Verizon Wireless to Start Giving Discount for Bringing Your Own Device April 17th

Reading the writing on the wall from AT&T and T-Mobile, Verizon has announced that they will offer a discounted monthly access rate for bringing your own device starting April 17th. Currently, whether you own your device outright, are paying for it in monthly installments, or purchased it subsidized, Verizon charges you the same monthly access fee for just having the device active on their network.

If you purchased the phone through a subsidy, Verizon needs to make their money back somehow, and locking you into a two year contract with an inflated monthly service charge is how they make their money back (and then some). But if you payed upfront for your device, you were essentially paying twice for your device, first through the initial purchase, and then through Verizon’s monthly plans.

Starting on April 17th and running for an unannounced limited time, Verizon will drop monthly smartphone access rates from $40 to either $30 or $15, depending on your data plan. If your data plan is 8GB or below, you will pay $30 per smartphone on your plan. Data plans above 10GB will be $15 per phone. Example plans for 4 smartphones:

• 8GB + 4 smartphones(before April 17th) : $90(data) + $160(4 phones) = $250/monthly
• 8GB + 4 smartphones(after April 17th) : $90(data) + $120(4 phones) = $210/monthly
• 10GB + 4 smartphones(before April 17th) : $100(data) + $160(4 phones) = $260/monthly
• 10GB + 4 smartphones(before April 17th) : $100(data) + $60(4 phones) = $160/monthly

As you can see, this represents a substantial savings for anyone on a higher data allotment, but it is still more than AT&T’s offering of $140 for 4 phones and 10GB and much more than any of T-Mobile’s plans that come with much more data. Is this enough for you to stay with Verizon or is it too little too late? Let us know what you think about Verizon’s new plans. Oh yeah, and Verizon is pointing out that all plans now include free cloud storage. You know, because that is very hard to get for free from numerous companies and it is a fantastic idea to store 25GB of data in the cloud when your monthly data allotment needed to get to it is half that. Free and worthless, but enjoy!

Disclaimer: Being I am obviously of questionable intelligence, if your bill is different than the examples above, call Verizon as they are the ones overcharging you.

Source: Verizon Wireless via: CNET

Image Credits: Verizon Wireless