The “Share Everything “plan from Verizon is a fairly new and revolutionary idea. Okay, maybe only for the industry it is, because I foresee a lot of angry or disgruntled customers that will be stuck with it until the end of their contract. But, I am not here to be the black cloud raining on the parade; I will be sharing some possible benefits for you Verizon users too.
The ominous Share Everything plan will be coming to a Verizon customer near you on June 28th. But existing customers will be able to stick to their current plan until the undeniable upgrade needs to be had, and new customers will not be able to receive any of the previous plans offered. So what is this “Share Everything” plan that seems to be planning on sucking your wallet dry? Allow me to break it down for you.
A New Way To Pay
The “Share Everything” plan is essentially geared towards families with phone plans, giving you unlimited talk, text and a common pool of data to share from. Doesn’t sound so bad, that is until you start really getting down to the details of the plan.
The plan will drop a $50-$100 dollar increase on top of your fees and charges for individual phone access. Also, data isn’t unlimited, after everyone takes a dip into the pool and it’s all dried up, that’s it until the next billing cycle of your plan. So in all actuality it is raising the super data user, or 4G (a data consuming monster) phone user’s bill, for what they are receiving now.
Give a little, take a little in the world of the “Share Everything” plan, the real saving are found only in large family plan situations, where it evens out between the array of different phone users . Essentially Verizon is hoping that not all of their phone users are huge data users as well. Family plan users do however have a small reason to rejoice, and that is being able to have unlimited talk and text, which previously came at a pretty penny.
For the Love of Data
Fortunately for existing Verizon customers, you can keep your existing plan, but only up until you decide you want a new subsidized phone, then you have to give up your unlimited data plan and drink the proverbial “Share Everything” kool-aid. Or you could just pay full price for your smart phone (did I mention that they average around $600?) and keep your old plan and unlimited data.
Another main issue that I see when it comes to the new Share Everything plan is that they have made the base access fees so high. Your smart phone is going to be costing you $40 just for the access or your basic phone for $30, for your laptops and hotspots you are paying $20. Then on top of that add your data, text messages and talk plan. So think about what we are talking about when you have your laptop, tablet, and phone (or phones), I mean that is a pretty big chunk of change for your mobile devices, wouldn’t you say? One nice thing is that you get one bill instead of two or three, but it will be considerably larger than the sum of the individual ones.
To put it very simply: you are going to be receiving less data for unlimited text and talk. But data is becoming more in demand while talk (walking a fine line in extinction) and text (still thriving but for how long?) is waning slowly because of smart phone apps (data data data) that can do both for you. So, is the Share Everything plan friend or foe? You tell us.
