• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

RUMOR: Keep your unlimited?

Steven58

Former Heavyweight Champion of AF-Early Bird Club
Moderator
Feb 19, 2010
34,780
28,715
USA
I was speaking to a CSR (I know that means nothing). I told him that I had received a survey from marketing asking if I'd be willing to upgrade on the Verizon Edge program, if I would be able to keep my unlimited data. He told me that there is something "in the wind" about that.

You know me and rumors/leaks. They just follow me around, somehow, right? :p
 
Too little, too late. I gave up unlimited for a phone that I actually own, not just pay for. I ended up with a better phone, better coverage, faster speeds, no contract and unlimited everything (no overage charges) with a better price. I work for a billion dollar company with upwards of 600 employees I bet I'll cost Verizon a few accounts. I won't be back until they go GSM. I've never been treated so poorly in my entire life as a customer. My only regret was letting my wife stay on Verizon, but I'll fix that next year.
 
Upvote 0
Too little, too late. I gave up unlimited for a phone that I actually own, not just pay for. I ended up with a better phone, better coverage, faster speeds, no contract and unlimited everything (no overage charges) with a better price. I work for a billion dollar company with upwards of 600 employees I bet I'll cost Verizon a few accounts. I won't be back until they go GSM. I've never been treated so poorly in my entire life as a customer. My only regret was letting my wife stay on Verizon, but I'll fix that next year.

There's a lot of ill-will out there. I hope Verizon moves to address it.
 
Upvote 0
Too little, too late. I gave up unlimited for a phone that I actually own, not just pay for. I ended up with a better phone, better coverage, faster speeds, no contract and unlimited everything (no overage charges) with a better price. I work for a billion dollar company with upwards of 600 employees I bet I'll cost Verizon a few accounts. I won't be back until they go GSM. I've never been treated so poorly in my entire life as a customer. My only regret was letting my wife stay on Verizon, but I'll fix that next year.
Wow-Wee ... thems some sour grapes! :D

Frankly, while I have had issues with Verizon, when all was said and done, they always treated me fairly. Maybe I shouldn't have had to stomp my feet a little, but I'm still a Verizon customer and still satisfied about being one.
 
Upvote 0
Wow-Wee ... thems some sour grapes! :D

Frankly, while I have had issues with Verizon, when all was said and done, they always treated me fairly. Maybe I shouldn't have had to stomp my feet a little, but I'm still a Verizon customer and still satisfied about being one.

Agreed. This is a big issue. I've held out until it's addressed. I'm just unwilling to part with my unlimited, as are a lot of other customers. Now that the competition is getting more intense, let's see what Big Red actually does with this.
 
Upvote 0
It took quite a bit for me to leave Verizon, though I don't regret it one bit. I'll give them credit where credit was due. I always had service other than during random outages. Customer service while sometimes incompetent, always treated me well and I more or less got what I want. However many things led to my leaving of Verizon that had nothing to due with coverage or CS.

The beginning of locked bootloaders started with them which I despise. I however have vowed to only buy unlocked/unlockable devices at full retail if needed from now on.
Eliminating unlimited data for pure profit reasons rather than being pro consumer by letting those who have it keep it.
Holding Nexus device updates hostage. Being incredible slow to update any device is also an issue.
Blocking Google Wallet because it directly competes with their own service which seems to be flopping as well thus far.
Pissing Google off enough to not be given any more Nexus devices.
Not allowing LTE Nexus 7 users to get new SIM cards to activate it on their network even though open network regulations are in place.
And ultimately, AT&T and T-Mobile have great coverage as well in my area (Sprint still hasn't brought LTE here yet). So why should I pay $105 extra per month to be with Verizon when I get no reduction in service on T-Mobile?

Thus I get all that I hated about Verizon and I save all that per month. Talk about winning. :D
 
Upvote 0
It took quite a bit for me to leave Verizon, though I don't regret it one bit. I'll give them credit where credit was due. I always had service other than during random outages. Customer service while sometimes incompetent, always treated me well and I more or less got what I want. However many things led to my leaving of Verizon that had nothing to due with coverage or CS.

The beginning of locked bootloaders started with them which I despise. I however have vowed to only buy unlocked/unlockable devices at full retail if needed from now on.
Eliminating unlimited data for pure profit reasons rather than being pro consumer by letting those who have it keep it.
Holding Nexus device updates hostage. Being incredible slow to update any device is also an issue.
Blocking Google Wallet because it directly competes with their own service which seems to be flopping as well thus far.
Pissing Google off enough to not be given any more Nexus devices.
Not allowing LTE Nexus 7 users to get new SIM cards to activate it on their network even though open network regulations are in place.
And ultimately, AT&T and T-Mobile have great coverage as well in my area (Sprint still hasn't brought LTE here yet). So why should I pay $105 extra per month to be with Verizon when I get no reduction in service on T-Mobile?

