Verizon confirms plans including price hikes, more data & added perks

AppleInsider

Verizon on Wednesday officially announced its rumored new cellphone plans, launching July 7, which are costlier but in some cases include perks previously found only at other carriers, like rollover data.

As suggested, the carrier's updated S and M plans are now $5 more per month but also include an extra gigabyte of data each, pushing their caps to 2 and 4 gigabytes respectively.

Prices for L, XL, and XXL plans have all been raised by $10 -- to $70, $90, and $110 -- but with bigger leaps in data. L has grown from 6 to 8 gigabytes, while XL has jumped from 12 to 16, and XXL has risen from 18 to 24.

All five plans now offer "Carryover Data," an equivalent to rollover perks from AT&T and T-Mobile. This allows unused data from one month to raise caps in the next.

Through a new MyVerizon app, people on XL and XXL plans can toggle on a free "Safety Mode," eliminating overage fees but throttling speeds to 128 kilobits per second once a monthly cap is hit. Customers on S, M, or L plans will have to pay $5 per month for the privilege.

Two other perks -- unlimited calling to Canada and Mexico, and applying U.S. voice, text, and data limits while visiting those countries -- are also free only to XL and XXL customers. The first otherwise costs $5 per month, while the second is $2 per day.

Verizon has been slow to match some of the plan changes at rival U.S. carriers, but may have to adapt given shrinking differences in coverage.

williamh

That's a pretty novel idea - hit the competition where it doesn't hurt.  Let's start a race to the top!

fastasleep

Anyone know of a good site for a breakdown of the carriers' various plans these days? Thinking my next phone I'll buy outright if that's the most sensible option now. I'm still on the grandfathered AT&T unlimited plan but I think I've read that it's no longer such a good deal as it once was especially without tethering. 

doozydozen

Gosh, pay $5 for the privilege to toggle an app setting that keeps users from incurring fines for data overages, so thoughtful Verison. /s

I'm happy enough with TMO here in the States, thank you very much.

6502

I've long ago switched to an MVNO (Cricket); $35/mo gives me 2.5 GB of data (about 1 GB more than I typically use) and I never have to worry about overages (or pay $5 to prevent them). Uses AT&T's network (actually Cricket is owned by AT&T) and I've never had a problem. It gets even cheaper as you add family member to the plan.

coolfactor

fastasleep said:

Anyone know of a good site for a breakdown of the carriers' various plans these days? Thinking my next phone I'll buy outright if that's the most sensible option now. I'm still on the grandfathered AT&T unlimited plan but I think I've read that it's no longer such a good deal as it once was especially without tethering. 

I'm still on a plan that I got from 2008 which has 6GB of data for $30 (on top of my plan price), so I pay $100 per month for an iPhone 4 (yup!) with 3 voicemail messages, no international texting, no long distance. But I got my 6GB of data, and tethering!

If and when I change phones, I'd need to switch to a plan that costs the same with less data. That's a hard pill to swallow.

williamh

repressthis said:

Gosh, pay $5 for the privilege to toggle an app setting that keeps users from incurring fines for data overages, so thoughtful Verison. /s

I'm happy enough with TMO here in the States, thank you very much.

Been thinking of switching to TMO from AT&T. Never considered Verizon and sure won't now.  Any gotchas with TMO I should be aware of? Coverage map looks fine for Eastern US.

AT&T works fine for me but TMO will be cheaper and best of all gives free unlimited (slow) data and texts in many countries.  Having spent some family vacations in fairly exotic places with no phone no data no text, this will be awesome.  Last time in Japan our AirBnB came with a mobile hotspot that we carried around but dang it will be nice for all of us to be able to properly use our phones for keeping in touch, GPS, etc.  (yes, too cheap/not sufficiently well off to pay AT&T overseas data prices - they're sick)

bluefire1

Verizon is simply the best carrier bar none. Rarely is a call dropped, and their signal is virtually everywhere.
Sometimes you really do get what you pay for.

macky the macky

coolfactor said:

If and when I change phones, I'd need to switch to a plan that costs the same with less data. That's a hard pill to swallow.

Ah, but you get rollover!!!

lordjohnwhorfin

coolfactor said:

I'm still on a plan that I got from 2008 which has 6GB of data for $30 (on top of my plan price), so I pay $100 per month for an iPhone 4 (yup!) with 3 voicemail messages, no international texting, no long distance. But I got my 6GB of data, and tethering!

If and when I change phones, I'd need to switch to a plan that costs the same with less data. That's a hard pill to swallow.

