Unlimited data plan price increase

I have on two occasions worked with the CS folks at VZW and they let me start a new contract in the 11th month....
don't recall the exact number of days I had left... but like you are, I think you can get it to work.

Call them up, and tell them you want to get a new phone....

I would not jump ship, tmobile is not the way to go unless you never leave your metro area...

I live in the grass land prairies and it is like being in the mountains.... coverage on nearly everything disappears at times... VZW has the best coverage out here, but even they get lost...... but there isn't any signal from anyone when that happens.

This phenomenon is really noticeable if you are using a moving map display to trace your ground path for survey purposes...
all of a sudden the map freezes ( no DATA ) and I drive for 2 or 3 miles before the map catches up with me.

kamon211 said:

Crap what horrible timing!

My contact is up 11/27....I know costco can help me get a new phone and keep my udp, but not until my current contact is up.

Is there any way to just pay off the remaining month and get a phone now?
Out any other methods?

I'm getting tired of dealing with vzw bs, I might just quit and go to tmobile

Click to expand...

You might be successful in calling Verizon asking for an early upgrade. I called and basically said I'm close to my upgrade date but my phone is completely dead. They pushed my upgrade up 2 months before in the past.

The problem with the 12 GB bucket plan is that it doesn't seem to matter how many people are drawing from the bucket. Some in this thread have reported being offered that same plan with only 2 lines drawing from it whereas I've been offered the same 12 GB with 3 lines drawing from it. So...if a person has 5 lines, do they still offer the same 12 GB shared by all? I just don't get the rationale there if so as its clearly a case of diminishing returns for those doing MORE business with them?!?

/bangs head against brick wall

If only they would think this through, it could be done in a way that would appease the majority of the remaining unlimited users. Those who use massive amounts could continue to pay for unlimited and their associated high rate of usage and the rest of us (who may be elevated data users but not ridiculous) could go for a liberal fixed cap, maintain our same billing rate, and be relatively happy in my estimation. All I want is to not have to worry about going over. I refuse to monitor my data. If I'm going to do that, I'll make a MAJOR switch to a service that sucks from the VZW network that I paid to build but costs way less to the consumer. Figure it out Verizon. Eventually you're going to run out of investors to fund everyone else's data needs.

WHOOT!

http://phandroid.com/2015/10/14/t-mobile-10-gigs-for-all-plan-returns-120-dollars-for-4-lines/

Looks like we have a move to make! Even with a couple of new phones, it'll pay off in spades in just a few months

Hmmm, I just bought the daughter a HTC One M9 at $30/month extra and my current bill is $189.39/month. at the $30 to $189 = $219 there is gonna be a hell of a penalty to offset that purchase.

We all share a 6 gB/family/month package.....
but, most of my Family is on Verizon..... and I do love getting those "delivered" messages on SMS... still though, something to think on. Been with VZW for almost 25 years.

Now, how will T-Mobile cover me in the rural boonies 60 miles away from a metro area?

I don't see anything just yet as to how long that 10 gB/line will remain in effect, or how long that rate will remain in effect. (lifetime) edit...
If it is permanent in both cases, I have some hard number crunching to do.

I and my daughter together only use about 2-3 gB/month, on average we max at 0.9 gB/month.

My wife never uses data period, her phone is just a game device.
my 4th line is just a wireless modem for the laptop..... I can see getting a benefit here in having an actual 4th phone instead of a dumb modem... could be useful at times.

the actual dollar amounts are what I have to look at.... that and a brand new HTC One M9 that hasn't been registered yet. It is still be played with by the daughter.... she is new to Android....

hmmmmm.

Just had a thought, that $120/month will NOT include taxes imposed by all of the regulating authorities, and on my current bill, that is a huge amount.... and it will apply the same across all carriers irregardless of who they are.

I'm looking up my last statement right now.

Line Surcharges $46.85
Taxes, Governmental Surcharges & Fees $9.16

so, that is $56.01

so, T-Mobile's offer of $120 now becomes 120+56=$176.

next month's Verizon bill is going to be $235.69 to cover the cost of the HTC M9.

so, 235-176=59 savings.... maybe

not an instant panacea for me just yet.

still, if it is the truth, 59x12=$708 per year.... now that is something to consider.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now, what comes to mind, is that all four of my phones will probably have to be replaced..... I need to find out if a Verizon phone will work on T-Mobile...
I have a chart somewhere to find out.

More ugly thoughts. VZW is a CDMA based carrier, and does support GSM.... but, I don't think my phones will work well on T-Mobile.

