Subsidized vs. unsubsidized

[echampio]

Other than keeping unlimited data (the value of which everyone must decide for themselves) and being on month-to-month after your 2 year obligation ends, what is the advantage of buying an unsubsidized phone? AFAIK, Verizon doesn't give a discount on monthly fees if you buy a phone at full price. TIA.

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[Trocks797]

....and therein lies the problem. Verizon knows most won't pay full price to keep unlimited data because:

-the phone is drastically more expensive
-the monthly bill is the same

So they feel like they can allow us to keep unlimited because it will be so damn expensive to do so. Verizon has never and probably will never lower the monthly cost for those who purchase unsubsidized phones. Advantages? Well, you can leave Verizon whenever you want and sell your phone at that time.

Basically, you have to REALLY value your unlimited to want to pay full price for a phone, because you will be paying the same per month as those that paid $199 for their phone. Is it worth it?

[Cares]

Having the freedom to change providers at anytime is pretty nice.

[Caturday]

Having the freedom to change providers at anytime is pretty nice.

Yeah but that doesn't help much when you can't bring that phone anywhere else. It wouldn't be so bad if all the carriers in the US were GSM. While you can go month-to-month and buy unsubsidized phones if you want, all it does is make it easier for you to change your mind after the fact, and you have to sell that phone you just bought for $600 or whatever.

At least with AT&T and T-Mobile, you can freely switch from one to the other, and there are plenty of prepaid options for them as well (Straight Talk, T-Mobile Prepaid, Simple Mobile). So if you don't like one you can easily bring your phone to another.

There is a small out - with Verizon, you can bring your phone to Page Plus instead. But Sprint is extra sucky because NONE of the Sprint prepaid providers let you bring your own phone. No way to bring a Sprint phone to Boost or Virgin Mobile or vice versa.

[Sam73065]

Other than keeping unlimited data (the value of which everyone must decide for themselves) and being on month-to-month after your 2 year obligation ends, what is the advantage of buying an unsubsidized phone? AFAIK, Verizon doesn't give a discount on monthly fees if you buy a phone at full price. TIA.

Sent from my DROIDX using HowardForums

The problem is that most people will see an overall increase in their monthly charges on either a tiered data plan or with the new share everything plan. Also too many people are factoring in their current use of data and ignoring the probability of an increase in future data use. If more people would just look at how much data they used 5 years ago vs today and then anticipate even more advances in technology and services offered, it would be difficult to make a realistic argument for their data usage not increasing exponentially. So not only are they going to pay more in the short term by switching from unlimited to tiered or shared data, they are guaranteeing that they will have an even larger increase over the next five years.

As far as paying full price for a new phone, I think I can realistically project paying $650 at month-to-month pricing versus upgrade pricing of $200-250. For simplicity lets say $650-200 for a difference of $450. Divide that out over 24 months and you're paying an extra $22.50 monthly(in advance).

So my decision comes down to:

1) can I afford the extra $450 up front or maybe am I satisfied with my current phone for a while longer?

2) If I go to tiered/shared data just how expensive is my data use going to become?

3) Am I better off simply going to another provider, maybe even prepaid using only voice/text?

I would hate changing my data usage habits, so number 3 is the most difficult choice to make. Number 2 is impractical, it would be too expensive switching to a tiered/shared data plan. Number 1 is tempting because I do like the luxury of being able to use data as I see fit. But I think number 3 will be the most likely outcome, just a simple prepaid phone for under $50 month, the outrage I feel toward Verizon and the other carriers for constantly increasing my rates while decreasing my service is rising to the level necessary to cause me to dump them.

[benzb]

I have a feeling that Verizon's next step in the near future will be to throttle their "unlimited" plan users. I highly doubt Verizon will let us unlimited users continue to consume 10-20-30 gigs of data per month for $30 while others will be paying $150-$200 for the data. I think they are first going to "punish" us by making us pay retail for our phones and for the ones that stay with unlimited, they will start throttling just like AT&T has. Everyone will eventually either have to switch to tiered or suffer from extremely slow throttled data. As long as they let us use "unlimited" data (regardless of the speed), they are legally safe. Unfortunately, that's what saved AT&T on a legal standpoint.

[lisaco1]

Yeah but that doesn't help much when you can't bring that phone anywhere else.

Not accurate, you can use your handset on Pageplus Cellular.

It wouldn't be so bad if all the carriers in the US were GSM. While you can go month-to-month and buy unsubsidized phones if you want, all it does is make it easier for you to change your mind after the fact, and you have to sell that phone you just bought for $600 or whatever.

At least with AT&T and T-Mobile, you can freely switch from one to the other, and there are plenty of prepaid options for them as well (Straight Talk, T-Mobile Prepaid, Simple Mobile). So if you don't like one you can easily bring your phone to another.

