Verizon changing its offerings. It introduced four new unlimited plans Start, Play More, Do More and Get More which will replace the three current unlimited plans.
The changes aren’t that sweeping: there are $5 price cuts across the board; new names for two of the old plans; and the third plan is now split into two similar options that allow people to choose which perks they’d like, making the whole system somewhat baffling from the outside.
At the top of the list is the new “Get More Unlimited” plan, which starts at $90 per month for a single line. It’s essentially the company’s old $95-per-month “Above Unlimited” plan, just $5 cheaper and with 30GB of LTE hot spot data before you get throttled instead of 20GB. Other differences include the fact that Get More include a discount on tablet data, but that comes at the expense of losing the free travel passes that Above used to offer. The rest: 75GB of LTE data, 720p video streaming, free Apple Music, and the various cloud storage and connected device discounts are all the same as the old plan.
The entry-level unlimited plan now called “Start Unlimited” is also virtually identical to the “Go Unlimited” plan it replaces. Like Get More Unlimited, there’s a $5 price cut, so it starts at $70 for one line. (The two-line, three-line, four-line, and five-plus-line prices also drop by $5.) But the drawbacks are still here Verizon can slow down your data at any time if the network is congested. There’s no guaranteed pool of high-speed data like the other “unlimited” plans. Video streaming is limited to DVD-quality (480p), and unlike the old Go Unlimited plan, there’s no hotspot option at all with Start. The included Apple Music subscription is just a six-month trial. And unlike the other three unlimited plans, Start Unlimited (like Go Unlimited before it) is the only one that doesn’t include Verizon’s limited-time free 5G data offer; it’ll always cost $10 per month.
Verizon’s mid-tier “unlimited” plan used to be its “Beyond Unlimited” plan, which started at $85 for a single line and offered 22GB of LTE data before slowdowns, 720p HD video streaming, free Apple Music, and 15GB of LTE hot spots. But with the new setup, that midtier plan is being split into two different $80 plans (again, with a $5 price cut from the old offerings.) There’s “Do More Unlimited,” which offers 50GB of LTE data before congestion, 500GB of cloud storage, and a discount on a connected tablet or hot spot, but it downgrades video streaming to 480p only and only has six months of Apple Music. Then there’s the “Play More Unlimited” plan, which costs the same $80 for a single line, and it more closely resembles the old Beyond Unlimited plan: 25GB of LTE before congestion, 720p streaming, and free Apple Music. Both plans still include the 15GB of LTE hot spot data as well as free 5G for an unspecified limited time (after which point, it’ll cost an extra $10 per month for customers who want to keep the fast data speeds).
The new plans are available starting Monday, and existing users can keep their existing setup or make the switch. It’s unclear how long Verizon will waive the $10-per-month 5G fee. Of course, you’ll need to live in one of those select cities and have a 5G-compatible phone to take advantage of that offer.
