This week we are going to discuss another major competitor in the cell phone industry; Verizon Wireless. Unlike T Mobile who we discussed last week, Verizon isn’t as good at getting the word out about sales and deals. Many times Verizon can have deals happening and you would only know about them if you called and asked if there happen to be any deals that you qualify for.
As far as the service is concerned, Verizon has fantastic coverage in most areas and has also recently begun rolling out VoLTE, or Voice Over LTE (data), which would make calls even clearer and would allow for calls to be made over an internet connection. VoLTE will have many other features as well including video calling which until now, unless you had an iPhone, you needed to get a third party app for that. One thing that not many people take advantage of is Verizon Messaging, which is Verizon’s app for texting which can send texts via Wi-Fi. Although the regular texting apps are better, if you happen to be in a bad service area or have bad reception in your home but have Wi-Fi, this would help you. In addition you can install this app on tablets as well and can receive texts that will also go to your phone (texts you send from there will not necessarily sync to your phone).
Verizon offers a few different options for cell phone plans. We are primarily going to discuss Verizon More Everything, and Verizon Edge. More Everything is great for family plans and is actually much more affordable than most people think. The way it works is; you pay $40 per month line access fee (which includes unlimited talk and text), per phone, and then pay for a data plan. Data plans start at 250MB for $15, 500MB for $30, and 1GB for $40. If you have access to Wi-Fi and get the smallest plan for two phones, you will be paying $95 per month not including taxes and fees. When signing a new More Everything contract you will also get a free GB of data per line which means that the plan mentioned before will be $95 per month for 2.25GB of data. The data on these plans is shared, which means that one of the phones can use .25GB and the other 2GB. If you already have the 250MB plan from Verizon you may still be able to cash in on another deal that they had where they would give you an extra GB of data for a year (hoping they will make you dependent on it for next year).
As far as phones go, with this plan you can get a more basic, or older, phone for free with the two year contract and do not have to pay an additional $25 per month for each phone. For a better phone you will need to shell out up to $200 ($300 for the iPhone 6 plus) when signing the contract but that is all you will need to pay to own the phone after two years. With this plan you can upgrade after your two years are up. However, after the first year into a contract, Verizon will offer you a couple hundred dollars towards a new phone (at full price) if you resign a two year agreement from that time. Verizon will also usually let you upgrade a few months early if it means they will get you to sign a new contract. This means that if you are at the end of your first year of your contract and qualify for the credit and happen to own an iPhone (which you can trade in until Tuesday Sep. 30th), 4 or newer, you can get $400 toward a new phone (the LG Vista is $400). Just keep in mind that this will push your upgrade date back a year.
If you would like to upgrade more often than the Edge plan might be for you. Edge is very similar to the T Mobile JUMP!. You pay a monthly fee (the value of the phone divided by 20 months) for your phone and after paying off 60% of the value you can upgrade. This will allow you to upgrade every year as opposed to the two years without Edge. With Edge you will also get $10 dollars off of your bill every month ($25 if you have a 10GB plan or higher). So with the plan we discussed before if one of the phones were on Edge and one wasn’t the bill would be about $110 per month depending on which phone was purchased with Edge. With Edge, as with JUMP!, you do not own the phone unless you finish paying for it and the remaining value of the phone becomes due if you choose to end your contract. With the More Everything plan there is a termination fee which declines every month of your contract.
Verizon does offer insurance for phones but it is an extra $10 per month and does not come included in Edge (manufacturer’s warranty is included), unlike Jump!. For a new phone, SquareTrade might still be the way to go.
If you have any questions about the article, need help with your device, would like specific topics covered in future articles, or would like to be a sponsor of this column, I can be reached at [email protected].
Until next time,
Nesanel ~ YWN
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