Verizon Shared Plans = Massive Rate Increase?

Zarathustra[H]

Zarathustra[H]

Extremely [H]
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Hey all,

In anticipation of switching to Verizon when the galaxy S3 came out, I priced out the following plan a couple of weeks ago:

450min, 1000 text messages, 2GB data.

The monthly cost came to ~$80 if I recall properly.

Now that I can actually get a Galaxy S3, I went back to sign up for a new Verizon plan, and was faced with the Shared data plans.

It looks to me like every single plan has unlimited minutes and text (things I never would have paid for, as I only use about 100 minutes and about 250 text messages a month).

he 2GB data plan is $60/month, and there is a $40/month networkj access fee, for a grand total of $100 per month :eek::eek::eek:

Is there really no way to get the low end minute and text plans anymore? I HATE having to pay for stuff I will never use, and $100 per month for a cell plan is an obscene amount of money :(

Thoughts?

I feel trapped into this, as all the other cellphone carriers suck, have poor speeds, poor signal and drop calls all the time. Verizon is the only one with a good enough network to be useful (and even at that, it is sub par compared to Europe and Japan)

Thus far it seems to me that the so called "shared" data plans are just a massive price increase and cash grab taking advantage of Verizon's monopoly on usable cell networks in the U.S.
 
I just looked and they have the $59+$30 for 2GB Individual plans. Still probably be around $100 with taxes though.

verizon.jpg
 
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Zepher said:
I just looked and they have the $59+$30 for 2GB Individual plans. Still probably be around $100 with taxes though.

verizon.jpg
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Huh..

I went through the same menus and was given different prices and options... Only $10 different, but still...

Not cool.

Somehow I must be in their database as willing to pay more or something.
 
Yeah I hate this shit too. I've got 450 minutes, unlimited text and unlimited data and its $80/month. Now to get 2GB, It'll be $100. So now I've got to decide if taking it up the ass by Verizon is worth $20 to keep their exceptional network or dropping down to Sprint. I've got a jar of Vasoline on standby cause I'm pretty sure I'm gonna cough up the extra $20. Verizon's network is just too good. I've got 4G even way out in the boonies here in Georgia. Sprint, not so much.
 
I've got Sprint and only because of the cost. I got in on the $30 SERO plan which was a great value.
I now pay $57/mo because I got an iPhone 4S (any top tier phone would have bumped me up to $57 anyway).
Data speeds are terrible in my area, I have unlimited data, but it's so slow. If I need to search for something out and about, I'll borrow a friends ATT or Verizon phone and search on it, otherwise I'll wait till I get home.

sero-premium.jpg
 
If you do get a GS3 wait to get the developer edition so you can root it and get free hotspot and tether. Hopefully they wont make me change my unlimited plan until I upgrade my galaxy nexus in 2 years. Unlimited 4g is pretty great other than the fact it drains my battery 4 times as fast. Ive been able to USB tether my nexus to my desktop when I didnt have my cable internet and game just fine with good pings and no drops in connection. Almost to the point I wanted to cancel my cable internet but I figured verizon might catch on after awhile and cancel my account.
 
Zepher said:
Data speeds are terrible in my area, I have unlimited data, but it's so slow. If I need to search for something out and about, I'll borrow a friends ATT or Verizon phone and search on it, otherwise I'll wait till I get home.
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What's the point of having a smartphone then? :p
 
Fleat said:
You can perform an assumption of liability on Verizon, and take over an existing plan. You can still get unlimited data plans this way.

http://www.howardforums.com/forumdisplay.php/417-Take-over-my-phone-plan
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yeah, I appreciate the suggestion. I've looked into this, but they are now forcing everyone who opts to accept a hardware upgrade to sign up for the new shared data plans with the new pricing.

I could get an unlocked phone for $599 rather than the $199 it costs with an upgrade, but at $20 per month difference I'm not sure it makes sense.
 
