[Update] Verizon's New Family Data Plans Begin: It's Called the Share Everything Plan

[77Pat]

One thing that I haven't seen any mention of is what will happen to people with just a single phone? Are they forcing EVERYONE over to Share Everything (even if we don't have anyone to share with on our account), or just mutli-line accounts? If such is the case, will the old pricing structure stick for a single line account?

Interesting thought. Although it seems to me like they would want single lines to pay the same, since there is the chance of multiple devices. Just taking a wild guess here.

 

[Garemlin]

This is just uncalled for. I just did some calculations. Even if I were to keep my plan similar to what it is now with two smart and two feature phones and using the data we normally do I would be going from $190 a month to over $240 a month including insurance and taxes/surcharges. Was also hoping to add another smartphone for my wife which would up the data and line charge bringing the bill into the $260 range.

No way!!!

 

[Caesars]

Did I read this wrong? My understanding is that Verizon thinks a family can share ten gigs?

 

[dgstorm]

DG, to answer the bold in your OP, I've read that it's $10 for 2GB more if you order more data before you go over. If you just happen to go over, it's $15 for each GB over.

Awesome! Thanks for the clarification! Everyone take note of this.

 

[Quicksilver7714]

Ok at $50 for 1GB of shared data I'm probably going to switch to Sprint when my contract ends in 2 years. I use about 5GB per month when I don't do any tethering and on top of that I am the only one on our family plan who has a smart phone so I would get stuck paying for the data. I refuse to pay $20 more for only 1GB of data when I have unlimited for $30. Plus 6GB would cost me $50 more than I am currently paying. At that price I can move my line to Sprint with unlimited everything.

I pay about $45 per month as a secondary line with data and insurance. 6GB of shared data would bump my payment to $95. With Sprint I can get unlimited everything for about $80.

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2

 

[jntdroid]

My wife and I moved over to T-Mobile recently on one of their "family value" plans. If you can pay outright for a phone (maybe by selling your super maxxed out robot killing Verizon LTE device :tongue, it's the best plan out there - IMHO even better than some of the prepaids b/c T-Mobile's nationwide coverage is better (than Virgin or Boost for example). Without paying outright for a phone, they take the retail price and break it out over 20 months, giving you the option to "pay it off" early if you want.

Unlimited data and text - well "unlimited" data - it's capped eventually. We're on the 1000 minute plan b/c together we rarely go over that, and half of our minutes are to each other which is unlimited anyway.

We pay $80 per month, plus taxes and fees... so roughly $90 per month. We get T-Mobile's "4G", which isn't as fast as LTE, but is more stable than Verizon's LTE (no handoff issues!). For a similar level of usage to what we had with Verizon, it's half the cost, and definitely a better deal than these new plans. Plus T-Mobile isn't near as strict on locking down their devices like Verizon is.

It's not for everyone, but in our situation it made a heck of a lot of sense and is saving us some good $$$.

 

[Alastrionia]

They want to make money - I understand that
But the pricing seems a bit high for the overall value.
Granted unlimited talk and text is nice
The data tiers are a bit wonky to me.

But, that being said. For me personally who's been on a very old nationwide plan
I actually would be paying the same or slightly less depending on the data package

2 phones = $80
1 shared data @ 10gb = $100

so $180 + tax = about the same as I pay now

do I switch and lose my unlimited data but gain unlimited text and minutes?
or stay with my minutes I have, no text, and unlimited data.

the question is just how important is data to you
can you pair down your usage? wifi instead?
or do you jump ship hoping other carriers don't do the same (which eventually they might, you don't know)

 

[dgstorm]

One thing that I haven't seen any mention of is what will happen to people with just a single phone? Are they forcing EVERYONE over to Share Everything (even if we don't have anyone to share with on our account), or just mutli-line accounts? If such is the case, will the old pricing structure stick for a single line account?

Cereal killer and I were trying to figure this same thing out too. We are reaching out to our contacts to see what we can find out.

 

[SteveIrv]

Well.......Currently my wife and I both have Droid 2 Globals, we share 700 minutes a month (and never hit that), have unlimited txt, and unlimited data and pay $156 (which includes about $15 in taxes and fees) a month. For us "unlimited data" is a joke because nearly all my data use is via wifi and my wife discovered early that using her phone to listen to music (pandora, etc.) just left her with a dead battery somewhere between lunch and quiting time......so she uses very little data also.