Thus I get all that I hated about Verizon and I save all that per month. Talk about winning. :D

That's the thing, J, VZW is the best game in town for coverage. Sprint is only 3g. From what I understand, T-Mo has spotty coverage and ATT is just as expensive with no unlimited. I feel boxed in.
 
Upvote 0
That's the thing, J, VZW is the best game in town for coverage. Sprint is only 3g. From what I understand, T-Mo has spotty coverage and ATT is just as expensive with no unlimited. I feel boxed in.

Have you looked at mvno's in your area? AIO ended up working great for me! I have a decent data connection at work now. The switch was pure awesome for me! The only thing I lost was unlimited 4g. I still have unlimited data, just when I hit my allotment I get throttled down. And the price is more reasonable then vzw.
 
Upvote 0
That's the thing, J, VZW is the best game in town for coverage. Sprint is only 3g. From what I understand, T-Mo has spotty coverage and ATT is just as expensive with no unlimited. I feel boxed in.

Yeah, that's the pain that I'm sure many people feel. It really is unfortunate. But as Crude mentioned above, the best option may be an AT&T MVNO that does throttling, but doesn't charge overages or cut you off. Out of curiosity, do you know anyone in your area with T-Mobile? I ask because just 3 years ago, T-Mobile was terrible in my area. But after the failed merger with AT&T and buying spectrum from Verizon, they aggressively improved coverage here. It went from mostly 2g with spotty HSPA to mostly LTE. If you did decide to go to an AT&T MVNO, it might not be a terrible idea to pick up a prepaid T-Mobile pay by the day sim to try it out before committing. If it doesn't work, the AT&T MVNO could probably still do the job. How much data do you typically use a month?
 
Upvote 0
I will probably hang on to my unlimited package for as long as possible. I get 20% off of contract price through work and nobody has been close to the same coverage of VZN since before Cingular became part of ATT. T-Mo is pretty much nonexistent here and Sprint isn't much better. An ATT based service might be an option now. I hadn't paid much attention to it, but it looks like their coverage has gotten a lot better since their 4G rollout.

Piggyback companies like AIO and Republic Wireless are intriguing for their lower cost service, but being "no contract" services, can't they change their rates or level of service at any time?

My biggest concern, and the main reason I don't want to give up unlimited, is not knowing what the line between calls/texts and data will be when VoLTE is put in place.
 
Upvote 0
Piggyback companies like AIO and Republic Wireless are intriguing for their lower cost service, but being "no contract" services, can't they change their rates or level of service at any time?

They can't change it mid-month, but they can change at the beginning of every refill time. However since there is no contract, you're free to leave and take your device with you whenever you want with no termination fees. Also, refills aren't subjected to all the regulation fees and crap that gets tacked onto you bill, only sales tax.
 
Upvote 0
Yeah, that's the pain that I'm sure many people feel. It really is unfortunate. But as Crude mentioned above, the best option may be an AT&T MVNO that does throttling, but doesn't charge overages or cut you off. Out of curiosity, do you know anyone in your area with T-Mobile? I ask because just 3 years ago, T-Mobile was terrible in my area. But after the failed merger with AT&T and buying spectrum from Verizon, they aggressively improved coverage here. It went from mostly 2g with spotty HSPA to mostly LTE. If you did decide to go to an AT&T MVNO, it might not be a terrible idea to pick up a prepaid T-Mobile pay by the day sim to try it out before committing. If it doesn't work, the AT&T MVNO could probably still do the job. How much data do you typically use a month?


I average 4, but can go as high as 8 just on my phone.
 
Upvote 0
I switched to TMO on Day 1 of the JUMP program. My VZW phone worked about maybe 20% of the time - and, I like to stream music. I didn't port out for a week - wanted to make sure TMO worked. Pretty close to 100% at the office. Ate the ETF - couldn't be happier. I upgraded my phone on January 16th (so - I'm somewhat higher on data than a typical month). My willing cycle ends on the 8th - and - as of now - I'm like at 9.5 GB.
 
Upvote 0
VZW can be frustrating and they're not cheap but... their coverage is better than anything else I've tried. All the perks in the world aren't much good if you can't connect.