There is a small out - with Verizon, you can bring your phone to Page Plus instead. But Sprint is extra sucky because NONE of the Sprint prepaid providers let you bring your own phone. No way to bring a Sprint phone to Boost or Virgin Mobile or vice versa.

You can use your handset on Pageplus Cellular

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[Morphling27]

The problem is that most people will see an overall increase in their monthly charges on either a tiered data plan or with the new share everything plan. Also too many people are factoring in their current use of data and ignoring the probability of an increase in future data use. If more people would just look at how much data they used 5 years ago vs today and then anticipate even more advances in technology and services offered, it would be difficult to make a realistic argument for their data usage not increasing exponentially. So not only are they going to pay more in the short term by switching from unlimited to tiered or shared data, they are guaranteeing that they will have an even larger increase over the next five years.

As far as paying full price for a new phone, I think I can realistically project paying $650 at month-to-month pricing versus upgrade pricing of $200-250. For simplicity lets say $650-200 for a difference of $450. Divide that out over 24 months and you're paying an extra $22.50 monthly(in advance).

So my decision comes down to:

1) can I afford the extra $450 up front or maybe am I satisfied with my current phone for a while longer?

2) If I go to tiered/shared data just how expensive is my data use going to become?

3) Am I better off simply going to another provider, maybe even prepaid using only voice/text?

I would hate changing my data usage habits, so number 3 is the most difficult choice to make. Number 2 is impractical, it would be too expensive switching to a tiered/shared data plan. Number 1 is tempting because I do like the luxury of being able to use data as I see fit. But I think number 3 will be the most likely outcome, just a simple prepaid phone for under $50 month, the outrage I feel toward Verizon and the other carriers for constantly increasing my rates while decreasing my service is rising to the level necessary to cause me to dump them.

Go to the prepaid side, I'm sure I post a lot, but it's the best move I ever made. There are way more advantages than disadvantages and with a site like this, you can negate most of the bad of prepaid anyway (terrible customer service and help).

Also, on the topic in general - if you must/want to stay with VZW really, buy a lightly used phone off ebay. You can get it for 300-400 and you'll get some general buyer protections or whatever they are on ebay if it happens to not be advertised correctly. You might not get the latest phone at a price like that, but you can find something released in the past 6 months.

[Sam73065]

Go to the prepaid side, I'm sure I post a lot, but it's the best move I ever made. There are way more advantages than disadvantages and with a site like this, you can negate most of the bad of prepaid anyway (terrible customer service and help).

Also, on the topic in general - if you must/want to stay with VZW really, buy a lightly used phone off ebay. You can get it for 300-400 and you'll get some general buyer protections or whatever they are on ebay if it happens to not be advertised correctly. You might not get the latest phone at a price like that, but you can find something released in the past 6 months.

I do appreciate your point about buying a cheaper used phone. However I am one of those that loves the latest most advanced phone I can afford. If I were able to keep my daughter out of my wallet, I'd probably have 4 or 5 of the latest smartphones laying around the house and possibly on 3 or 4 of the big 4 carriers. For now I limit myself to just two carriers and two phones, but as I pointed out, the consistent increase in price for less service is finally starting to outrage me to the point that I will opt out. I recently did that with cable tv and I don't miss it. Cellular service appears to be next...... a simple prepaid plan will probably be my new friend....

[echampio]

I have 2 smartphones on a family plan. Between us, we average less than 2 GB per month. We generally don't stream anything. Other than that, we are on our phones all the time -- FB, news sites, email, maps, nav, etc., etc., etc.

The announced Share Everything pricing for 2 smartphones and 4 GB data will be $150.00 plus taxes/fees. My current bill is about $165.00 inclusive. So that would appear to be a wash price-wise.

2 unsubsidized smartphones would likely run $1,000.00 - $1,200.00. Ouch. Especially so when there is no monthly monetary incentive to do so.

I don't doubt that our data usage will increase. But I just don't see it increasing to the point where it would be economical to go unsubsidized.

Plus, I am suspicious that they'll throttle unlimited data after a predetermined level. I've seen nothing official that that will happen, just speculation.

I've until early Oct to make a decision.

As always, YMMV.

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[aneftp]

Once Verizon decides to throttle LTE users. Game will be over trying to maintain unlimited.

Remember the FCC deal Verizon made was to not block sim switching between LTE devices (tablet, phone, mifi device). But the FCC deal did not involve LTE throttling language.

It is only time when Verizon throttle throttles lte users. Say 5GB cap like att.

[ROLLTIDE]

Once Verizon decides to throttle LTE users. Game will be over trying to maintain unlimited.

Remember the FCC deal Verizon made was to not block sim switching between LTE devices (tablet, phone, mifi device). But the FCC deal did not involve LTE throttling language.

It is only time when Verizon throttle throttles lte users. Say 5GB cap like att.

It's a shame that we want be able to edit the APN's like a bunch of us did on AT&T to get around the throttling