Proof that T-Mobile’s efforts to shake up and reshape the wireless industry came through last week when Verizon Wireless announced they would be cutting contracts and moving to a similar set of simpler wireless plans, something which T-Mobile has been doing for years now. Verizon’s new plans will come in a number of different sizes meant to target varying groups of consumers who need as little as possible or as much as they can get when it comes to minutes, messaging and data. The new Verizon plans are termed as small, medium, large, and extra large, or S, M, L, and XL, but Verizon’s official name will be “One Plan. Four Sizes.” This is more of a statement than a name for a plan set, but at least it describes to customers in brief what it offers.
New details have come out today about Verizon’s simplified plans to shed some more light and give better understanding on the new offerings for anyone who may have missed the previous announcement or anyone who may be considering Verizon’s new setup. While Verizon is launching these new plans on the 13th which is this Thursday, they won’t be completely wiping contract plans off the face of the planet. Those who wish to stay on a two-year contract and upgrade with discounted pricing on phones will be allowed to do so, but Verizon will likely try to convince customers of the benefits of moving to one of the four new simplified plans with payment pricing beforehand. It’s worth noting that anyone who chooses to switch to a new plan will want to pay attention to the line access fees that Verizon is charging.
There are two prices, $20 and $40, with the latter being the price that people pay if they already have a phone they upgraded to with subsidized (discounted) pricing. Once they’re upgrade becomes available again however, the line access fee drops back down to $20. Anyone else who switches that has an upgrade available at the time will be paying $20 from the get go. As Verizon will end up moving things to four plans, that means they’ll have four different amounts of data for customers initially, but they do have additional data buckets available for those customers who will need it or want it, offering up data allotments that start at $120 for 20GB of data. From there customers can choose 25GB for $175, 30GB for $224, 40GB for $300, 50GB for $375, 60GB for $450, 80GB for $600, and finally 100GB for $750. Keep in mind these prices don’t include the line access fees for each line on a plan.