Caving in to competitive pressure, the nation’s top carrier Verizon Wireless today launched a more competitive shared data family plan which comes with unlimited international messaging, double the monthly data allowance, a complimentary 25GB of cloud storage and more.
Unimaginatively dubbed MORE Everything, the new plan doubles the monthly cap from 500MB to 1GB for Verizon’s $40 a month plan. The $50 plan has gone from 1GB to 2GB and the $60 plan doubles your monthly data cap from 2GB to 3GB.
But that’s not all as Verizon has decided to introduce line discounts for customers enrolled in its Edge early upgrade program. If you’re using up to eight gigabytes of data per month, Verizon will treat you to a line discount of $10, or $20 in the case of plans that include ten or more gigabytes of data per month…
Customers who currently have the Share Everything plan will get automaticall upgraded to its MORE Everything counterpart. Your monthly access fees won’t change, but you will receive additional data with MORE Everything.
MORE Everything includes the following:
- Unlimited minutes
- Unlimited messages
- Unlimited international messaging
- 25 GB of Verizon Cloud storage
- Mobile Hotspot, so you can connect and share your data with multiple Wi-Fi enabled devices if you have a Mobile Hotspot-capable device.
- 700 minute plan (no data) now includes Unlimited Text for $5/monthly account access
To learn which data option work for you, consult Verizon’s MORE Everything Calculator.
For an extra $5 per month, MORE Everything customers can sign up for a new Family Base service which gives parents access to their kids’ smartphone usage and treats them to reduced international calling rates.
For those wondering, this plan is available with just data.
Check out the MORE Everything plan on Verizon’s website or see this FAQ.
After reading The Wall Street Journal’s story on confusing wireless service plans, I was surprised to learn that the four major carriers offer a total of nearly 700 combinations of smartphone plans, meaning a family of five alone would have more than 250 options to choose from.
You don’t need me to tell you that this proliferation of service plans – which often contradict one another – makes comparison shopping next to impossible. And this is precisely what carriers want, to confuse the hell out of you with countless options in order to discourages you from jumping ship.