Also, I do not like spending a lot of time configuring up a phone. I get it like I want it, and it don't change for a year..... maybe once in a blue moon I find an app to try out.... don't play games, don't like Social Apps, etc...

buying 4 new phones again makes it a Deal Breaker... I would love to have the higher data allowance, but in truth, Verizon always follows along, slowly and begrudgingly, but they always follow along "after a while".... besides that, WiFi is with me 98% of the time, so what does it matter?

Another question; does these new (non-UDP) plans include throttling language in the T&Cs? I know VZ can't throttle us now based on use but did they build that back into the new contracts for their current plans?

FWIW
DLM

I have NOT noticed any throttling on my Verizon XL T-Shirt plan at all.
I have 6 gB/month and just came in off a 30 day vacation using my phone as a mobile Hotspot for my laptop.

It always ran full speed, and you can test this on any device or PC by navigating to
http://speedof.me/

That website does not use JAVA or Flash.
It is totally HTML and it is totally accurate every time I use it.

www.speedtest.net swears to me that when I use VPN that I am getting downloads at TWICE the rate that my local ISP allows ( 10.5 mBps ).... yep, it would swear that I was getting 22-24 mBps every time.... well, I was NOT.... and http://speedof.me/ me finally provided the answers to me...


I am running a VPN right now, and here is the SpeedOf.me test results on my AT&T ADSL line

.

here are two screenShots of Verizon in a very poor rural area, I have ONE BAR of signal inside my home.














. usually, if I am in town, I get better than 40 mbps...

but, out here in the sticks of rural grass land Indian Territory, we are lucky to have 4g period.

.

I pulled the trigger and have four SIMs coming. My VZW bill promises to go to $300+/month... T-Mo is less than half that.

The_Chief said:

I pulled the trigger and have four SIMs coming. My VZW bill promises to go to $300+/month... T-Mo is less than half that.

Click to expand...

what phones do you have, and were you guaranteed that our Verizon phones can be used.....
I can't afford the switch if they must be replaced.

but, if I can save $700+ bux a year with the same phones, then I gotta think on it.

And you say T-Mo is less than half the cost to you. Is that AFTER the taxes, and we are comparing apples to apples?

was your Verizon plan a T-Shirt size XXL 12 gB/family/month type plan, or one of the earlier ones like I had, 1 UDP, 2 smartphones on a plan.... merged those all into the T-Shirt plan last month.

more details would be beneficial to those of us needing to make a sane decision.

did you read my prior post that T-Mo's plan is $176/month compared to $189 for me right now on the Family Plan.

I have TRUE grandfathered unlimited data on four lines at $9.95/line for data (I took advantage of a promotion in January 2010 to get THAT deal). With VZW about to jack our rates, that skyrockets my plan to well over $300 a month. T-Mo has the 10GB for All Plan, four lines with unlimited talk & text and 10GB each of data. Our music streaming services do NOT count against data usage, and it's 100% tetherable and unused data rolls over for up to a year. The basic four-line plan is $120. Even if I have to get a phone or two (our two new Moto X Pures will work on T-Mobile), I'll recoup that in just a few months. With Taxes and Fees, I'm still under $150. It just makes too much sense not to switch, considering that they have solid coverage here, my son's location and just about everywhere we're thinking of moving. Even if we go on their Jump Program for new phones, we're still in gravy. I hope this helps.

that helps tremendously, and I salute you for being able to take advantage of T-Mo's new plan.


Okay, I have to add this into "my comparison" on the two. I ride a Goldwing Motorcycle a lot, and just recently returned from a tour covering most of the S.E. USA. My son lives just north of Atlanta, GA.

for local m/c tours, I travel mostly around the eastern half of Oklahoman and the S.W. parts of Arkansas.
T-Mo is almost non-existent for me in most of those areas....

Look at this for my "local tours" just around home.





if it is not dark PINK, they do not have coverage. The grey areas they have a "Partner" to help out. The "White" areas? sorry, charlie, you do NOT have any phone coverage at all. 2 days from now, I am going south from Tulsa, OK down to just south of Talihina, OK and east of Antlers, OK. For 1.5 hours of my 2.5 hour trip, I will NOT have any phone coverage period. that is NEVER the case with Verizon.... I have never, ever lost coverage for more than 1 or 2 miles.... ever... whether they had coverage, or a partner, didn't matter, my phone works everywhere.


Now, take a look at the Southeastern part of the USA of which I just completed a 30 day tour visiting with family, friends, and so forth. almost half of my travels are in areas without any coverage at all.... This, is really giving me some reservations about going with T-Mobile. IF, I still lived in Phoenix, AZ or in Oklahoma City, and I was not capable of moving around... then yeah, I could not ignore their offer... I have got to do a lot of thinking on this, and I am going to have to have some heart to heart talks with their people and folks who use T-Moible.... I travel the rural areas almost exclusively, that is where the most fun is for a motorcycle guy....

here is the SE USA






Don't know about you, but unless I am severely Color blind, there are a lot of white spaces in there.
And that worries me a lot.

