VERIZON GIVES UP AND MAKES CELL PHONE PLANS SIMPLE
SAY WHAT YOU want about T-Mobile’s brash, bordering-on-NSFW Uncarrier shtick, but it’s forcing the rest of the wireless industry to keep up. Today, Verizon announced a total overhaul of the way it’ll offer cellphone service going forward. The new design aims to do away with confusing plans and options, giving people an easier sense of what they’re actually getting.
From now on, you’ll pay Verizon for three things. First, for a bucket of data: plans begin at $30 a month for 1GB of data, and go as high as $80 a month of 12GB. (Texting and calling are, as always, free.) Second, you’ll pay for access to that bucket; every phone you connect costs $20, every tablet $10, and every wearable or accessory $5. And third, you’ll pay for a phone, either up front or in monthly installments. There are no family plans, and no two-year contracts. You just have a bucket full of delicious internet, and you can hand out the cups as you see fit.
This doesn’t necessarily mean your cellphone bill is suddenly going to plummet, of course. In most cases, it’s either equal or a very slight discount, but on the cheap side, where signing a two-year contract could get you a phone for next to nothing and a plan that only cost $20 a month, prices are going up a bit. The whole idea is just that it’s easier. There aren’t ten different ways to get essentially the same plan, and there aren’t even ten plans. There are just four, all based on data size: Small, Medium, Large, and Extra Large.
This kind of plan is very much de rigeur, as carriers like Sprint tout their “All-In” plans and T-Mobile boasts of its “Simple Choice” options. We’re reaching a point where you can’t get away with obfuscation anymore, or people will take someone else up on their offer to buy you out of your contract and let you start over.
Compared to the US, the rest of the world—where you can just buy a phone and use it anywhere, on any carrier—still feels like utopia. And rest assured Verizon and its competitors are still going to look for ways to upsell you and charge you fees at every turn. But this will, at long last, make it a little bit easier to figure out what in the world you’re actually paying for.
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