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Verizon Wireless has the most mobile phone subscribers in the U.S., but the company uses most of its marketing push for promoting its post-paid unlimited plan. You would be forgiven if you didn’t know Verizon also offers prepaid plans.
Related: Best prepaid Verizon phones
Download speeds aren’t the full picture however: there is also the related concept of latency (discussed below) that affects the responsiveness of your internet. 2G, 3G, 4G & 5G Download Speeds. The following table shows a comparison of download speeds on various flavours of 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G mobile networks. Sprint and Verizon had the slowest download speeds in 3G, while the slowest networks in 4G were Sprint and AT&T. But while T-Mobile might beat out Verizon in speed, Verizon has the upper hand in. The following table illustrates just how much faster 5G is and will be than existing networks. Note that for ‘average download speeds’ we’ve used the highest average speeds on Ofcom’s Mobile Network Experience Update from April 2019 for the 4G and 3G speeds, while the 5G speeds come from network estimates. Verizon Leads, AT&T Runs Last in Wired.com’s 3G Speed Test. Wired.com asked U.S. Smartphone owners to test their 3G download speeds by running a custom web page that involved downloading an.
Here are the catches in Verizon's unlimited data plan. The research firm OpenSignal’s new report on U.S. Mobile networks found VzW 3G download speeds averaged just 850 kbps, a twentieth of.
In addition to Verizon prepaid plans offering limited high-speed data, you can also buy one with unlimited data. In this article we will take a look at various Verizon prepaid plans, and let you know which one might be best for your needs and budget.
Verizon prepaid plans – limited data
If you just need some data, you can start with Verizon’s $30 a month pre-paid plan, which offers 500MB of high-speed data— Verizon throttles speeds down to 128 kbps if you use all 500MB before the end of the billing month — along with 4G mobile hotspot access. If you pay Verizon’s $35 a month prepaid plan with Auto Pay billing selected ($40 a month without Auto Pay), you can boost that high-speed data to 3 GB per month, again with 4G mobile hotspot access. Both of those plans include unlimited talk and text inside the U.S., along with unlimited texts to over 200 countries.
At the moment, ff you get the prepaid plan that’s $45 a month with Auto Pay ($50 a month without Auto Pay), you can get a high-speed data increase to 15GB (normally its 8GB), along with all of the features in the $30 and $40 a month tiers and unlimited calling to Canada and Mexico.
All Verizon prepaid plans with data limit video streaming to 480p resolution.
Verizon Wireless unlimited prepaid plan
If you want the comfort of using a prepaid plan with unlimited data, Verizon offers such a plan for $65 a month with Auto Pay ($70 a month without Auto Pay). Verizon says it can “prioritize your data behind other customers during times/places of network congestion” so keep that in mind if you plan to use a lot of data on this plan. It includes unlimited talk and texting in the U.S., along with unlimited texts to over 200 countries and unlimited talk to Mexico and Canada, along with limited video streaming at 480p resolution. There is no 4G mobile hotspot access available with the Verizon unlimited prepaid plan.
Verizon Wireless family prepaid plan discounts
Verizon recently revamped its top three family prepaid plans, which offer discounts for adding up to 10 additional lines. You can save $10 a month for each additional 3GB prepaid plan you add to your account, and save $20 a month for each 8GB prepaid data plan. You will also save $20 a month when you add an unlimited prepaid plan to your account. You can also mix and match prepaid plans, so you get an unlimited plan, but your family gets limited 4G data plans.
Travel Pass support in Mexico and Canada for $5 per day
All Verizon prepaid plans can now support the carrier’s Travel Pass for U.S. customers who travel to Mexico and Canada, along with the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. They will be able to use their normal talk, text, and data prepaid plans while in both countries for the additional price of $5 per day, and customers will only be charged during the days they use it. In addition, Verizon offers the same Travel Pass support in over 30 other countries for $10 a day.
