Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Want an unlimited Data Plan for your Smartphone? You have until Thursday



I just heard the news that Verizon Wireless will be changing it's unlimited data plan for Smartphones (including the iPhone) on Thursday July 7th.  New customers who purchase a smart phone will now have tiered options to choose from which are:

$10 a month for 75MB
$30 a month for 2GB
$50 a month for 5GB
$80 a month for 10GB

Also, if you go over your plan, you will be charged $10 per GB over.


Currently Verizon's data plan is $30 a month for unlimited usage. 

This is not new in the industry, Apple also has a tiered data plan, which is slightly less than Verizon's will be.

What does this mean for you?   If you use under 2GB a month, then you won't be affected much, in fact you may be able to change your plan over to $10 a month. However if you are close to that 2GB, you may need to keep a close eye on your usage each month.  Verizon says (I called them) that most customers do not use more than 2GB a month and therefore most of their customers will not be affected by this change.

But what if you do use more than 2GB a month, say you are a blogger who uses your smartphone for most of your work.  Well there are two options, the first option is, if you are already a Verizon customer you should be grandfathered in to the unlimited data plan.  This should count if you upgrade your phone also (notice I said should).  But you will most likely only be grandfathered with an upgrade on the same brand. So an iPhone 4 upgraded to an iPhone 5, still grandfathered. An Iphone upgraded to a Droid, probably not going to happen.

What if you aren't a Verizon customer, or you don't have a smartphone that would be included.  Option two is to sign up before Thursday July 7th.  I know, there's not a lot of time!

The third option is to just suck it up and pay the additional costs if you get a new smartphone from Verizon after July 7th. 

I choose Option 2.  I'm already a Verizon customer, but not with a great phone.  I've been planning on getting an iPhone for awhile now, I've just been waiting for the prices to go down.  I don't know if I'll go over the 2GB a month or not, but now I feel comfortable knowing that I won't have one more thing to worry about each month.  But I'm sure the prices on the iPhone will go down very shortly now!

To learn more, you can check out these articles. 
Dvice
Apple Insider
Byte Now
AllThingsD

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