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Ever since Verizon made the decision to ditch unlimited data and entice people to hop onto MORE Everything plans, the company has done many things in their power to discourage folks from using workarounds and loopholes to keep that unlimited data. The most basic and obvious way was to just buy your smartphones full price or grab one from eBay or another aftermarket source.
No one likes to buy a smartphone at full price, though. Verizon had a payment plan option for folks who didn’t mind paying full retail over the course of 12 months, but that option no longer lets you keep unlimited data as of last month. And unfortunately for us, Verizon looks to be making even more moves to stop people from gaming their wallet-hurting system.
Droid-Life reports that Verizon will soon introduce a change on August 24th that will force you to keep smartphone data service on a contract smartphone for the length of the contract. Why is this important? Many folks who used secondary lines for purposes of upgrading would switch the upgraded phones over to their unlimited data line. They’d then cancel the minimum $30 for 2GB smartphone data plan on the secondary line and revert to paying $10 per month for basic data.
While this alone doesn’t effectively kill off the alternate line upgrade method, it does make it a lot less appealing — having to pay $30 per month for data you’ll probably never use is pretty sucky. Verizon’s supposed thinking is that since the customer is buying a smartphone at a discount they should commit to paying for smartphone data for those two years or however long your agreement happens to last. While it makes sense from a logic standpoint, it certainly won’t be a popular decision with anyone on the consumer side of consumerism.
We’re not sure how long it’ll be before Verizon outright forces folks to drop their grandfathered unlimited data and require them to be on a tiered data plan, but if these latest changes are anything to go by it won’t be long before that dreaded day comes. What will you do if Verizon finally manages to pry unlimited data from your hands?
Basically, TL:DR – Verizon sucks.
For this one, I’ll side with Verizon. For everything else, screw Verizon.
Ill be off to Tmobile
This method was pretty much a scam anyway.
Verizon is pretty much a scam.
The giver may taketh. Nothing last forever.
“… between 2001-2013, Verizon (VZ.N) continued reshaping itself from a provider of landline phones to focus on wireless telephony and network services. Annual inflation-adjusted operating profit more than doubled while the workforce shrank more than 30 percent.” What do you think they’re going to do? When I dropped them, they didn’t care. Verizon exists to make their shareholders rich – not to make their clients happy.
Less clients what will the share holders say? Just an aside, I think this phone is my last smart phone.
The cost is out of control. How much money I dump into this luxury is insane.
I think the market for smart phones will cool off over the next couple of years.
The cost of plans, the general inflated cost of living and the fact my phone does everything I need shrinks my desire or care about phones. Let the 1% crowd pay Verizon. I will end up with a dumb phone and tablet that I can use over Wi-Fi. I have a year left then..
The shareholders are rejoicing. If I understand how shares work, the more money Verizon makes the more money they get, right?
Go to T-Mobile. They’ll pay off your ETF. And if they have bad signal in your area go to an MVNO. We can all make small adjustments to keep our data connected devices.
If that were to happen I would drop Verizon. I have been with them from the beginning and I am pleased with their network but their “money grabbing” tactics suck!! The number of subscribers on the grandfathered “unlimited plan” has to be small compared to the overall number of subscribers. Verizon is making plenty of money off of those who don’t have “unlimited data”. Leave those of us with “unlimited data” alone!!
I’ll drop them immediately if they manage to take my unlimited away…not that I even use more than 2GB a month… I just like not having to worry about a data cap ever
In exactly the same boat. I wouldn’t pay more for less freedom and piece of mind. I’d rather go down the Rabbit Hole of T-Mobile and see if would pan out.
You should take their test drive and see if their coverage works out for you.
Verizon laughing all the way to the bank, MUAHAHAHAHA.
I had unlimited data for the longest time. Been with Verizon for over ten years was grandfathered in. But last year I was upgrading and forced to lose it. But I called them up and treated to cancel my service because I can’t go from unlimited to 2 gigs a month. It’s impossible. Finally they were willing to give me 6 gigs a Month for the price of their 2 gigs. I never paid attention to my data before I’ve come close to hitting 6 but in the past year I haven’t gone over.