Now, here is my play toy. I am 73 years of youth, and I do NOT plan on dissolving into a pulpy mass of nothing, I am going out to enjoy myself.

This picture was taken two weeks ago in Dawsonville, GA 30 miles north of Atlanta, GA.
I had to ride for 3 hours in rain to get away from the hurricane that was moving in that part of the country.
I made it from Dawsonville, to Memphis, TN in one day..... enjoyed a Best Western Plus, and rode another 500 miles the next day to my home north of Tulsa, OK...

Unless it is freezing, or more than 95*F this ole codger is going riding.



Yep, a camping chair on the trailer, and I have Big Bird as company all the time. My daughter named my bike Big Bird the minute she saw it when I brought it home. And the name stuck... The blue ice chest has a Phase Change technology ice vest. dunk it in ice water for 15 minutes, then put it on underneath my Mesh motorcycle jacket. It maintains 59*F for 2.5 hours...
when it runs out of cold, I dunk it in ice water again.


Just to make this post more entertaining, here is a SPOT map showing where my 'SPOT' satellite transponder reported my location every 10 minutes... from Memphis to home... in one easy travel day. At 6:45 AM, I left Olive Branch, MS south of Memphis, TN and made it to Oologah, OK at 3:30 PM





Compare that route to the map of Oklahoma above, and half of it is without any phone coverage on T-Mobile..... I gotta think this out before I jump the VZW ship.

Wow, I just found a very valuable tool for anyone in my position.

http://www.deadcellzones.com/

look at coverage of the major networks in your area of use.

this is 2 years old, but the basics are still valid and very succinct.

http://www.imore.com/att-vs-verizon-vs-t-mobile-vs-sprint-which-iphone-5-carrier-should-you-choose

and look at this also.

http://www.cellreception.com/search.php?zip=74053&page=1

.

T-Mo is not looking good in my area of the world.

T-Mobile
(1 star) | Sequoyah Elementary | Rt. 66 Claremore Sequoyah Line, Claremore, OK 74017 | July 17, 2014
Deceptive digital maps helped T-Mobile hook us. Once we had phones and plans galore we found we could barely get 2G, and sometimes no coverage at all, for miles and miles around. Very disappointed with how companies can trick customers into spending so much money, only to provide an inferior product, and then are allowed to hold the customer hostage for two years.

after reading more on that site, I have decided to call Calf Rope, and stay with Verizon.
I just cannot stomach loosing 4g LTE

http://www.cellreception.com/search.php?zip=74053&page=2

,. sorry to have eaten up a lot of space here, but I do believe that everyone needs to be aware of what is behind the white curtain before you throw the Wall Switch.... metaphor, but you know what I mean.

Scooter70 said:

I think I was the last one with an Unlimited contract. My UDP contract just expired last week. Two years ago there was a glitch in the system where for a few hours it let people with Unlimited Data buy a MotoX at the "new contract" price and renewed our unlimited contracts. I got in on that with my two lines, which were month to month prior to that.

That said, I just bought an S6 Edge last month on Swappa and my wife just bought an iPhone 6 there last night. Now they go and raise the prices and say that we could get new phones with the monthly payment plan. Ugh. Just my luck. Oh well, we use ~20-25GB/month total so dropping unlimited to go to a tiered plan would probably be a lot more for us.

Click to expand...

I agree I guess I have to pay that extra $20 per line we have three so an extra $60 its still cheaper for us if I do the count correctly. I spend more than 20gb my self a month then we still have two more lines changing could mean less on the plan but more money for data because of this. the other day I spend more than 10GB in one hour.

Of course YMMV, but T-Mo has turned on 4G LTE in my area in just the past year. A 2-year old chart is severely outdated, I'm afraid. If I travel at all outside my calling area, I'm probably on the Interstate... which is pretty well covered by T-Mo. Yes, I will be losing some coverage in some more remote areas... but picking up WiFi Calling and paying half the cost, this is a deal that anyone should seriously consider.

the two coverage charts came directly from the T-M0 site. the complaints came from the sites they were registered on, so yes, the complaints are two years old. It was T-Mo's very own coverage charts that stopped me from going with them.

Too many big holes in coverage for me to be able to work with them. a minor issue for some, but my little gas app, 'Fuelio' from Play Store has GPS capability to insert the Location where I get fuel. But, it requires access to the internet in order to get the name of the location for that lat/long. If T-Mo don't have coverage in Hazen, AR (and they don't) which is where I just bought fuel, I can't get the GPS location, and I can't call my family to let them know I am okay. Bad deal for me on both counts.

