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Verizon edge payment plans.

JRod

JRod

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Has anyone taken advantage of this? Is It worth it?

I'm stupid about the cell phone business I have no idea ifi should do this or not.
 
JRod said:
Has anyone taken advantage of this? Is It worth it?

I'm stupid about the cell phone business I have no idea ifi should do this or not.
Click to expand...

Is this the program where you can upgrade early? And you make monthly payments as opposed to paying full retail upfront for the phone? I don't have Verizon (AT&T), but they have their Next program, which I'm not sure if I'm intersted in or not. I have no interest in keeping my current phone (it's already falling apart) after my contract runs out and I upgrade.
 
O'Carroll said:
Is this the program where you can upgrade early? And you make monthly payments as opposed to paying full retail upfront for the phone? I don't have Verizon (AT&T), but they have their Next program, which I'm not sure if I'm intersted in or not. I have no interest in keeping my current phone (it's already falling apart) after my contract runs out and I upgrade.
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Yep you basically lease the phone and can upgrade every twelve months. The only thing i ser is if you keep the phone the entire twenty months you're paying basically full price for the device.
 
http://lifehacker.com/are-early-upgrade-plans-worth-it-1369868915

Give this a read. A year old so some things may have changed since it was written. In most cases these plans aren't a good deal, and only some are when you need/want to upgrade your phone often.

In general the article states these programs are almost always not worth it unless you have to have a new phone every 6 months.

Should I Use It?

Verizon Edge: Almost certainly not. Almost. If you only use Verizon Edge to upgrade once per year, you're spending the exact same amount as you would if you got a regular two year contract and bought a $600 phone off-contract halfway through your term. There's no reason to do this unless you're completely confident you want to stay with Verizon and you're bad at saving money.


If you're planning on upgrading every six months, you'll spend $1200 more than a normal contract. This is, technically, less than you would spend buying a new phone every six months while on a regular contract. If having the latest phone is worth $1200 to you, then maybe you could consider this, but keep in mind that you have to pay off 50% of each handset every six months. This will raise your monthly payment to obscene levels. You're really just better off selling your old phones.
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If you're like me and didn't want to pay the full price of the phone at one time it's a fine program. You're done with the old system forever though. Not that it was really good anyway. I got a 25% rebate on my first phone though, so I guess that's a plus.
 
Should also say that I have no plans on frequent upgrades either.
 
Hawk said:
Should also say that I have no plans on frequent upgrades either.
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So once you use edge you're stuck with it forever even if you change phones?
 
JRod said:
So once you use edge you're stuck with it forever even if you change phones?
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Well, as long as the phone is paid for you can always just go alone and pay in full at one time, but yea - your subsidized upgrades will be gone.
 
For what it's worth, I'd expect the upgrades to disappear in the not so distant future anyway. Based on what a rep said they are trying to move people to Edge and she seemed to think upgrades were a thing of the past. Just a matter of time.
 
JRod said:
So once you use edge you're stuck with it forever even if you change phones?
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Yes. Personally I find it as just another way to get more monthly from you. The way the guy at the Verizon store explained it to me was your phone is basically paid off after 18 monthsish, so if you dont change/upgrade your phone you are paying more than the cost of the phone.

I've had Verizon forever and quite frankly I'm just kinda done with them. The store by my house are rude and unhelpful, they are twice as expensive as other cell providers. I may be changing before long.
 
jspangs said:
Yes. Personally I find it as just another way to get more monthly from you. The way the guy at the Verizon store explained it to me was your phone is basically paid off after 18 monthsish, so if you dont change/upgrade your phone you are paying more than the cost of the phone.

I've had Verizon forever and quite frankly I'm just kinda done with them. The store by my house are rude and unhelpful, they are twice as expensive as other cell providers. I may be changing before long.
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Dont do it dude their coverage is unparalleled. I got pissed at them and made a rash decision and now it's gonna cost me 140 to break my current contract to go back. Their cs is terrible but the network is so much better than anything else.
 
