By Verizon today announced that they would be bringing shared family data plans to the Big Red network mid-summer of this year. After mentioning it once in the past, we really didn’t have an idea regarding how long it would take Verizon to bring it to all those who wish to have it. They originally targeted the middle of this year and they’ll definitely be hitting that original estimation with this new timeline.
The news was shared in their Q1 earnings call today. Shared data plans will allow customers to pay one flat rate for a pool of data that members of a family plan will all eat from.
Of course, Verizon wasn’t willing to go into details regarding plan rates, but we imagine they won’t be allowing any unlimited options, and those who are still on unlimited data probably won’t be able to take advantage of the deal unless they’re willing to lose it.
In the grand scheme of things, it should help a lot of families save a lot of money if they find that they aren’t using a ton of combined data each month. We won’t know until it happens, though mid-summer is nearly here. We should know more by the time all the festivals come to town.
Sounds good for families. I wonder if this will also apply to a single customer with multiple devices. e.g., one person with a phone & tablet using the same pooled data plan.
It should. It’s really not any different than a family owning two phones – and this is something they could really use to sell more Verizon branded tablets rather than a lot of people buying Wi-Fi only models.
what i really want to know with this kind of plan is that what happen when you have a unlimited data plan, while other on your family plan have tiered data plan…can you select which lines to share the data, or all phone will be sharing the data???
I would hate to lose the unlimited data…
Josh, I’m right there with you. I’m on a family plan with two people that use less than two gigs of data a month, and it would be perfect for them, but I use ten plus and don’t want to lose my unlimited.
So 15GB for less than $90 would save you money, right?
I have 4 lines with unlimited data (family plan) right now and only use about 8 total (mostly on one device). I’d end up saving a bundle on anything less than $120 for 10GB.
They’d really have to work hard to screw this one up for me at this point…
“…though mid-summer is nearly here.” Really? You do know that we have about two months before summer even begins, right?
Want to think this will turn out well for us customers but I’ll believe it when I see it.
This will be interesting. I have a family plan with 5 lines, 3 of which have unlimited but we hardly use 5GB altogether. This would save me, especially since the other 2 lines want data too. If its $100 or less for 10GB I will be happy.
I doubt Verizon gives their customers any real deals on the shared data plans. Verizon is not trying to save anybody money. Verizon will probably do something stupid like share 2GB for 40.00. Just like that 2GB of data goes from 30 to 40 because it is being shared.
Amen… I guarantee the cheapest shared family data will start at $60
NOT getting rid of my unlimited! Even though we both are $30/mo on unlimited, i highly doubt they will offer something under $60 with as much data as needed
There was an email that hit the internets a while back about a shared data plan. Verizon only sent it to a small number of customers, but one of them was kind enough to post it on one of the Android sites. I called Verizon and told them I wanted to take advantage of this offer I had seen in an email. I was able to get unlimited data and text with 1500 minutes for $119 for two lines. Each additional line costs $20 instead of the normal $10, but unlimited data is included. They changed the way they bill it since then, but I still have that price. They swore they would never take it away. We’ll see about that. It saves me a nice chunk of money on five lines. I hope this new deal saves some money for you all, but I can’t imagine they are going unlimited with this thing, or that it will be any cheaper for me.
Unless this is a heavily discounted plan, I can’t believe this. That’s $10 less than Sprint.
Is that email still available to see online?
Another thing to keep in mind is that this may be a case of cost shifting. The monthly fee for shared data may be cheaper, but they’ll probably charge more for each line added based on the phone type (e.g. $10 for standard, $20 for feature, $30 for smartphones). These numbers are just guesses, but wouldn’t surprise me.
Well, ATT is pricing theirs at $10 per GB, so Verizon had better do something. Focus on making data cheaper not gouge us for more money a holes.