1) Go to T-Mobile.
2) Enjoy unlimited data.
3) Never look back.
1) Go to T-Mobile
2) Enjoy unlimited data in mostly 2G areas in Wisconsin and Iowa.
3) Laugh at the people that think T-Mobile coverage = Verizon’s.
all depends on where you live. In NY I have the same exact coverage on T-Mo as I did with Verizon. Occasionally, I travel to Boston and Baltimore for work and take the Acela – never had a coverage issue in either direction.
Yes, I understand that. I am making fun of the T-Mobile users that don’t understand it all depends where you live – there are a lot.
So are you planning on moving out of the woods/farmlands? You didn’t answer h4rr4r
So move to a huge city and have higher rent or mortgage/taxes/cost of living, just to save a buck by switching to T-Mobile? LOL
Lololol….This is the best comment yet. Oh yah and extremely true.
Step 4) move out of the woods and into civilization.
Except I live in civilization and I’m not even in a wooded area. If you were going for a clever comment, you should have told me to move to a grassy highway median. That’s where T-Mobile works the best in these areas!
Wisconsin has one city over 500k, Iowa has none that break 250k. I a sure T Mobile works in either of those cities. Face it, the vast majority of those states could not be called civilization.
I’m on VERIZON and have used this method myself. But it is a loophole. It was only a matter of time before it was closed.
I have Verizon, just dropped 648 dollars in SC for a new LG G3. Using roughly between 200 to 475 gigs a month with a mobile hotspot that I also use for internet at my house. I like Verizon since the 4G service is great at my house, speed test.net pulls an average of 40mb down and 18mb up. The other day on one of my torrents, I was pulling a little over 5mb/sec down speed.
The people at the Verizon store keep asking me questions about how I use so much data, I said I travel a lot and use the hotspot for my laptop. Do I have a home internet service, I said I did because I didn’t know if they wanted to use that against me in some way. The manager of the store didn’t believe me when I said used that much data so I should him my current usage on the Verizon App on my S3 (189 with 5 days left in the month).
I’ve also been downloading all kinds of music, movies, tv shows for a long time since I dropped my cable service to save money. I was previously getting letters from my local ISP for copyright infringement and they actually kicked me off their service for a week, they wanted me to write them a letter with an action plan of how this wasn’t going to happen again. At that time I was taking classes online for a community college and there was no way I could give up my internet. So I told the ISP to cancel my service and I been doing the mobile hotspot and never looked back. Cheaper, Faster, and I never received a copyright letter.
So if I would lose my unlimited data plan, I don’t know what I would do. Probably have to pay a lot more per month and get less quality. Not something I would enjoy.
You are the reason they got rid of unlimited plans and are trying their best to force existing people off of them. A smartphone data plan isn’t intended to replace a home internet connection.
“So if I would lose my unlimited data plan, I don’t know what I would do.”
Try not pirating movies and tv shows for starters. And try paying for a service that meets your needs, rather taking advantage of something that doesn’t at the expense of everyone else.
Well if its unlimited data and I pay for the mobile hotspot service, It sure is a home internet connection. This whole we charge for data thing is just something they use as a ploy to make more money. Now even local ISP want to cap data usage, which is something people wouldn’t have thought was ever going to happen years ago. But they figured well if the phone companies can get away with it then we can get away with it.
If there wasn’t such a huge monopoly between the cable companies and cell phone providers maybe I would actually feel bad.
Mobile hotspots are intended to be used everywhere except for home. That’s the point of them. They are business class devices not home modems.
You are screwing Verizon. Yay you. You are also screwing every single person on your network node. Every single one of them. You are tanking their data speeds that they also pay.