Zarathustra[H];1038945216 said:
yeah, I appreciate the suggestion. I've looked into this, but they are now forcing everyone who opts to accept a hardware upgrade to sign up for the new shared data plans with the new pricing.

I could get an unlocked phone for $599 rather than the $199 it costs with an upgrade, but at $20 per month difference I'm not sure it makes sense.
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Agreed. That's why I say they've got you by the short and curlies. Its enough of an increase to piss you off but not enough to justify going with another carrier or buying a phone at full retail. That's also why I was toying with the idea of rooting my T-Bolt, overclocking my CPU and install 4.0 and see how it runs. If it runs fine, I might just stick with my T-Bolt and unlimited data plan and see if AT&T and Sprint can be enough competition to force Verizon into a little better pricing plans.
 
sok0 said:
If you do get a GS3 wait to get the developer edition so you can root it and get free hotspot and tether.
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I was thinking of this, but then there is no equipment discount, you have to pay the full price for the phone upfront, which is pretty steep.

I have read that there is already a workaround for the locked bootloader though, so I am not too concerned.

sok0 said:
Hopefully they wont make me change my unlimited plan until I upgrade my galaxy nexus in 2 years.
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From what I understand, this is the plan. Users will be forced onto the new data plans when they take advantage of an equipment upgrade. If they don't use an equipment upgrade, they can potentially continue with their existing plans indefinitely, as long as they don't take advantage of an equipment upgrade.

I feel like a lot of existing Verizon customers with unlimited data plans are going to be faced with some difficult decisions in the near future.


sok0 said:
Unlimited 4g is pretty great other than the fact it drains my battery 4 times as fast. Ive been able to USB tether my nexus to my desktop when I didnt have my cable internet and game just fine with good pings and no drops in connection. Almost to the point I wanted to cancel my cable internet but I figured verizon might catch on after awhile and cancel my account.
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I tether occasionally too, but only rarely when I am on the road and something doesn't work on my phone, and I need to pull it up on a computer.

Regarding tethering, that is a wise choice, as I have heard they do monitor for this. I'm not sure what Verizon does when they catch someone, but AT&T used to just automatically sign you up for their corporate tethering plan at $50 additional per month.

Tethering - to me - is supposed to be an occasional on the road thing, as the wireless spectrum is limited and can't support infinite data transfer speeds. People who tether excessively and use it instead of ground based home internet ruin the wireless experience for everyone else, by overloading the system.
 
If you can afford the upfront cost, in your case you save $80 by staying with your current plan:

Getting Unlocked: $400 difference in phone price..

Going to new setup: Save $400 on phone, but spend $20 month extra, which is $240 a year, for a 2 year contract: $480 more in bills, which is $80 more than just buying the phone and keeping existing plan.

Zarathustra[H];1038945216 said:
yeah, I appreciate the suggestion. I've looked into this, but they are now forcing everyone who opts to accept a hardware upgrade to sign up for the new shared data plans with the new pricing.

I could get an unlocked phone for $599 rather than the $199 it costs with an upgrade, but at $20 per month difference I'm not sure it makes sense.
Click to expand...
 
We did save some money actually, but then again we have several smartphones and a tablet. What does suck though is that any corp discount you might have only applies to the data- not the device fees.
 
W.Feather said:
If you can afford the upfront cost, in your case you save $80 by staying with your current plan:

Getting Unlocked: $400 difference in phone price..

Going to new setup: Save $400 on phone, but spend $20 month extra, which is $240 a year, for a 2 year contract: $480 more in bills, which is $80 more than just buying the phone and keeping existing plan.
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Well, consider this.

With Verizon, you are eligible for an upgrade every 20 months (if you signed up after 1/16/2011).

There is a $400 difference in price between accepting an upgrade and not accepting an upgrade.

Lets assume - for a moment - that the savings over a shared data plan are $20 per month.

That results in a 20 month cash flow, where the first month entry is -$380, and entries 2 through 20 are $20 each.

In this case your NPV is $0 (break even) if your cost of capital is 0%.

