Losing unlimited data worth it?

[Austinwilson55]

If I were to upgrade my phone and lose my unlimited data is there any benefit in it? I noticed that my data speed really kind of sucks now. Wondering if it Verizon's way of making you change your plan. Bog down speed until you upgrade and change your plan to eliminate unlimited plans. Anyone have any feedback? I currently have an iPhone 4

[AZSALUKI]

they were throttling speeds on 3g users if you were a heavy user (over 5 gigs/month). not sure if you fell in to that category, but that "may be" why your speeds are so poor. however, if you are in that category then it may be tough for you to stay at or below 2 gigs/month (or pay a lot more to get a larger data plan). i upgraded because i needed the subsidy on our new phones. i wanted to keep unlimited data, but over the past 4 months, i've upgraded 3 lines (all smartphones). i just couldn't pay full price for all of them. also, i have wifi available at my home and office, so really, the only time i'm using data is in the car or once in a while, while i'm out and about. we actually now have 3 lines sharing 4 gigs. we used less than 3 gigs last month. my wife, myself, and my son are simply on wifi about 80% of the time so the new share plans actually work better for us.

[rcschnoor]

I think it all boils down to how much data you use. If you are a heavy data user, it may be cheaper in the long run to upgrade at full price to keep your unlimited data. Paying $30/month for data instead of $100/month for data will add up quickly to offset the price you will have to pay for full retail on a phone.

However, according to Verizon the majority of data users use less than 2GB/month. I personally fall into this group and recently upgraded(with a discount) 3 phones and migrated my account to the Share Everything plan. In this upgrade, I switched 2 basic phones to smartphones and now have smartphones on all 4 lines of my account. I pay $20 extra/month for my service, but got a cost savings of ~$1200 on the price of the phones for doing so($1200 - 24x$20 = $720 net savings over life of contract). If I would have stayed on unlimited/tiered data with all of my phones, I would be paying an additional $60/month(2 new data plans) instead of the $20/month extra I am currently paying($800 - 24x$60 = $640 additional cost for staying on unlimited/tiered data over life of contract).

After switching to Share Everything, I have modified my data usage habits in one way only. I have made use of the mobile hotspot included with the Share Everything plan to provide data to my wifi only iPad Mini while used when not in range of other wifi such as at my home. Other than that, my data usage habits have not changed AT ALL.

For me it would not have made sense to pay full retail for my phone with unlimited data to keep it and add tiered data to the 2 additional smartphones on my plan.

[Austinwilson55]

So if I were to buy a 4g phone would my data speed improve. And when I mean buy one I mean outright at whole price.

[rcschnoor]

Verizon is reportedly NOT throttling 4G service on unlimited plans, so yes your speed should improve. Especially if you are in a 4G service area.