Can’t try and reason with a scumbag
Wow what a douche you are. I used 60 GB of data the past 17 days (just checked) mostly from Netflix music apps and pinning movies and shows for offline use in Google Movies and TV. The data is there to use how you need it and considering how much data plans are you should not be expected to have a secondary home internet connection that’s another hundred bucks. So how about think a second before making such ludicrous statements and get over yourself.
Data plans aren’t intended to replace your home internet, that’s why they cost so damn much. If you want to download hundreds of GB per month, you’ve got to pay for it. All you’re accomplishing using a mobile connection instead of home broadband is to slow things down for everybody else, while paying little if anything more than people using a few GB or less. I have a bigger problem with what “guest” is doing than you, at least you paid for the content you’re watching/listening to. “Guest” is solely pirating. Verizon should ban him for that and be done with him. By the same token, they should let people who don’t abuse unlimited data keep it.
“Should not be expected to have a secondary home internet connection”
Yes you should! You think you can get something without paying for it? Your home connection should be your *primary* internet connection. Mobile connections are for when you’re out and about, not for downloading hundreds of GB of movies you could easily wait until you got home to download.
Mobile data plans are for mobile devices not to pipe content into your home. If you are too god damn poor to afford proper home internet you shouldn’t be online at all. Use 60 gigs of data a month of legit mobile stuff and I don’t Care. Use it to feed your home and your an ass
Again, I’m paying for unlimited data through T-Mobile and as I said, I take full advantage of it, I use anywhere from 60GB-100GB per month, what that’s for or if it’s replacing a home internet connection is none of your business. You’re an ass for having such an opinion on other people’s habits.
Also when I move out on my own in a couple of months, I *won’t* have Comcast any longer and I *will* be using my mobile data as a complete substitution… after all it’s MY device MY service and I’m paying for unlimited data… why pay a pointless $100 Comcast bill if I can do everything through my phone or using my phone’s hotspot.
I feel like you’re not using logic whatsoever, or else you’re assuming everyone can and wants to spend as much as you do. Whether or not it’s using torrents or doing like I do and just streaming content you already own, power users should have the luxury to be power users.
You aren’t a power user my friend. I transfer over a terabyte a month. The difference is I use an appropriate network, I don’t screw other customers out of their network speed and I pay for it.
The only asses are the people mooching data and slowling down the entire node for every other person who also paid for it.
ATT doing it first is the reason they do away with it. Their might 500 people that figured out how to get it working on hotspot.
Asshats like you should be tossed. I’m all for customers using as much mobile data as they want but you are using your MOBILE data plan for home internet and on top of that you are using it to pirate content that you are using on your PC.
You crossed an unacceptable line. If you were using 400gigs of data legitimately on a mobile device and exclusive on that mobile device I wouldn’t care. Your a cheap ass and you are going to ruin it for every single person who has data unlimited or not.
With the exception of pirating (Which would cut down the use considerably), I don’t see a problem with his argument. As an IT professional I see “the problem” and “get it”, but I have a hard time feeling sorry for Verizon for what they charge. Between Cell service and home I pay Verizon to the tune of $450/mo. Always panicked about my mobile use and all I do is basic internet and social media with very little streaming. Not to mention Verizon’s last update screwed up the wi-fi on my phone to where it’s near USELESS (Which I’m SURE was an “accident”) gobbling even MORE data constantly and I have to root it to roll back which means I lose the latest android too. So really CRY ME A RIVER over all this “You’re screwing Verizon” NONSENSE BULLSH*T! If there was a carrier with better or equivalent coverage in my area, I’d drop Verizon so fast there’d be skidmarks.
Verizon’s treading on wafer-thin ice if they think they can get away with pulling grandfathered data plans. There’ll a lot of people (myself included) who’ll drop them like a lead balloon if they take unlimited data away.
To Verizon “unlimited” means 5Gb, why are they screwing with the small amount of “unlimited” users? Remember LTE was suppose to be faster and less congested than 3G and now XLTE states the same thing, another ploy to get new subscribers and then say there are to many subscribers so we will have to limit even more. Good ole Verizon.