In other words, if you have the money, you'd be better off accepting the discount and putting the $400 in government savings bonds for the next 20 months, than doing the upfront investment...
 
All this being said, if you assume liability for a cell phone plan from someone, can you change the number to something local, or are you stuck with what you've got?
 
Pre paid is the way to go now a days contracts just fuck you now
 
Zarathustra[H];1038945537 said:
All this being said, if you assume liability for a cell phone plan from someone, can you change the number to something local, or are you stuck with what you've got?
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AFAIK, if you get a new number, it has to be local. Whether you can port your number over, I wouldn't know. Maybe consider porting your number to Google Voice, and use them as a front to forward to whatever number you get.

To answer your original question, it's all going to cost the same whether you buy the phone straight out or subsidized when factoring the cost of the contract for this phone. That $20 savings assumes a new upgrade every 2 years with the newest phones bought straight out. If you like your current plan, without a doubt, you should keep it.
 
The new shared plan actually does SAVE some people money, We have 2 Ipads (one with 3G coverage), 2 Iphones, 1 Galaxy S3, 1 Droid X, and a Mifi Hotspot.

Previosly we had a 1400 minute plan with unlimited data on smartphones, 5GB on the Mifi (that served the non 3G Ipad and a laptop). Our Bill was $370 before taxes and fees for all the devices and plans.

After looking at our average data use for all devices over six months we averaged right at 8GB a month total.

We priced a share everything plan with unlimited minutes to anyone, mobile hot spot included on phones and the following data limits:

10GB $290 ($80 cheaper a month than previous)
20GB $340 ($30 cheaper a month than previous)

You can change the data plan GB limit at ANY time up or down without any contracts or renewals (does not affect 2 year agreement).

I understand that many people do not have as many devices on their plan but for some of us the shared plan really does save us money.
 
^^obviously it does, but if it saved everyone money, then Verizon wouldn't be hawking it, would they? This way they can claim that "with all the devices you have now, you really want this" when, in fact, for anyone who has less than 2-3 tablets its a total rip-off.

I knew it was a rip-off when it cost $40 for EACH additional phone. How does that make sense? Now you pay $80 for unlimited everything and 2GB of data, but each additional phone costs $40 and the data amount doesn't increase. On a traditional family plan, you'd pay $45 for every additional line, but that $45 gets you and additional 2GB of data. For this whole thing to make sense it needed to be $40 for each phone, and every phone brings another 2GB of data to the pool, plus the $10 tablet activation that shares in the pool. As it is right now the base rate is too high and the incremental phone rate is WAY too high
 
I think the only people who actually save money with the new plans are people who have several smartphones on their plan and everyone combined uses very little data. That, or people who talk/text a LOT.
 
Activate: AMD said:
As it is right now the base rate is too high and the incremental phone rate is WAY too high
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Agreed 100%. With the pricing plans, VZW has essentially said that unlimited voice/text is worth $30 (cost to add a non-smartphone to a plan). Adding any device that consumes data is apparently worth $10- (smartphone is $30 + $10, and a tablet is $10). What's especially weird though are the prices for adding a wifi hotspot (something that smartphones can now do for free)- $20. It's out-of-step with how everything else is priced.


edit: I just wanted to add that for a single user, the 'share everything' plans are an insanely bad deal which everyone here realizes. I suspect VZW will modify their plan going forward, or at least more visibly bring back the non-share-everything plans once they begin to lose the solo-phone market.
 
My wife and I both have smartphones, at least for now, and if we were to go to this plan, it actually would save us ~$15/mo.

Our current plan is 1400 shared minutes + favorite 5/10 or whatever, unlimited text/data for $150/mo + taxes/fees after an employer discount. Over the past 6 months, we average a combined 1.5GB of data.

Even if we went to the 4GB data "share everything" plan, it would be $15/mo cheaper after her discount. It'd be $25 cheaper if we just went with the 2GB and managed to only go over once every 3-4 months, if at all.

