I know this is possible with at&t, but I thought I read somewhere that Verizon is now forcing the shared plan on new lines/customers, in which case even a dumbphone on the shared plan is $30 per month. No?
Not quite... new customers, yes, Share Everything is it. But for new lines (on existing accounts), it is complicated. Here's the Verizon scoop:
If you have a grandfathered plan (basically everything other than Share Everything),
with unlimited data, and you want to upgrade your equipment to a smartphone, you have these options:
- change to Share Everything era plan
- add a data package to your grandfathered plan***
- pay full retail price for a device
- provide your own hardware (purchase it off of eBay or used)
But really, for some people the Share Everything plans save money and avoid overage... I knew people who had 2-4 lines each with per-line data packages and sometimes even overage when one line would go over data (but they other ones wouldn't), and those people are saving a lot of money with shared/pooled data in the Share Everything.
Plus, now minutes and texts are unlimited, plan pricing is more straightforward (no more $100 initial plan and $10 add-a-lines), and you can have up to 10 devices versus the prior 5 max devices (and tablets are just $10/mo).
The dumbphone $30/mo for unlim talk and text is especially great, because that's prepaid cheap pricing on the nation's best network.
*** this is where the potentially-awesome switcheroo-downgrade approach
*COULD* work. add a line for $9.99 a month, and add the $30/2GB plan to it, then switch the ESN on the account to an old dumbphone and drop the $30/2GB plan, and switch the ESN on your unlimited data line to your new iPhone 5!