Last I heard unlimited customers were 22%. On VZW that is a large number of people.
That’s probably correct! However, they’ve admitted that only 5% unlimited of those users hog about 75% of the bandwidth. LOL
So if they really wanted to save, just get rid on those pesky customers instead of screwing everyone else.
Or don’t get rid of any customers and use some of that absurd profit they make every quarter to actually upgradr and allow their crap network to support the number of users they have sold service to.
If they have oversold capacity so much that 5% of users are using 75% of their total mobile bandwidth then they have done a MASSIVE disservice to their customers. It should take 50% of their total user base to max their bandwidth not 5.
This is obscene. They already steal from customers with exorbitant rates and now they just want more more more. Greed. That’s all this is.
Really? 22%, so 78% are not, sounds like a small amount to me, now if it was inverted then you might have an argument. You do realize that the 22% is spread out all over the US right not just in one area.
Every time I visited the local Verizon store (a corporate store) I was advised by the sales rep to exploit this loophole. This process was explained to me by at least 3 Verizon employees in that store on different occasions.
Never wound up doing it as I decided to switch service to T-Mobile, albeit not over data, but simply because they are much more friendly toward Android developers.
Considering how much their service already costs, they were already making a huge profit out of you. Plus you’re locked in for another 2 years so they can’t lose you.
Who does this??
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So they are basically giving Verizon a minimum of $260 ($23×10 + $30) on that second line.
I don’t know anyone who does or would do that just to get a new phone. That’s an absurd waste of money. It would cost a lot less to just buy a new phone every 6 months
The true amount is $240, since it’s $10 a month for 24 months. Factor in the cost of the subsidized phone at (what used to be) $200, and that’s $160 off the general cost of the phone.
My wife and I did this a while back when they had a BOGO, but I cancelled the plan at the first moment I could.
It’s technically cheaper to do it that way, but kind of a pain in the ass.
An extra line plus data is not $240 for 24 months.
Going from 1 line to 2 basically doubles the monthly bill not including cost of phones. My bill went from $80 to $150 after adding a line and data. Then up to $187 after adding in fees for phones.
If you are keeping a second line just to get a phone, at my billing rate which was always the lowest package they offered you could afford a new mid-high end phone roughly every 12 months. If you didn’t need the newest phone you could get a new one every 6 by using the money saved from the dropped second line.
Let me be a little clearer. The setup is this:
My wife and I have 2 lines, each with data and phone service. We add on one additional line, which costs $10 for the line, plus $30 for data. Before we even leave the store, we pull out our old ass Krazr phone and have them replace the new 3rd line’s phone with that. Since that is a phone that doesn’t require data, you only need to pay $10/month.
Thus, 24 months of $10/month is $240.
OK I got you. My initial post was referring to people who solely add an additional line on a single line account to take advantage of the upgrade cycle. Even on an edge like plan it doesn’t make any sense.
Looks like i might need to take TMobile up on that $100 promotion just wish it applied the discount to the 3gb5gb and unLimited plans as well and that i didn’t have to give 2.5gbs to my 4th line grandmas emergency phone
Wait so even if you don’t want data at all they are going to force you to pay for it? The subsidized price of the phone is already rolled into your bill so forcing data will double that subsidy for those who don’t Want or need it. If they are going to require data plans they should drop the subsidy altogether.
Data is cheap even mobile data. Verizons cost for a $30 data plan on the consumer side is about $2.50 and that’s only if that user actually maxes their data use and does so only using peak air time.
Tmobil has the Best offer to date and will continue to grow and take Verizon customers until Verizon had enough, then they may offer unlimited for a short time again.
Let them kill my grandfathered data, Ive been itching with going to T-Mobile and get a real phone.
I switched to t-mobile not long ago. I also cancelled Verizon FIOS since they were CLEARLY throttling my netflix traffic. Now, optimum has these gay managed routers they CHARGE you to use and spy on your online activities… I guess it’s back to hacking the neighbors WiFi