Verizon Wireless plans will stop offering phones at discounted prices as they have been doing when customers sign two-year service contracts. Verizon customers will no longer have two-year commitments by a wireless contract, but they are committed to monthly installments for payment of the phone, if they don’t pay for the entire cost of the phone up front.
Subsidies, for example, involved a $649 iPhone 6 priced at $200 with a two-year contract. Wireless carriers have already been encouraging people to buy phones outright by paying the full retail price in monthly installments. A few carriers, namely Sprint, also offer leasing options for a lower monthly fee, but the customer doesn’t get to keep and resell the phone without additional payments. Verizon is the second national carrier, after T-Mobile, to end subsidies entirely for new customers.
Verizon is also streamlining data plans to four main options, ranging from “small” at 1 gigabyte to “x-large” at 12 gigabytes. All data plans are sharable under family plans. Verizon currently has 15 options ranging from 0.5 gigabyte to 100 gigabytes. Most single-line customers can get by with 2 gigabytes, unless they do a lot of streaming video or watch a lot of YouTube videos.
Existing customers will be able to keep current plans, but often Verizon forces customers into new plans when a new phone is purchased. Some restrictions may apply, but information about restriction wasn’t available.
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