My sister lives in Price, Utah. T-Mobile for her is non-existent in 95% of the state. In fact, they only have PINK coverage 4g in 3 areas. Salt Lake City, St. George, and a little bit in the center of the state. LTE is totally non-existent anywhere else in UT. most of it is with a partner, and half of UT is totally WHITE which is zero coverage.
She is also on Verizon, she said there is only 1 little 10 mile stretch between Price, Utah and Grand Junction, Colorado that she is without any coverage from Verizon. She has to make that trip every other month to see her doctor.

Us Rural Folks, have to be careful with our choices.... both of us have stayed with Verizon for well over 20 years because of coverage... and we have watched others advertise cheaper prices, and could not take them.

On my 4,000 mile motorcycle tour, I was never without a cell phone signal. Even in the most rural areas of Georgia and Alabama there was always signal. Not 4g at times, but a signal was there, and the internet was available but slow in places.

Every once in a while, I get to wishing for cheaper cellphone prices, but every time, I have to forget it because of the Coverage Problem. If I did not get out and travel the rural areas, it would not make any difference. I could go with T-Mo and be satisfied. as they do saturate the Tulsa, OK area, but they have big holes in the Oologah area just 30 miles to the north of Tulsa. That is unacceptable for me.

I'm glad this came up, and we had a chance to discuss it. There just isn't any Free Lunch, ever.
http://www.t-mobile.com/coverage.html?location=price,+utha

I had considered picking up a prepaid phone on T-Mo just for testing purposes.
and I might still yet do it, will just have to find out if I can afford to do that.
I have a trip planned Saturday through more than an hour's worth of travel in WHITE SPACE, and that is on a current t.mo map.

I have a buddy in Phoenix, AZ who has gone with Straight Talk.
This lets him use the Verizon network but at a cheaper price, but that is for talk or message only, no internet service period.

I'm going to test drive T-Mo for a week or so and put it through its paces before I close out VZW. There are places we occasionally go that have spotty coverage: but for less than half the cost, I can't justify keeping Big Red over them. Again: if you're in a place where VZW reigns supreme (like I've been until T-Mo expanded here), you're better off staying with them. I'll do a comparison once I get the SIMs and make my final determination... but I don't expect any surprises.

The_Chief said:

I'm going to test drive T-Mo for a week or so and put it through its paces before I close out VZW. There are places we occasionally go that have spotty coverage: but for less than half the cost, I can't justify keeping Big Red over them. Again: if you're in a place where VZW reigns supreme (like I've been until T-Mo expanded here), you're better off staying with them. I'll do a comparison once I get the SIMs and make my final determination... but I don't expect any surprises.

Click to expand...

Okay, I am assuming that they told you that you can use the same phone we have on VZW and just change the SIM?

The IMEI isn't going to trip us up? the phone will still be registered with VZW, but we will be using it on TMO...
that's okay since we are still paying our VZW dues?

did some looking to see how the radio channels line up.
Not all of them will work, but enough might so it will work.
I can see though, that using a VZW dedicated phone on TMO can cause some "premature signal loss" that we can't blame on the TMO coverage areas.

found a chart on WikiPedia of all places.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellular_frequencies

Looks like LTE is the same band on all carriers.

both share these bands:
1700 MHz
2100 MHz

both share this PCS 3g band
1900 MHz

So, there is some sharing, and some losses. But, the LTE seems like will work on either radio.
I think I will try to get just one TMO SIM and run around with it.

Anyone that's managed to hang on to their unlimited data with Verizon should have a freaking medal issued to them at this point. Same with AT&T.

I know that with everything else going on, unlimited data is pretty much the only way to go forward.

I'm in the same boat as some of you. I've had UDP since 2010, I currently pay $130 + fees which comes out to $160/mo for 2 lines with 700 minutes and 500 txts. I'm in IT and while i'm on wifi pretty often I also use my hot spot often, stream Spotify in the car when i'm on the road. My data usage for the last year ranges from 2gb-4gb, my wife's on the other hand is anywhere from 3gb-8gb. My understanding is if I sign up for the 12gb plan at $80/mo, plus 2 phones would be $40, plus the tax's and fee's my bill would be around $150/mo. I hate being capped but paying $180/mo for 2 lines is dumb. I live in a Metro (Rochester, NY) but I work all over so I need a signal. I had AT&T a while back, had some issue but wasn't too bad unless I was in the sticks. This is just a dumb thing to do to less than 1% of the people on their network.