Prepaid mobile service offers the advantage of capping costs and providing flexibility to customers; once your credit has been spent, or once you’ve used your allowance, that’s it. By default, there’s no way to run up high charges and suffer from “bill shock.” It’s a great way to budget an expensive hobby, that being, running a number of different handsets too! And for those of us who like to chop and change the carrier we use, prepaid service is a lot more flexible than a postpay service as it’s much quicker and easier to switch carrier. As a disadvantage, handsets usually require a steeper up front cost, sometimes you might run out of credit at the worst possible moment and the big name carriers do not offer the same value as the smaller names in the market, often because the big names would much rather you sign up to a regular contract. Prepay terms are usually not as favorable as postpay terms.
Verizon Wireless have fallen into this trap, being less than responsive to the market regarding their prepaid plans and only offered subscribers access to their 4G LTE network last July. They have now quietly improved the ALLSET plan that increases the amount of data available to customers and now makes them one of the better value propositions. The unlimited talk and text plan for $45 originally came with 500 MB of data, which has now been doubled to 1 GB, but subscribers benefit from an extra 500 MB if they sign into the auto top-up scheme, which means for your $45 you’ll get access to 1.5 GB of 4G LTE data.
For customers wanting more data, you can increase your allowance by another 1 GB for an extra $10. If you want another 3 GB of data, that’ll cost you an extra $20, which means for $65 a month you can benefit from 4.5 GB of monthly data allowance. For customers avoiding Verizon’s prepaid plans because of the high prices, things are looking a little better now. Remembering that you gain access to the largest American network with arguably the best coverage (of course, there will be areas where other carriers have better coverage).
For our North American readers who use a prepay service, does this change make the Verizon Wireless offering a viable alternative to who you’re currently with? Or are you still happy with your current provider for their level of coverage and costs? Let us know in the comments below.
