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For a while, I had an old grandfathered-in unlimited Verizon plan, which was nice but kind of annoying since I knew it included a phone subsidy that I couldn't
by nfriedly 9y ago
For a while, I had an old grandfathered-in unlimited Verizon plan, which was nice but kind of annoying since I knew it included a phone subsidy that I couldn't use (because getting a new phone would mean getting a new contract, which would mean loosing unlimited data). So I bought my phones off of swappa, but it always annoyed me that I was paying Verizon something like $300/year for a phone that I had long-since paid off.
I was a big fan of their new plans that separated the phone cost from the service cost. I dropped down to a 2GB/month plan and cut my bill by like $6-700/year. (Well, I occasionally go over 2GB, but not most months. The actual savings are probably more like $5-600 when factoring in the overage costs.)
The new unlimited plan seems a lot like the one that I was "stuck" with, except more honest.
No surprise that their average speed is dropping, though. I remember when LTE could hit 70+ mbps. That doesn't happen often these days. (Of course, it's not like you could actually use 70mbit for very long - that speed can burn through a 2GB plan in under 4 minutes.)
- shalmanese 9y agoIf you were only using ~2GB a month, why were you so persistent in hanging on to your grandfathered plan? Most of the people I knew who kept their grandfathered plan were pushing 50 - 100GB of data a month (without tethering as tethering was the #1 reason Verizon could kick you off the plan).
- nfriedly 9y agoThere were occasional months where I was traveling and I'd hit ~10GB, but mostly it was a combination of thinking I was using it more than I actually was, and thinking I might "need" the unlimited data (like if my home internet died or whatever). Also, until they split things up, it wasn't really any cheaper. I could get a new phone at a discount, but my old phone worked and I could always replace it with another used one from swappa for similar or less money. There was no way to reduce the monthly bill, at least not significantly.
- snovv_crash 9y agoTo me, in Europe, those prices sound ridiculous. I can buy 4GB of data from Vodafone for EUR29.
- ReverseCold 9y agoT-Mobile prepaid is $30USD/mo for 5GB LTE.
- nfriedly 9y agoYea, they are ridiculous. There are cheaper options, although they generally don't have good coverage in rural areas (where I and a lot of my family live).
- tunap 9y ago"...it always annoyed me that I was paying Verizon something like $300/year for a phone that I had long-since paid off." I went 6 years off contract after they gobbled & throttled Alltel customers. I was a previous VZW contracted refugee & refused to be yoked into minute/MB counting again and the very frequent overcharge disputes. I was paying that $300 for their superior national coverage, the 180° opposite of their norm customer service & freedom from stealthy "web access" fees. They knew we were f'ed under contract & it showed. Tmo works well enough now that I don't travel as much. I am on a grandfathered plan here now, too. Meh, I can always pay more, right?