Verizon is making a huge change. As of August 13th you’ll no longer be able to pick up a phone at a discounted rate on a 2 year plan. Verizon is following its wireless competitors to do away with service contracts. Customers will now be left to choose between financing their device, or bringing their own.
Verizon will offer four basic plans to consumers. All plans will have unlimited calling and texting, something that is seen as pretty standard these days, along with a data bucket for all the lines to share. The Small plan will cost $30 per month and have 1 GB of data while the Medium will be $45 and provides 3 GB of data. The Large plan is $60 for 6 GB of data and the XL plan is $80 for 12 GB. In addition to this you’ll be paying $20 per line for a smartphone, $10 for a tablet and $5 for a wearable.
If you were to have a plan of 4 lines, which is pretty common amongst families, with 6 GB of data to share, your monthly bill would be $140 ($60 for the Large plan, $20 per smartphone line x 4). All of this is assuming that you already have a phone. If you add 4 iPhone 6 (16 GB) smartphones to that (at $27.08 a month) your bill becomes $238.32 before insurance, taxes and fees.
For comparison’s sake lets take a look at how this stacks up to the other three big carriers in the US.
| Price Breakdown | Â Verizon | Â Â AT&T | T-Mobile | Â Sprint |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plan | $60 | $70 | $120 | $100 |
| Lines | $20 x 4 | $40* x 4 | $0 | $0 |
| Phones | $27.08 x 4 | $27.09 x 4 | $27.08 x 4 | $27.08 x 4 |
| Overages | $15/ GB | $15/ GB | $0 | $15/ GB |
| Total | $238.32 | $256.68 | $208.32 | $208.00 |
As you can see in the table T-Mobile and Sprint are about on par with each other and you get $10 GB of data instead of the 6 we used for Verizon and AT&T. There are a couple caveats here as well. AT&T’s monthly access fee is $40 per line but they knock off $15 per line if you buy a phone from them. T-Mobile has no data overages since they’re technically unlimited data but once you reach your limit, they slow you down to 2G speeds. With Sprint, you get the same 10 GB of data that T-Mobile offers but there are overages once you exceed that. Sprint also waives a $15 per month per line charge if you’re leasing or buying a phone from them but you have to bring your number to Sprint with you.
What do you think of Verizon’s new change? Is paying the extra $30 a month compared to T-Mobile and Sprint worth it for a better network in the sparsely populated areas that Verizon seems to dominate?
Source:Â PhoneScoop