I'm on ATT and use the next plan and it has saved me $25-30 on a family plan with 3 lines. It depends on the plan you have and if you're willing to change to a new plan. For ours, we have unlimited text and talk with 10gb of data, much better than our old plan, and for less money.

When these plans first started they were not a good deal. They gave you the phone portion with early upgrades, but still included the subsidy. They have taken that out now so the cost is now equal or less than a contract plan. Overall, it is the same kind of deal, instead of being locked into the contract with the carrier, you are locked into the phone cost. Overall, you pay about the same amount no matter which way you go, it's just accounted for differently.

When I switched a few months ago, I could have stayed as a contract plan, gotten a free or reduced phone, but would have still had to pay $25 subsidy to cover the reduced cost of the phone. Instead I got a new phone on the release day, and pay the same amount. This was because I had switched to the 10gb plan and got rid of our old, crappy plan. Plus I can upgrade early which is no longer available on the contract plans. Also, since part of the monthly payment is for the phone, once it is paid off (you can pay it off early as well), you no longer have that portion of the monthly payment so your bill will go down.

The one downside of the plan for some (at least on ATT, not sure about Verizon), is that if you still owe on the phone when you upgrade, in order to upgrade, you have to trade it in. Some like to keep them or sell them so keep that in mind. Personally I don't have much use for the old phone so it doesn't matter to me.

It is a great deal for what we need out of a family plan. They don't seem to care about talk and text anymore, it is all about smartphones and data. I wanted a better smartphone and more data to use so it worked out much better for us. No matter what you do, you'll pay about the same amount of money.
 
I just signed a new 2 year contract with Verizon, and I chose to get an iPhone 5S for $99. If you travel around, Verizon has the best coverage by far. I'd stay away from programs like Edge or Next, unless you just have to have the latest and greatest phone. For me, it's just a phone.
 
StLCardsFan said:
I'm on ATT and use the next plan and it has saved me $25-30 on a family plan with 3 lines. It depends on the plan you have and if you're willing to change to a new plan. For ours, we have unlimited text and talk with 10gb of data, much better than our old plan, and for less money.

When these plans first started they were not a good deal. They gave you the phone portion with early upgrades, but still included the subsidy. They have taken that out now so the cost is now equal or less than a contract plan. Overall, it is the same kind of deal, instead of being locked into the contract with the carrier, you are locked into the phone cost. Overall, you pay about the same amount no matter which way you go, it's just accounted for differently.

When I switched a few months ago, I could have stayed as a contract plan, gotten a free or reduced phone, but would have still had to pay $25 subsidy to cover the reduced cost of the phone. Instead I got a new phone on the release day, and pay the same amount. This was because I had switched to the 10gb plan and got rid of our old, crappy plan. Plus I can upgrade early which is no longer available on the contract plans. Also, since part of the monthly payment is for the phone, once it is paid off (you can pay it off early as well), you no longer have that portion of the monthly payment so your bill will go down.

The one downside of the plan for some (at least on ATT, not sure about Verizon), is that if you still owe on the phone when you upgrade, in order to upgrade, you have to trade it in. Some like to keep them or sell them so keep that in mind. Personally I don't have much use for the old phone so it doesn't matter to me.

It is a great deal for what we need out of a family plan. They don't seem to care about talk and text anymore, it is all about smartphones and data. I wanted a better smartphone and more data to use so it worked out much better for us. No matter what you do, you'll pay about the same amount of money.
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This actually sounds more promising that other things I have read about the Next program.

Talk to me about data. My current plan (that I have had FOREVER) includes unlimited data. That will go away if I switch to Next?
 
To OP:
Unless you destroy phones, phones haven't really improved much in the last 3 years. Subsidized phones are they way to go every 2 years.