That being said, I'm considering just riding out my contract and hopping over to Virgin Mobile. However, I see where my money goes each month with Verizon...I haven't had a dropped call in the 20+ months we've had them. I can't say the same with Tmobile or Sprint, and Virgin Mobile uses the Sprint network around here. So.......yeah.
 
For comparison purposes:

My current VZW plan for 2 smartphones is:

700 Minutes ($50)

Line 1 Access ($10)
Line 1 250 texts ($5)
Line 1 Data Unlimited ($30)

Line 2 Access ($10)
Line 2 250 texts ($5)
Line 2 Data Unlimited ($30)

Total (no taxes/fees): $140

On a comparable shareplan allocating 2GB/line:

Line 1 Access ($40)
Line 2 Access ($40)
Data 4GB ($70)

Total (no taxes/fees): $150

Only a $10 difference but I lose unlimited data and gain unlimited talk/text which I don't want.


Also on the new share data plans has made it nice for laptops and tablets except when you think about how they are charging you a $10 access fee for...for... what exactly? The data access is already paid for in the data potion and they don't use talk or text like smartphones/featurephones.
 
LOL Veri$on.

Anybody expecting a monthly bill below $100 with a smartphone on verizon is just kidding themselves.
 
Pretty sure you can still get the old 450minute plan from Verizon(if you call or go into a store), any plans with more minutes than that it's probably less to go on the new plans.
 
The cheapest way on Verizon for single smartphone users is to do the prepay $80 1GB plan and set up auto pay with a CC and you save $5 a month, but if you want more than 1GB it will be more. But $75 a month for 1GB is the cheapest Verizon plan for one smartphone.
 
DirtyB said:
Pretty sure you can still get the old 450minute plan from Verizon(if you call or go into a store), any plans with more minutes than that it's probably less to go on the new plans.
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Only if you are an existing customer. New customers only choice are the new plans.
 
It seems to me they are adjusting their billing practices to conform to the realities of the market. People use more data now than they do voice, so they are shifting their billing towards voice.

For those of us that have gotten used to low voice, low text plans at decent rates this sucks, but maybe that is because we've gotten free (or at least cheap) rides ever since the Smartphone trend took off?

It will be interesting to see if AT&T does the same thing. It wouldn't surprise me.
 
We actually went ahead and jumped into two Galaxy S3's last night, so we had change to the share everything plan. We ended up going with just the 2GB, and setup our phones immediately to connect to WiFi at home when we can. We're actually saving $25/mo on our bill this way.

Mobile hot spot is now included also, which is more of a thing for my wife than me. We only got the Kindle WiFi (no 3G), so now she can get new books from work/elsewhere. Might be handy if I decide to actually buy a N7 tablet too.
 
I work at verizon. You can still get the old individual plans. you dont have to go to the shared if you have only one line.
 
FalconSS said:
I work at verizon. You can still get the old individual plans. you dont have to go to the shared if you have only one line.
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Is there a secret handshake I need to know or something? :p

When I went on the Verizon webpage to price everything out, and chatted with the sales support they told me that I can no longer get those plans. :(
 
online you might not be able to get it. Just because online is always trying to push you toward the new thngs.

What you can do if you want to order online is accept the share everything plan, then go into a store and say I want to go back to the 450 minute plan. I assure you I can (in the store) change a line to an individual plan. You cannot on the other hand have a share everything plan with an individual under the same account. you would have to make a sub-account with a different bill (but still under the same main account) if you wanted to do that.

I would go into a store if possible though. just because if you use a sales rep, they make money. (if you order online, verizon doesnt have to pay a rep = more profit for verizon ) They can also set you up with the plan you want from the get-go. The only thing is you might need to send off a mail-in rebate. But those have gotten MUCH quicker to get back, 1-2 weeks.
 