T-Mobile offers 6GB of data for $65/month (+ tax). That includes unlimited calling, tethering (use your 6GB any way you want), unlimited international texting (both from US and from abroad), international data (may be throttled but I can stream siriusXM in most of Europe and do FaceTime!), and $0.20/minute calling. Even better, whenever you're on WiFi, calls to/from the US are free. They will also give you what amounts to an interest free loan if you want to purchase a phone, so for what you're paying now you could be getting more AND a new iPhone 7.
The plan includes rollover of up to 20GB of data, and with "BingeOn", Netflix, HBO, Amazon, and a ton of other providers do not count against your 6GB limit. Music streaming from most providers also does not count against your data.
They will also reimburse your early termination fees, but if you're using an iPhone 4 I suspect you won't have any...

doozydozen

williamh said:

Any gotchas with TMO I should be aware of?

All things considered, TMO is the best choice for value-conscious consumers. Here's the only problem TMO faces:

TMO broadband spectrum is limited compared to the industry titans, Verizon and AT&T. 

The titans, with their bottomless pockets, have gobbled up large swaths of spectrum, leaving TMO with broadband concentrated in the upper end of spectrum, "high-band." The titan's owns the majority of the low-band.

High-band spectrum is good for providing lots of capacity, which means high-band is data dense, and also saturates small areas, like cities, very well. TMO has the most dense network in the nation, and the fastest download speeds in city areas. PROBLEM: the high energy of high-band, where the wavelengths are packed tightly, dissipates shortly after leaving the cell-towers. High-band does not have the oomph low-band has to penetrate build walls to reach users indoors. Low-band spectrum also has physical properties that increase the reach of mobile networks over long distances.

As of today, TMO is king in populated inner cities and other areas TMO touts across their coverage map. TMO had made huge improvements in their low-band spectrum last year when they paid Verizon $3 billion for 700MHz spectrum. And they are currently bidding on low-band at the big FCC spectrum auction. There's no guarantee TMO will out bid other mobile carriers. Unless T-Mobile gets a lot of low-band spectrum, it’s going to have a hard time matching the networks of its biggest rivals.

P-DogNC

Unless someone has a coverage issue, T-Mobile has just become an even better choice thanks to Verizon's latest plan and pricing changes.

infostack

Folks at Verizon must have gotten the memo from Ericsson that users are moving more of their video viewing to wifi (up from 75% to 85%) over the past 12 months. Nothing like collecting $1 and providing only 15 cents worth of service.

williamh

repressthis said:

williamh said:

Any gotchas with TMO I should be aware of?

All things considered, TMO is the best choice for value-conscious consumers. Here's the only problem TMO faces:

TMO broadband spectrum is limited compared to the industry titans, Verizon and AT&T. 

The titans, with their bottomless pockets, have gobbled up large swaths of spectrum, leaving TMO with broadband concentrated in the upper end of spectrum, "high-band." The titan's owns the majority of the low-band.

High-band spectrum is good for providing lots of capacity, which means high-band is data dense, and also saturates small areas, like cities, very well. TMO has the most dense network in the nation, and the fastest download speeds in city areas. PROBLEM: the high energy of high-band, where the wavelengths are packed tightly, dissipates shortly after leaving the cell-towers. High-band does not have the oomph low-band has to penetrate build walls to reach users indoors. Low-band spectrum also has physical properties that increase the reach of mobile networks over long distances.

As of today, TMO is king in populated inner cities and other areas TMO touts across their coverage map. TMO had made huge improvements in their low-band spectrum last year when they paid Verizon $3 billion for 700MHz spectrum. And they are currently bidding on low-band at the big FCC spectrum auction. There's no guarantee TMO will out bid other mobile carriers. Unless T-Mobile gets a lot of low-band spectrum, it’s going to have a hard time matching the networks of its biggest rivals.

Great explanation, many thanks.  If I understand correctly, the reasons why TMO is weak in some respects are similar to the differences in range between AM and FM radio.

freshmaker

bluefire1 said:

Verizon is simply the best carrier bar none. Rarely is a call dropped, and their signal is virtually everywhere.
Sometimes you really do get what you pay for.

Exactly.  If you're poor go for TM.  Otherwise go for VZ or AT&T.  Far superior service.

webraider

freshmaker said:

bluefire1 said:

Verizon is simply the best carrier bar none. Rarely is a call dropped, and their signal is virtually everywhere.
Sometimes you really do get what you pay for.

Exactly.  If you're poor go for TM.  Otherwise go for VZ or AT&T.  Far superior service.

Well I'm not Poor and I had Verizon.. my service on TMobile has been no better or worse but I'm paying $50 less a month for more features.  Of course I do live in NYC but it's not about poor/rich etc.. it's about being smart how you spend you money.. If reception isn't an issue, it really is a no-brainer.  If reception is an issue. it's another situation. 

Verizon for me never really got it.  People didn't want to count their minutes on their phone 10 years ago,  and they don't want to worry about overage fees on data now.  Verizon (and AT&T) is simply about gouging it's customers and the non sense about being "Rich Man's service (or business man's service)" is nothing but just marketing.