Roger Fingas
Verizon Wireless on Friday announced a new set of core subscription plans, eliminating contract-based phone subsidies in favor of combinations based on device choices and the amount of data.
Beginning August 13, new customers will pay $30 per month for 1 gigabyte of shared data, $45 for 3 gigabytes, $60 for 6 gigabytes, or $80 per month for 12 gigabytes. Device access fees will be $20 for a smartphone, $10 for a tablet or wireless hotspot, and $5 for any other "connected device," such as a cellular-equipped smartwatch.
Up to 10 devices will be able to share the same plan. For each gigabyte over a plan's limit, however, people will have to pay $15.
In place of subsidies, subscribers will either have to buy a device outright or add two-year financing. In the case of the latter, fees will vary based on device cost.
People already with Verizon will be able to retain their existing subscriptions, or switch to one of the new ones. There may be "some restrictions" on keeping current plans, according to Verizon, but the carrier didn't elaborate.
The decision to jettison subsidies also does away with the Edge upgrade program, and follows in the steps of T-Mobile. While subsidies are useful in attracting customers, carriers often lose money on the initial device sale, and customers end up being locked into a contract that can only be escaped with an early termination fee.
Charles Martin
Malcolm Owen
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43 Comments
So this would cost considerably more for me than I currently pay, which is $75 after taxes for 2GB with insurance.
Financing or Outright purchase is the way to go. Subsidies never made any financial sense, and have done nothing to but skew the public perception of the value of the devices, and resulted in contracts with unrealistic timeframes and "overpaying" for wireless service when it was really just a different way of recouping cost.
Perhaps I'm misunderstanding this article. But it sounds like Verizon wants you to buy the phone outright and then pay them $30 for a measly 1gb of data? You'd get that amount of data plus a load of free calls for around $12 in the UK (pay as you go). Perhaps I'm misunderstanding but it sounds like Americans really get screwed over on mobile pricing.
Actually it's $50, plus various taxes and bogus fees. You have to pay $20 for the phone line as well. The $30 is for a bucket of 1GB of data you can theoretically share with other devices, but each of those has a per-line fee as well. Yes, our mobile phone plans are crazy expensive.
I'm still grandfathered on an unlimited data plan, plus 450 minutes and unlimited Verizon-to-Verizon minutes form when I had an Android phone back in 2010. All for $79.95, plus taxes. I love that plan on my iPhone 6, gobbling up all the media, Apple Music listening, and web surfing I want without concern for how much data I'm using. Don't know what I'll do if that ever goes away. Maybe move to the Philippines, use cheap pre-paid data load and date women 30 years my junior. Nothing short of that would make up for losing my unlimited data plan.