The Oligopoly strikes back! A month after VZW releases their plans, ATT comes back with plans that cost the exact same. Gotta love the spirit of competition! Like I said before, either the per-line fees need to go down.. like, way way down, or the base rate needs to increase. As it is they're both comically high. Figure on an old smartphone family-share plan you've got yourself 4 smartphones (family of 4). Nobody does much talking, so 700 minutes is fine. Every single line you add over the primary is $45 ($15 base + $30 data plan) and each line brings you 2GB of data with unlimited messaging, so now you've got 8GB of data for ~$235. On the new plans youre paying at least $20 more/mo just to match the total data, the only thing you gain is unlimited minutes... which, lets be serious, isn't worth that much to most people these days. Even if you went with a 6GB plan you'd still be paying more.. now for LESS data. If the pricing for the 6GB plan was the same as the old plan cost for 8GB, it might make sense for the convenience factor of the pool, the ability to add tablets, the mobile hotspot etc, but its not! Apparently verizon has vastly over-valued the "extra" features included in this new plan and its throwing the whole thing out of whack
 
Activate: AMD said:
The Oligopoly strikes back! A month after VZW releases their plans, ATT comes back with plans that cost the exact same.
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The pricing schemes are just different enough such that you can't exactly point and scream "collusion!"- not by mistake i'm sure.
 
marshac said:
The pricing schemes are just different enough such that you can't exactly point and scream "collusion!"- not by mistake i'm sure.
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yeah, pretty much sounds like it to me.

Activate: AMD said:
Like I said before, either the per-line fees need to go down.. like, way way down, or the base rate needs to increase. As it is they're both comically high. Figure on an old smartphone family-share plan you've got yourself 4 smartphones (family of 4). Nobody does much talking, so 700 minutes is fine. Every single line you add over the primary is $45 ($15 base + $30 data plan) and each line brings you 2GB of data with unlimited messaging, so now you've got 8GB of data for ~$235. On the new plans youre paying at least $20 more/mo just to match the total data, the only thing you gain is unlimited minutes... which, lets be serious, isn't worth that much to most people these days. Even if you went with a 6GB plan you'd still be paying more.. now for LESS data. If the pricing for the 6GB plan was the same as the old plan cost for 8GB, it might make sense for the convenience factor of the pool, the ability to add tablets, the mobile hotspot etc, but its not! Apparently verizon has vastly over-valued the "extra" features included in this new plan and its throwing the whole thing out of whack
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What I personally would like to see is them drop the Voice/Text/Data bs. all together. If you think of it rationally, these are digital phones. It's all data when it comes down to it. The Phone real time encodes the voice to a data stream and sends it to the recipient. Text messages are pure data.

They should just sell us data plans. Include the data used by voice calls and text messages in the data bin, and sell it as one.
 
Zarathustra[H];1038950199 said:
yeah, pretty much sounds like it to me.



What I personally would like to see is them drop the Voice/Text/Data bs. all together. If you think of it rationally, these are digital phones. It's all data when it comes down to it. The Phone real time encodes the voice to a data stream and sends it to the recipient. Text messages are pure data.

They should just sell us data plans. Include the data used by voice calls and text messages in the data bin, and sell it as one.
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verizon is working on that: VoLTE
 
Every time I chat with the live chat agents I get a completely different answer. One told me the GS3's were not in the store, next guy told me they were in the store since the 12th, next person told me, no they are not in stores the last guy was mislead. Called up the store and they had two pebble blues left. I have virgin mobile right now and am happy with it but where I am moving there is zero coverage. Unfortunately only Verizon and US cellular have coverage there so I'm stuck choosing between two overpriced plans. I know someday coverage won't be such a huge issue but for 2012 it's expensive and frustrating.
 
FalconSS said:
I work at verizon. You can still get the old individual plans. you dont have to go to the shared if you have only one line.
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You may be right but it seems these sales reps have no idea what the current situation is, I've been given 5 slightly (and 2 VERY different) stories from these guys.

Could just be the sudden changes or could just be retarded employee's, who knows. I'm pretty much sold on pre-paid once my contract is up anyways.
 
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