one). I am also a fan of the Sense UI, unlike many people here; so who knows, maybe I will stick with HTC come January but right now I'm leaning towards Samsung.

Also, we were supposedly getting LTE in our area in June but that has come and gone and there is still no LTE where I live. So that has been a bit disappointing; having an LTE phone for a year and a half but no LTE coverage where I live. But if the ICS update is pushed soon and LTE gets flipped on, I should have no problem waiting it out until January with my TB.