Verizon has unveiled its new “Share Everything” Plan that attempts to simplify the mess that present day data and voice plans create.
Under the new plan, subscribers get unlimited calls, unlimited texts and the ability to share their data allowance across a maximum of 10 devices. The plan also lets subscribers share their data connection via a Mobile Hotspot to their other devices.
Verizon’s pitch for the “Share Everything” plan is:
You’ll no longer have to wade through lots of plans options with varying minutes, messages and data add on options. You just make one decision – how much data will you need – the rest is all included and unlimited.
That indeed sounds pretty simple, how simple is it actually?
We break it down for you.
- Every device you add to the shared plan has a base cost. It’s $10 for a tablet, $30 for a feature phone and $40 for a smartphone. After you’re done with adding devices you move on to selecting the data plan.
- Data plans start at $50 for 1GB of shared monthly usage and go all the way up to $100 for 10GB.
- Verizon also gives you the option of choosing a shared data-only plan for your data-only devices like tablets and netbooks. The base price is the same as in the standard shared plan, but the monthly data cost is cheaper. It starts at $30 for 4GB of monthly usage, and goes up to $60 for 10GB.
- Exceeding your monthly data allowance in both cases would cost you an additional $15 per GB.
Verizon, realizing that services like iMessage are eating into its revenues, went ahead and made unlimited texting mandatory. That way, Verizon gets its share of money, and doesn’t care if iMessage is being used more than traditional texts.
MacRumors did some math, and here’s what they found:
Compared to Verizon’s existing plans, the new Share Everything plan appears to represent a solid value even for single-device customers interested in unlimited minutes and texting, but less so for other customers.
Under Verizon’s current pricing, a customer would pay a total of $120 per month for unlimited minutes ($70), unlimited messaging ($20) and 2 GB of data ($30). Adding mobile hotspot functionality costs an additional $20 but increases the total data cap to 4 GB.
With the new Share Everything plan, a customer would pay $100 per month for the same service: $40 smartphone access and $60 for unlimited minutes and messaging and 2 GB of data. With mobile hotspot functionality included at no additional charge, stepping up to the 4 GB plan would cost just $10. In addition, a user could add an iPad to his or her account for just $10 per month with no contract requirement, as long as it was drawing from the same data allotment as the user’s phone.
Verizon will let you switch to the Share Everything plan without any additional fee. The plans come into effect from the 28th of June.
AT&T’s expected to follow with similar shared plans within this year.
If you’re planning to shift to this plan, here’s a link to Verizon’s webpage that’ll help you arrive at a suitable plan taking into account the number of devices you own and your usage pattern.
