For me, it makes sense and will actually SAVE ME money. I run a business, have two phones and 2 aircards, Now, instead of paying for them ALL at a good data plan, I can "Share" the data and not really care if I am on the internet with my Aircard or Mobile Hotspot. I just pull from the pool of data based on where I am or what my needs are.
BUT... We'll see. I'll give it a couple of months and do some analysis then!
I would say that Yes, Verizon will make more money with these plans. But we need to realize that Verizon is company that makes money by selling a service, so yes they will come up with better way to make money. The plan in my opinion do fit the needs of more, if not most of their customers. it does depend on your needs, some customer will be on the loosing end, but most will be saving in the long run, while Verizon makes money off of it too. that how a business is ran.
I am one of four account holders I know who are saving money with the new share everything plan. I had nearly two years left on my current contract before I would have been forced to give up my unlimited data, but I could not resist the instant savings after going back and looking at my plan's data usage for the past 18 months.
I have three smartphones on my account and I am now saving $52 a month before tax and insurance. Our phones are on wifi a lot, so our data usage is very low. My brother took his daughter from Sprint, put her on his new share everything plan and saved himself more than $120 a month between the two bills. I have another friend with a basic phone and two smartphones on her plan. She is now saving $60. I have another friend with two smartphones and two basic phones and she is going to save about $50. I have even another friend who will be saving once he switches plans.
If you are a heavy, heavy duty data user, losing the unlimited data is not good. If you use wifi and use less data, the share everything plan will save you money. I will save $624 a year. That is a nice savings! Take a look at your data history. I am sure a lot of people use much less data than they think they use.
I want to state, however, that I am NOT sticking up for Verizon. I think Verizon has gotten so big that its customer service in regards to hard to solve issues has gotten really bad. That being said, regading the new share everything plan, my brother's words were, "It's about time Verizon became user friendly."
I’m not trying to say I “don’t” believe you but I have made a line by line comparison with my 5 phones (3 smartphones and 2 basic phones). Right now I pay for 8GB of data ($30 x 3 = $90) and if I switch DOWN to 4GB of data ($70) my bill will still go UP by $10……I guess the only people who benefit will be the current unlimited people or businesses with LOTS of phones. In my original email, my comparison was based on 2 smartphones and 3 basic phones. My bill would increase $30. In this comparison I am switching one of the basic phones to a smartphone but I'm having the 1/2 my data to almost break even. I just think $300/month is a bit much and I'm not sure how long in this economy I'm going to be able to afford it. Since I don't have a car payment, this just kind of took its place. I do know soon I will have to buy another car and then what to do? The cell phone companies have basically taken away our right to choose - I feel like I've just been told - here it is and this is what you are going to have to pay for it. Since they took away all of the other “plans” available (family shared plans) I wonder how long it will be before they MAKE us all switch to the one-and-only "shared" plan? aaarrrggghh! I truely must be missing something!!??
Hi there!
With Share Everything, if you had three smartphones and two basic phones sharing four GBs of data, your bill before tax and insurance would be $250, and I am guessing that this is what you figured out yourself? I am not sure what you are paying now, but my talk,text and (unused) unlimited data plan with my phones before I switched (and I did have an additional basic phone that I dropped when I switched which at the time cost me $10 a month) was $240 before tax and insurance and now it is $190 before tax and insurance with Share Everything 4gbs.
Verizon's own CEO was caught stating that the new Share Everything Plan is nothing more then a Profit Generating Tool. This plan has NOTHING to do with saving you any money, or keeping you in good plans, it is strictly designed to make Verizon More Money then they already make. It is pure Greed.
Yes.
1: Yes, it is a way for them to make more money. Data use was increasing. People weren't using minutes and texting as much as they used to - why would they? Save on minutes by using Skype (over a 3G connection at that). Don't want to use you text allotment? Use an app that sends text messages over a data connection (usually for free). So give people unlimited minutes and texting and drastically increase the cost of data. Problem solved.
- Side note: Before someone comes in and says "yeah well Verizon wouldn't have done this if you data hogs weren't clogging up their network." Remember that it's not the data hogs that clog up the network - they tend to use moderate amounts of data 'round the clock, and that's how they use so much data. It's the time of day when all the data gets used that's the problem. So all the light users that get home and check Facebook at the same time while waiting on dinner are just as much the problem as the people who download movies at 3 AM.
2. You can keep unlimited data just as long as you don't upgrade the phone at a subsidized (discounted) price. If you want a new phone, you have to pay full price for it (or at the very least buy a used one). That's the only way to keep unlimited data. If you (ever) upgrade at a discounted price in the future, you either have to move to a shared data plan or a tiered data plan.
Did anyone see on Droid-Life that someone reported to them that when they looked at their AT&T bill, there was a section called "Group Data" that had no info in it. Maybe they are moving that way also, remember Verizon had that on their bills before it got announced?
The paragraph on Droid-Life:
Could AT&T Be Working On its Own Shared Data Plans?
After the uproar that occurred when Verizon launched their Share Everything Plans, it’s hard to think another carrier would consider it, but AT&T might be following suit. A screenshot from an AT&T customer detailing his or her billing cycle showed a “Group Data” section that was unused, but was measured in MB anyway. This is far from definitive proof, but it might be a sign that AT&T is looking to cash in on shared data plans just like Verizon has. Time will tell if the two largest national wireless carriers will soon force their customers to switch to these new plans.
Start a new topic or ask questions in the open forum.
