Skip to main content

Verizon announces new data plans, gets rid of phone contracts in the process

verizon early termination fee
Ken Wolter/Shutterstock
With T-Mobile, AT&T, and Sprint no longer forcing customers to opt for the oft-hated two-year phone contract, Verizon finally decided to join the party in earnest.

Up until now, Verizon offered customers either a phone contract or Verizon Edge, which allowed them an early upgrade to a newer phone if they pay off their current phone in full. With today’s announcement, Verizon will completely do away with two-year contracts, with Big Red giving customers the option of either paying full-price for the handset or paying for the phone through a monthly installment plan. This will make Verizon and T-Mobile the only big carriers in the U.S. to completely forgo phone contracts.

In addition, Verizon announced several new data plans while doing away with single-line and family plan options. First up is Small, which gives you 1GB of shareable data for $30 a month. Next up is Medium, which ups the monthly price to $45 while giving you 2GB of additional shareable data. Third is Large, which nets customers 6GB of shareable data for $60 a month. Finally, X-Large stays true to its name by offering customers 12GB of shareable data for $80 a month.

Regardless of which plan you choose, you can share the data with up to 10 devices. In addition, a smartphone line will now cost $20 a month, while tablet and Jetpack hotspot products will set you back $10 a month. Finally, connected devices, such as smartwatches, will cost you $5 a month.

Finally, Verizon will give customers “a simpler and more streamlined bill, making it easier to see and understand monthly charges.” Of course, this last bit is likely due to both the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) levying a $90 million fine against Big Red for “mobile cramming.” This particularly nasty business practice found entities like Verizon continually adding small charges to a bill, thus inflating how much customers pay by the end of their billing cycles.

All of these changes will take effect beginning August 13.

Editors' Recommendations

Williams Pelegrin
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Williams is an avid New York Yankees fan, speaks Spanish, resides in Colorado, and has an affinity for Frosted Flakes. Send…
iPhone 13: First customers get their hands on Apple’s new device
iPhone 13 camera app text

Across the Pacific, in places like Australia, New Zealand, and Japan, the first iPhone 13 customers are now receiving their new handset.

That’s because in those places it’s already Friday, September 24 -- the official release date of Apple’s latest smartphone, which the company unveiled last week.

Read more
The best phone plans for one person
best phone plans for one person feature

While users get the best deals when they have multiple people on their plan, sometimes you want sole responsibility for your cellphone bill. If you don't want to rely on roommates or family members to pay on time, you can always get a plan for yourself. There are plenty of prepaid options out there, but post-paid plans from the big cellular networks have competitive offers as well.

Note, all of the plans below offer unlimited talk and text. That's the standard in wireless plans now, so it should go without saying. The descriptions below will focus primarily on the data plans, as those are the key distinctions between the carrier options.

Read more
How to get rid of someone else’s Apple ID on your iPhone
iPhone 11 Pro Settings

So someone else's Apple ID is on your iPhone. This can be a frustrating problem, and it usually takes two forms. You might have acquired a used iPhone and the previous owner is still signed into the device through their Apple ID. Or you've let someone else use your iPhone, and they've signed into the Apple App Store with their own Apple ID to download an app, forgetting to sign back out again.

Either way, the presence of someone else's Apple ID on your iPhone can cause a number of problems. The most significant of these is that you can't download new apps from the App Store, or re-download apps you may have purchased with your own Apple ID on your previous iPhone (assuming you've acquired a secondhand iPhone). Not only that, but being signed into someone else's Apple ID usually means that any photos you take, for example, will be backed up to that person's iCloud, rather than to your own.

Read more