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Downgrade Phone question

Hi all,

I currently have one of the old family plans where the phones share minutes, not data. I have 4 phones on my plan. 3 are smartphones grandfathered into unlimited data. The 4th is a basic phone.

I got that line for my mother in law since she is our primary baby sitter and she didn't have a cell phone. She was asking me if she could upgrade it to a smartphone. If she's anything like my dad when it comes to smart phones, he wanted one so bad but doesn't know how to use it so I'm paying $30 a month for him to have a cool looking phone that he'll never take full advantage of. If after a few months I determine that she's not using the data, could I then downgrade the phone back to the basic phone and remove the data plan and maybe sell the phone or something?

Are there any fees involved in doing so?

Basically my question boils down to, if I bought a new phone with tiered data for that line, does the contract live with the tiered data or does the contract live with the phone line?

Comments

jroeder

The contract is with the line.

So you could upgrade the 4th line to a smartphone at a discounted price or at full price. If you buy it at a discounted price you'll sign a 2-year on the line. If you buy the smartphone outright you won't have to agree to another 2-year.

If then you decided she didn't need the smartphone you could go back to the basic phone.

dlcj21

If I'm understanding what you're saying correctly, if I was to upgrade her phone to a smart phone with discount pricing, you're saying I wouldn't be able to downgrade the phone to a basic phone during those 2 years?

When I went through the check out process it showed $9.99 line fee (which I'm paying right now for it) and a 29.99 2GB data plan. I was asking is if after a month or two and if data usage is low, will I be able to reactivate the basic phone on that line, and cancel the 29.99 2GB plan and still pay the 9.99 line fee for that line as I'm paying today?

Or would cancelling the data plan mean I'm terminating the contract? If you're saying it's with the line and not the data plan, then I shouldn't be violating the contract since the line would still be active and in use. Yeah I'm still locked into a new 2 year contract, that's no biggy, I've been with verizon since 2000, I'm not going anywhere....lol.

SuzyQ

dlcj21 wrote:
If I'm understanding what you're saying correctly, if I was to upgrade her phone to a smart phone with discount pricing, you're saying I wouldn't be able to downgrade the phone to a basic phone during those 2 years? Not true. You CAN put the basic phone back on the line, and drop the data plan.
When I went through the check out process it showed $9.99 line fee (which I'm paying right now for it) and a 29.99 2GB data plan. I was asking is if after a month or two and if data usage is low, will I be able to reactivate the basic phone on that line, and cancel the 29.99 2GB plan and still pay the 9.99 line fee for that line as I'm paying today? Yes, this will work.

And the smartphone will be yours to activate on any of your other smartphone lines/data plans... hold onto it as a spare, sell it, whatever....

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