
Many of you may know that I was one of the final grandfather unlimited plan holdouts. For the past several years I have been clinging on to my 8 year old Alltel unlimited data plan. The plan included 500 shared minutes, free minutes nights and weekends, free minutes Verizon to Verizon, free minutes to 10 numbers that I chose, unlimited text messages, and unlimited (never throttled) data. This cost my family $199 per month for two lines, and I have been purchasing all cell phones at full price for the past several years.
Many of you have been asking if I would ever exchange my grandfathered unlimited for the new unlimited. I recently decided to take the plunge and sign up for the new unlimited data plan knowing that the plan only includes 22GB per month of guaranteed unthrottled data. My new for the plan ends up being about $160 per month which is a few dollars more than what I was paying for grandfathered unlimited prior to the recent price hikes.
I am enjoying unlimited minutes. In the past I would have to monitor my family's minutes use. There were several months where we would go over by a few minutes and have to pay overages. Now we talk to whoever we want for as long as we want without worrying. Of course we text as much as we always have. I decided to use as much data as I normally use this month without worrying about the 22GB cap. I am currently at 34GB with 12 days left in the billing cycle and have experienced zero throttling. The throttling only happens when you are on congested networks and for I have not experienced it. I am sure that I will eventually, but so far it has not been a problem. I will update you guys on this if it ever does become a problem.
The only minor issue that I did have in the beginning is that my sim card stopped working the moment I switched over and I had to go to the Verizon store to get a new sim card. They told me the one I had was not compatible with the new unlimited plan. I am intersted to know how many of you switched from the grandfathered unlimited plan to the new unlimited plan, and what your experiences have been.