Verizon Prepaid is shaking up its prepaid offerings again - and that is mostly a good thing for prepaid data seekers. Here are two of the major changes that will be effective tomorrow:
- The $50 prepaid plan will be increased from 5GB to 7GB - yay!
- The 10GB plan will reflect a price decrease to $60/month (previously $70/month) - yay!
Verizon will also begin imposing video streaming reduction to 480p and the plans will be prioritized behind postpaid customers on congested Verizon towers - ouch.
These two new changes match the terms of Verizon's newly announced Prepaid unlimited data plans.
Verizon Prepaid unlimited data plans (UDPs) will see no changes come June 6th. These UDPs will still cost $80/month for unlimited high-speed on device data, which is subject to prioritization behind postpaid customers on congested towers, and a hard throttle of 480p video streaming at all times. However these plans include no mobile hotspot use. More info on Verizon Prepaid UDPs can be found in our news story from the release of these plans here.
Verizon Prepaid data plan pricing as of 6/6/2017 will be:
- 3GB high-speed data (128kbps after 3GB) for $40/month
- 7GB high-speed data (128kbps after 7GB) for $50/month
- 10GB high-speed data (128kbps after 10GB) for $60/month
- Unlimited on device high-speed data for $80/month
Restrictions on all Verizon Prepaid plans:
- All plans subject to deprioritization at any time (behind post-paid customers).
- All video throttled to 480p (standard definition).
- No international data usage is included.
Pros of *tiered* Verizon Prepaid plans:
- Mobile hotspot / tethering is permitted on tiered/capped data plans (not available on the unlimited prepaid plan).
- Carryover Data - unused data is rolled-over to the next month. This data is utilized before plan data.
- No credit check (also applies to unlimited plan).
- 'Always On' feature - data is still available after cap is reached, but is slowed to 128kbps (creepingly slow)
If you're looking for a bit of additional Verizon based prepaid data, the increases in data allowance and decrease in price of some of these plans is definitely a cool thing. These revised plans are competitively priced. And, while limiting streaming speeds to 480p probably isn't a big deal (most users of capped plans either don't use those plans to stream or if they do, reduce video quality to save data anyways), for some, the new prioritization rule may be a bit hard to swallow.
Video coverage of Verizon's Prepaid plan switch-ups:
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