All iPads Monthly Fee for iPad Cell Service in addition to data plan? (USA)

[jetlife2]

Hi there

I am considering for the first time a cellular enabled iPad, instead of wifi only. Clarifying question:

In Apple's promotional material they state that you can go month to month with service and cancel any time. But when I look at (for example) Verizon's plan, they charge $10 per month for a tablet just to activate the unit - before the data plan. So at least in this case, it seems that there is a base cost of $10/month even for zero data usage.

Is this typical for all carriers? When you look at the prices Apple quotes on its ipad Apple store page, they make no mention of this charge, and instead just display the comparison of data plan costs.

Ideally I would like to have the option to enable cell service occasionally, as wifi is very widespread now - but I don't want to have to pay every month just to have that option, even if I am not using it.

Thanks for any guidance

 

[CJisohsocool]

Hi there

I am considering for the first time a cellular enabled iPad, instead of wifi only. Clarifying question:

In Apple's promotional material they state that you can go month to month with service and cancel any time. But when I look at (for example) Verizon's plan, they charge $10 per month for a tablet just to activate the unit - before the data plan. So at least in this case, it seems that there is a base cost of $10/month even for zero data usage.

Is this typical for all carriers? When you look at the prices Apple quotes on its ipad Apple store page, they make no mention of this charge, and instead just display the comparison of data plan costs.

Ideally I would like to have the option to enable cell service occasionally, as wifi is very widespread now - but I don't want to have to pay every month just to have that option, even if I am not using it.

Thanks for any guidance

Are you serious? Not getting verizon then...

 

[panzer06]

Hi there

I am considering for the first time a cellular enabled iPad, instead of wifi only. Clarifying question:

In Apple's promotional material they state that you can go month to month with service and cancel any time. But when I look at (for example) Verizon's plan, they charge $10 per month for a tablet just to activate the unit - before the data plan. So at least in this case, it seems that there is a base cost of $10/month even for zero data usage.

Is this typical for all carriers? When you look at the prices Apple quotes on its ipad Apple store page, they make no mention of this charge, and instead just display the comparison of data plan costs.

Ideally I would like to have the option to enable cell service occasionally, as wifi is very widespread now - but I don't want to have to pay every month just to have that option, even if I am not using it.

Thanks for any guidance

That only applies if you already have Verizon cell service on one of the shared data plans. The $10 is designed to share with all your other Verizon devices. The separate plan isn't advertised but you can usually get the store to sell it $30 per month for 2GB.

I moved to the Verizon $10 plan and cancelled my $30 plan when my son moved to Verizon. I share his data.

Cheers,

 

[deeddawg]

You're confusing / conflating the prepaid and postpaid plans.

You can add an ipad to a phone / data-share type plan for a monthly fee plus any increase in the overall data allowance you need on your phone/ipad combined account.

Or you can get a monthly postpaid data plan.

Or you can get a monthly prepaid data plan.

This last is what I have on my ipad3. $20/month prepaid 1GB data. It auto renews every month but there's no contract or obligation; I can just cancel it and let it lie dormant if I didn't think I'd need LTE data for a couple months.

My cell phones are on AT&T, the ipad is the only Verizon device I own.