I have unlimited data and would lose that (verizon). I can't even get subsidized phone.
 
O'Carroll said:
This actually sounds more promising that other things I have read about the Next program.

Talk to me about data. My current plan (that I have had FOREVER) includes unlimited data. That will go away if I switch to Next?
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For AT&T I'm pretty sure of you switch to Next you lose the grandfathered unlimited data. Even of the program made financial sense losing the unlimited does not. We keep staying on the normal subsidized -year plan for that reason. The old unlimited is just too good a deal. (We have two iPhones on unlimited for $119/mo - incl corporate discount).
 
Penglynns said:
For AT&T I'm pretty sure of you switch to Next you lose the grandfathered unlimited data. Even of the program made financial sense losing the unlimited does not. We keep staying on the normal subsidized -year plan for that reason. The old unlimited is just too good a deal. (We have two iPhones on unlimited for $119/mo - incl corporate discount).
Click to expand...
That's what I thought. I'm sure I use a TON of data, but up until this point in time, I've never even once looked at how much.
 
Penglynns said:
For AT&T I'm pretty sure of you switch to Next you lose the grandfathered unlimited data. Even of the program made financial sense losing the unlimited does not. We keep staying on the normal subsidized -year plan for that reason. The old unlimited is just too good a deal. (We have two iPhones on unlimited for $119/mo - incl corporate discount).
Click to expand...

You can switch to Next and keep unlimited data. It's when you switch to a share plan that you lose your unlimited data.
 
sparksjr said:
You can switch to Next and keep unlimited data. It's when you switch to a share plan that you lose your unlimited data.
Click to expand...

O'Carroll said:
That's what I thought. I'm sure I use a TON of data, but up until this point in time, I've never even once looked at how much.
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Honestly question in today's world of WiFi being everywhere do you honestly need unlimited data? I gave mine up a year ago, and I have only come close 1 month and that was when I was working in West Virginia, with no WiFi.
 
jspangs said:
Honestly question in today's world of WiFi being everywhere do you honestly need unlimited data? I gave mine up a year ago, and I have only come close 1 month and that was when I was working in West Virginia, with no WiFi.
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Depends how much you travel. While we don't have unlimited we are constantly battling how much data we use and what we have left
 
JB said:
Depends how much you travel. While we don't have unlimited we are constantly battling how much data we use and what we have left
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I'm traveling for work about 260 days a year and I'm never concerned about going over. I suppose I can see if you have a job where you are sitting on your phone a lot but even then, like stated before most every place has free WiFi.
 
jspangs said:
Honestly question in today's world of WiFi being everywhere do you honestly need unlimited data? I gave mine up a year ago, and I have only come close 1 month and that was when I was working in West Virginia, with no WiFi.
Click to expand...

JB said:
Depends how much you travel. While we don't have unlimited we are constantly battling how much data we use and what we have left
Click to expand...
^^this^^

Between work and THP travel, (and Live Update Threads!) there are a ton of times that I am no-wifi. While I agree that I may not need it, it's not something I've ever had to worry about, and legitimately have no idea how much data I use.
 
To me this is like leasing a car. If you have to have the latest and greatest then it's ok.

The justification is that it beats paying full retail all at once for a phone.

For me it makes no sense as I don't have the need or desire to change phones all the time and have to be in a situation where I would be paying full price
 
My low this year is 4.3gb with a high of 7.8gb per month. I don't have wifi at work so it's all cellular data for 8 hours a day.

Checked pricing on shared data a while back. With two more smartphones on our plan I wouldn't feel safe with less than 12-14gb to share and at that point we would be paying more than we are now each month (about $40/mo) and just save about $20 total over 18 months with the whole next upgrading.

I'm usually throttled the last 10 days of my billing cycle so it really sucks but it is what it is.
 
Man how do you do it? I stream Pandora every day 8-5 m-F and THP at lunch and some time between and I have yet to hit 2GB of data.
 
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