Anyway.....the new plan would put both our phones in the plan, unlimited talk and txt, and 4GB of data for $150 a month (plus about $15 in taxes and fees). But that $150 would get reduced by 15% since I get a work related contract discount. Putting our bill under the new plan at about $143.

Looks like it would save a us a couple $$, not many though, and not effect us much in how we use our phones. In months when we go on vacation we'd call in to turn one of our phones into a wifi hotspot for $20 and pay for a higher data cap....(shrug). Maybe up the data from 4GB to 6GB and it'll be about the same cost for us????

I can see that for the "average" user, these new plans might be marginally cheaper, or the same....for "power" users they're going to be much more expensive. How else do you thin Verizon can lighten the load on it's networks.

 

[suzukimethod]

i wonder how employer discounts work on the share everything plan....

I'll probably get hammered for saying so...:blink:, but at my current plan (2 smartphones with unlimited data) i would actually save 10-20/month on this new plan (wife doesnt use much data at all, i am on wifi much of the workday)....even more with whatever employee discounts would help with.

if overages are indeed $10 for 1-2GB prepaid, i hate to say, but it's a no brainer for me to switch. i hate giving up my unlimited plan, but given our data usage, the occasional need to purchase overages would be far offset by the monthly savings.


it sucks for the heavy data users, but vzw has decided to stick it to the 4-5% of data users that use a vast majority of the data on the network.



edited to add: haha - @steveirv, we are twins.

 

[syndicate0017]

i wonder how employer discounts work on the share everything plan....

I'll probably get hammered for saying so...:blink:, but at my current plan (2 smartphones with unlimited data) i would actually save 10-20/month on this new plan (wife doesnt use much data at all, i am on wifi much of the workday)....even more with whatever employee discounts would help with.

if overages are indeed $10 for 2GB prepaid, i hate to say, but it's a no brainer for me to switch. i hate giving up my unlimited plan, but given our data usage, the occasional need to purchase overages would be far offset by the monthly savings.


it sucks for the heavy data users, but vzw had decided to stick it to the 4-5% of data users that use a vast majority of the data on the network.



edited to add: haha - @steveirv, we are twins.

And what happens if you add a line to your plan? Uh oh...VZ advertised this as a savings for larger families and that's not the case at all. It might save the two-liners some money, but 4+ lines and they ram you hard.

 

[2ns]

For the single phone people, I think it means you can share data with your phone and tablet and laptop...

 

[doomgazer]

Even though I cringe at the data prices, I'm another one where this can end up saving me money. I have to wonder though if all the "smartphone" devices on the plan get a new every 2 discount or if it's just the primary line? If I have to pay full price to upgrade my phone, I may as well stick with what I have.

 

[mandragora]

it sucks for the heavy data users, but vzw had decided to stick it to the 4-5% of data users that use a vast majority of the data on the network.

I completely disagree with this. The heavy data users get a break. The low end users are paying $50/GB. The high end users are paying $10/GB.

 

[mandragora]

Even though I cringe at the data prices, I'm another one where this can end up saving me money. I have to wonder though if all the "smartphone" devices on the plan get a new every 2 discount or if it's just the primary line? If I have to pay full price to upgrade my phone, I may as well stick with what I have.

Here is the comparison with unlimited messaging and 2GB/phone data.

750 Plan New Plan
2 Smart Phones: $90 + $30 + $60 = $170 $80 + 70 = $150
3 Smart Phones $100 + $30 + $90 = $210 $120 + 80 = $200
4 Smart Phones $110 + $30 +120 = $260 $160 + 90 = $250

If you have feature phones too that's where they get you.

2 Smart Phones: $90 + $30 + $60 = $170 $80 + 70 = $150
+1 feature Phones $100 + $30 + $60 = $190 $120 + 70 = $190
+2 feature Phones $110 + $30 +160 = $200 $160 + 70 = $230

If they only discount the primary line like they do now, then it is even worse since you are saving only on the $40 instead of the $80