Visible Forcing Customers on Legacy Visible Unlimited Plan to Switch to New Plans

Visible, the Verizon prepaid subsidiary, is requiring customers on their legacy Visible Unlimited plan move to one of their newer plans by September.

Video Story

 

Background

In August of 2022, Visible introduced two new plans - Visible+ and Visible Basic - replacing their now-retired Visible Unlimited plan.

Visible is informing customers who are still on the legacy Visible Unlimited plan that they must switch to one of the new plans by September 2023. 

Differences Between the Visible Plans

The most significant difference between the new and old plans is that the legacy Visible Unlimited plan used a cloud-based service with proxy servers that separated it from the main Verizon network, but the two new plans operate directly on the Verizon network.

Because the new plans are directly on the Verizon network, they offer two big advantages over the old plan:

• Much better latency (lower ping times)
• Access to Verizon's domestic roaming partners, which increases the coverage map

The Visible+ plan is $45/month and the Visible Basic plan is $30/month. The legacy Visible Unlimited plan started at $40/month, but could go as low as $25/month if customers joined Party Pay. (Party Pay was also retired with the introduction of the new plans, although customers could continue to use the discount if they were already signed up.)

Visible+ has access to both Verizon's 5G UWB and 5G NW networks, whereas Visible Basic and legacy Visible Unlimited Plan only have access to 5G NW.

All data on Visible+ is priority data while on 5G UWB, and it has 50GB of priority data on 5G NW. All data on Visible Basic and the legacy Visible Unlimited plan is subject to Network Management at all times.

All three plans come with unlimited on-device data, and unlimited hotspot data - although the hotspot data speeds are capped to 5 Mbps.

Here's a chart which shows the differences in the plans.

 

Switching to the New Plans

When the new plans were introduced, Visible told customers that they would eventually be required to move to one of the new plans, but they did not give a specific time frame.

But they have now informed customers on the legacy Visible Unlimited Plan that they now MUST switch to one of the new plans by September.

Visible has notified customers on the legacy Visible Unlimited Plan that they autopay setups will be turned off effective July 1. Manual payments will be accepted for July and August, but as of September any further renewals of the old plan will not be available.

Further, Visible indicates on their website that the network that the legacy Visible Unlimited Plan is using will be permanently shut down in September - so all accounts that are not moved off of the old plan will terminate at that time.

Switching to one of the new plans will require a new SIM card (or eSim), and you also will need to verify your phone's compatibility with the new network.

You can also choose to leave Visible all together and port your number to a different provider if you wish. Request to port out numbers must be received by September 1.

Which Visible Plan Should You Choose?

The new Visible Basic and Visible+ plans offer much better ping times than the legacy Visible Unlimited plan, as well as more coverage.

The Visible+ plan offers significant upgrades from the legacy plan, albeit for a higher price. The downside to the Visible Basic plan is losing access to the 5G UW network, and a de facto $5 price increase over the legacy plan with full Party Pay discounts.  

Even with the higher price, Visible+ is still a great value compared to other carrier-direct prepaid offerings.

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