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After ditching unlimited data offerings five years ago, Verizon Wireless is once again offering customers an unlimited data, talk, and text plan, beginning Monday.

Currently the in the United States based on total subscribers, Verizon has lately seen competitors begin closing the gap, especially as AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint have begun to offer increasingly competitive unlimited programs.

Verizon鈥檚 new offering will begin at $80 per month for a single line, or for group plans: $70 each for two people, $54 each for three, or $45 per month apiece for a group plan of four smartphones and tablets. Plus taxes and fees, of course.

By comparison, just last week聽 the addition of a new five-line unlimited plan for $90; although as CNET reports, the pricing on Sprint鈥檚 plan increases after the first year.

Roger Entner, a telecom analyst with Recon Analytics called Verizon鈥檚 latest move 鈥渋nevitable,鈥澛�. He had expected such a decision, he said, but it came 鈥渁 bit earlier than expected. But only by months, not by years.鈥�

While both T-Mobile and Sprint have previously included unlimited offers, those plans had from consumers over some of their policies. For example, downgraded all video streams to below high-definition levels unless their subscribers paid a $15 add-on fee.

T-Mobile also did not allow access to LTE speeds when using a wireless device as a hotspot.聽

Verizon appears to have addressed both of those complaints specifically, promising 10GB of LTE for mobile hotspot usage and HD-resolution streaming.

However, T-Mobile continues to whittle away at AT&T and Verizon's dominance.聽, Verizon remains the leader in 4G service, but T-Mobile and Verizon "are again tied in network speeds ... but T-Mobile continues to chip away at Verizon's vaunted lead in 4G availability." OpenSignal's testing places T-Mobile less than two percentage points below Verizon in availability.

This rapidly closing gap was recently reflected in new customer numbers as well, as Verizon added just 591,000 wireless subscribers in the fourth quarter of last year, half as many as T-Mobile over the same period, .

However聽Jennifer Fritzsche, an analyst at Wells Fargo Securities, told the Chicago Tribune that Verizon's recent strategy "offers a 'fightback' moment for the company."聽She continued, "with this move 鈥撀燵Verizon]聽is very much back in the conversation."聽

It remains to be seen whether AT&T will follow suit.聽At present, only one unlimited plan, which begins at $100 per month and is only available to new customers whose subscription comes bundled with their DirecTV or U-Verse home television services. Otherwise, existing customers who have been grandfathered into their unlimited plan continue to have the same access for $100 per month without the other bundled services.

The biggest catches with Verizon鈥檚 newest offering are shared by most similar plans, including the requirement that customers sign up for auto payment and that any line using more than 22GB of data in a given month may see their plan prioritized behind other users during peak congestion times.