Verizon Prepaid?

[jeffp18]

Does anybody know what the difference is between Verizon Wireless prepaid and the monthly plan is? Looking at having 2 lines it would be $110/month plus taxes for 8GB of shared data. Getting the prepaid cards at Walmart would get 7GB per phone for $50 each. I would get almost twice as much data for $10 less a month. Both have unlimited talk and text. Anyone know if there is a difference in service? I tried doing an online chat with Verizon, but they danced around the question.

 

[HeatherC]

I think the service is pretty much the same. We have a monthly plan with four lines. The reason we didn't do prepaid is because everyone's phones were really old and we decided to get new ones and pay the monthly payment for each one over 24 months.

At the time, they were also offering free extra data so we now have 20 go a month which is plenty for us.

They now offer unlimited data, but for us to switch it would be $30 more a month.


I think if you have a phone already or plan on buying one outright, the prepaid is probably the way to go.

 

[Rynosaur]

the biggest difference can be the amount of coverage. with prepaid you only get, in its simplest form, verizon owned towers. with postpaid, you get access to verizon owned, and whomever verizon has partnerships with. So some dont really notice the difference and for others in can be dramatic.

then there are the plan differences, current plans have rollover data, and possibility of discounts through an employer.

Do you have a verizon phone already? if not you would either need to buy one, so a prepaid box kit requires phone cost, first month of service and activation. with postpaid there is a free phone after credits option amongst many other varying promos

id need some more details about what you want to accomplish to really give a better answer, but im happy to help if you want

 

[jeffp18]

Thank you for the response. My wife and I currently have a monthly plan with Verizon with 2 lines. We each got our phones when they used to do the 2 year contacts. Mine is up in 2 weeks. Her's would be up at the end of the year.

I did an online chat with them a couple of months ago to try to figure out the difference between the services. They did not answer the question but did cut my line access fee from $40/month to $20/month (The fee was higher because they subsidized the phone with the old contract. The fee would have dropped at the end of this month when my contract runs out.) and changed our plan to a newer one with 8 GB of shared data plus rollover data. We previously had 4 GB shared without roll over data. With the reduction in the line access fee and the change in plan, we are currently paying $5 a month less than before. Our current bill is still $135 a month after taxes and fees.

My thinking is that if I got the deal from Walmart, we would get far more data for less money. We currently use about 6-7 GB combined a month. We would usually get the notification that we had 5% left for the month with 3-5 days left and would restrict our usage to get through the month with our old plan. If we had more available, I would use it to stream music in the car on my commute when I got sick of the radio or streaming videos for our daughter when traveling because she hates car rides.

We live just outside of Boston, so I don't think service would be an issue there. We do have family that live in New Hampshire on Lake Winnipesaukee that we visit every couple of weeks to spend a night or two in the summer. I think that would be the only time we may run into trouble with service. I also know that we wouldn't really be able to do much until the contract on my wife's phone expires. I'm just trying to plan ahead and see what my options are.

 

[bigbabyblues]

We have found Best Buy to be a good place to get cell phone plans. They deal with all the major carriers and we have never felt they were pushing us one way or another. They obviously don't sell the Walmart service, but they should be able to help you with the two Verizon plans.