Along the US east coast and on to FL, AL, MS, and LA Gulf coast (with a detour inland, in the FL Panhandle), we very rarely didn't have a usable signal. For some reason, service in New Orleans isn't as strong as it is in other cities. Dunno why, but it was hard to come up with "all bars" even standing on top of the levee along the Mississippi River, right next to the French Quarter. But at least it was always 4G.

All of that said, I'm dreading the end of my current contract - bye, bye, unlimited. [/ sniff, sniff]
 
Upvote 0
All of that said, I'm dreading the end of my current contract - bye, bye, unlimited. [/ sniff, sniff]

I know new phones are pricey and subsidized phones are free or to next to nothing but if you get a non-subsidized phone you can keep your unlimited. If you are able, start a little pile of savings for when you are ready for a new phone. Remember, just because your contract is up you don't have to get a new phone right away, you never have to get a new phone really...they aren't going to boot you out if you don't sign a new contract.

Check swappa.com, you can get some decent deals there. The last few phones I got came from there, I've had no issues. They are more trustworthy than ebay etc., or I think anyway. Ask questions, negotiate price, buy phone, activate on Verizon w/no contract, keep unlimited data :)

I will say this though, and it's the sucky part; you are paying the same whether you bring your own, are off contract or on (in theory, subsidized). I hate that about Verizon, no reduction when you've paid your phone off.
 
Upvote 0
Right, forgot about that. It has to be done through a Verizon store and not online IIRC, and there is a $2 monthly fee. It's like a line of credit and shouldn't change your contract. Of course it has to be applied for on a case by case basis, who knows what the financial requirements are. I'm sort of guessing they don't approve a ton of people.

It's not the Edge program (which seems a total rip-off to me), you'd need to be very clear about what you are asking for!!
 
Upvote 0
Truth is, I'm reasonably happy with the RAZR MAXX and, more importantly, I know how to hack it to live with carriers that don't support "fast dormancy". Most carriers do support it but, for example, Rogers, in Canada, doesn't. I'm not "hair on fire" excited to get Kit Kat. As long as the apps I need work... meh. Phone replacement isn't a big issue.

It's the connection side of things that's a big concern. Usually I'm well under 2G (don't d/l movies, etc. except via WiFi) but when we're traveling and using the RAZR as a hotspot, it's not too hard to break the 2G barrier. With unlimited service, so what. With limited service... not so good.
 
Upvote 0
Truth is, I'm reasonably happy with the RAZR MAXX and, more importantly, I know how to hack it to live with carriers that don't support "fast dormancy". Most carriers do support it but, for example, Rogers, in Canada, doesn't. I'm not "hair on fire" excited to get Kit Kat. As long as the apps I need work... meh. Phone replacement isn't a big issue.

It's the connection side of things that's a big concern. Usually I'm well under 2G (don't d/l movies, etc. except via WiFi) but when we're traveling and using the RAZR as a hotspot, it's not too hard to break the 2G barrier. With unlimited service, so what. With limited service... not so good.

Have a Galaxy S4 as my daily phone but still have my maxx which I use from time to time. Would have to say my maxx would hold a charge better than me swapping out my 3 batteries for GS4 during heavy usage.

I would have to say I was lucky with my unlimited data as I was not going to upgrade to GS4 from razr maxx and lose my unlimited data. I was able to find a vzw rep that would allow me to keep my unlimited and upgrade even though I had to drive out of the way it was worth it to me.
 
  • Like
Reactions: RBEmerson
Upvote 0
I joined the dual-device family recently. Partly out of (well, OK, call it) lust and partly because I have a real need for something larger than the MAXX. I went with a WiFi Nexus 7. With FoxFi I can tether to the MAXX if needed, giving me, in effect, a phone capable Nexus less voice and texting. The MAXX can keep all of its tunes, while Nexus going to carry a number of movies.

But here's the driving reason for not getting a phone Nexus 7: I know how to hack the MAXX to work in places where many Verizon smart phones have problems. Would I be able to do that quickly with any other device? Who knows? But why re-invent the wheel if the MAXX's biggest (as it were) problem is a smallish screen?

Come mid-June, my two year stint of grandfathering into unlimited data will go away (sigh...) but I won't be swapping phones. Sooner or later, I guess the MAXX will give up, but by then I figure I'll more than have my nickel's worth out of it.
 
Upvote 0

BEST TECH IN 2023

We've been tracking upcoming products and ranking the best tech since 2007. Thanks for trusting our opinion: we get rewarded through affiliate links that earn us a commission and we invite you to learn more about us.

Smartphones