Switch to Go Unlimited, Beyond, or...do nothing?
I'm on a "family plan" that we've had for...more than a decade, at least I'm pretty sure of it. It's been a long time, and every Verizon person I've talked to has mentioned it. Anyway, about 3 months ago my Dad's iPhone 6s bricked out, stopped turning on. He had insurance on it but the salesman at the store he went to talked him into just financing a new iPhone 7 saying that it would take like a week or two to get a replacement phone. Well, when he saw the financing he was surprised to say the least - we checked before he went in to make sure that there was an upgrade available and that his insurance was paid up and everything, and we're very used to the system of 2-year contracts = free phones. I understand this isn't available anymore, and Verizon offered to allow him to come into a corporate store, give his 7 back and get a refurbished 6S. He might take them up on it, he might not... that's not really what I'm looking into, it was just the thing that happened that made me start looking into changing our plan.
So, we've been looking at the new "Unlimited" plans. After talking to two Verizon folks and looking around online I'm thinking we might be better off to switch to the "Go Unlimited" plan. All 4 of us live in rural areas and we hardly ever go to places that I would imagine network congestion is an issue - but I don't know. Is there a data cap that applies to these "unlimited" plans? As far as I can tell the only data caps on the "Go" and "Beyond" are 12gb/month for the "Beyond" on mobile hotspot usage and that mobile hotspot data is permanently throttled to 3G speeds on the "Go" plan (we almost never use the hotspot feature). Is there a usage limit on "Go" at all? Like if we used 50gb in a month, would we see any throttling besides the "network congestion" times and places? How common are those? I've got something in my notes saying that these unlimited plans have data rollover - if data is unlimited on the "Go" plan, how...does that even work?
Currently we're on "More Everything Unlimited Talk & Text, 15gb / month $100" and our plan costs $315 / month. Of the 4 lines, myself, my mom and dad use about 4gb/month and my brother uses everything else, including pushing us over the limit like once every three months or so. I'd like to stop caring about data usage, but I don't want to screw us by letting go of a good plan that isn't offered any more or getting into a new plan where our data is going to be slow when we need it the most. Should we switch, or hold onto this plan?
I really appreciate any help you can give me, thanks in advance!
Posted Oct 29, 2017, 12:03 AM UTC
This pricing is with auto pay and paperless billing to receive a $5 discount per line
GO - $40/line
Beyond - $50/line
Then factor in insurance/features, device payments, and taxes.
Multi line TMP - $33/mo and covers all lines on account for insurance
So let’s say you pick beyond plus insurance
$233 plus taxes (without discount $253) which is quite a bit cheaper.
I’m guessing each of your lines is getting hit with a $40/mo line access charge now.
Thanks for your quick reply and your assistance!
That’s correct - each phone has a $40 line access fee + $9 Asurion coverage, surcharges and taxes bring it to around $55 / month. Multiply by 4, we’re paying around $315 / month.
My dad’s is: Line access $40, -$25 discount for his device payment plan, and $11 for the insurance puts him at $66 - then add in the payments on the phone, and his portion of the bill got expensive in a hurry.
So if we switch to Go or Beyond we won’t be seeing the $40 line access charges anymore? I’m guessing the $100 “plan and account” charges would also be replaced by the new system as well..?
Are there any data caps on those plans, even “soft” ones where it transitions to a throttled system? How often do people actually encounter the “deprioritization” on the “Go” plan - or is it impossible to really say?
Thanks again!
Correct with the go and beyond the line access is built in.
GO - can be deprioritized at anytime and hard cap on hotspot of 600kbps
Beyond - can be deprioritized at 22gb (each line has own 22gb) and each line gets 15gb of high speed hotspot.
Deprioritization occurs only on a congested tower, but it’s hard to tell whether you would get it.
My suggestion would be to switch to GO if you don’t use hotspot and if it’s running slow from deprioritization, bump it up to beyond. Either way you’re still paying a lot less for unlimited everything.