Verizon Wireless tablet and hotspot prepaid data plans
There are also Verizon prepaid plans for people who own LTE-based tablets, or stand-alone mobile hotspot devices. They begin at $35 a month with Auto Pay ($40 a month without Auto Pay) for 3GB of high-speed data. For $45 a month with Auto Pay ($50 a month without Auto Pay) that limit goes up to 8GB of high-speed data, although Verizon currently has a promotion where it has added 7GB of additional data for free to this plan.
These kinds of plans are perfect for people who want to go on the road with their tablet or mobile hotspot, but don’t want to sign a contract to use Verizon’s network.
Verizon SIM card for prepaid unlocked phones
Download ffmpeg windows. If you have purchased an unlocked smartphone from a third-party retailer (like Amazon) that can use Verizon’s LTE network, you can get the carrier’s 4G SIM Activation Kit for free. The kit comes with a Verizon SIM card for your unlocked phone. You can then sign up for one of the carrier’s pre-paid plans.
Conclusion
While Verizon prepaid plans don’t get promoted very much, they do offer some competitive options. The main issue with its prepaid plans, for people who already own an unlocked phone, is that not many of them work on the CDMA-based network Verizon uses. Users with those phones should make sure they will support Verizon’s network.
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Published 9:26 AM EST Feb 17, 2017
You can't ever read the fine print too carefully, and that is also the case with Verizon's new unlimited data plan.
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The $80 unlimited plan — or, to phrase it more accurately, “unmetered” plan — that Verizon Wireless rolled out Sunday initially featured fewer carve-outs and restrictions than comparable offerings from AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile. But by Thursday, its three competitors had all responded to Verizon by loosening many of those limits.
To sum up: Verizon is offering unlimited data, talking and texting for a single line, for $80 a month. That's before taxes and fees, which typically inflate the bil.
Its fine print contains qualifications that deserve a closer look.
Heavy users
— The first is the theoretical threshold at which your service may slow. As Verizon’s frequently-asked-questions page warns, racking up 22 gigabytes of data on a line (not across all devices on your account) may lead the company to “prioritize usage behind other customers during network congestion.” Download brigandine grand edition.
That’s not a hard cutoff or one you’re stuck with for the rest of the month, and user reports of other carriers’ “deprioritization” policies suggest the effects aren’t that painful.
Hot spot limit
— Verizon’s unlimited plan imposes a secondary limit on tethering, or using the phone as a portable WiFi hotspot to share its connectivity with another device. You get 10 GB a month of LTE tethering — per line, not account.
After that, your tethering drops to 3G speeds, which Verizon corporate-communications director Kelly Crummey said means a minimum of 600 kilobits per second.
Third-party tests suggest the actual speed may be slightly higher: The research firm OpenSignal’s new report on U.S. mobile networks found VzW 3G download speeds averaged just 850 kbps, a twentieth of its LTE-download average. In other words, very slow.
Effective Friday, T-Mobile’s $70-including-taxes-and-fees unlimited plan—the only one sold to new subscribers—will also include 10 GB of LTE hotspot sharing. Today, it constrains that to 3G speeds, which OpenSignal found averaged 4 Mbps. T-Mobile will also let subscribers opt out of having streaming video limited to “480p” DVD-grade resolution.
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AT&T’s $100 unlimited plan does not let customers use their phones as a mobile hotspot, but as of Friday it’s no longer reserved for subscribers to its DirecTV or U-verse TV services. Sprint, for its part, announced Thursday that it would double the tethering allowance on its unlimited plan to 10 GB and include HD video streaming.
Average 3g Speeds VerizonPricing confusion
— The pricing of Verizon's new deal can be confusing as well. Verizon usually lists rates exclusive of a $20 line-access charge, but it folds that cost into the advertised price of its unlimited plan: $80 for one device, $140 for two, $162 for three or $180 for four.
The result: Glancing at the numbers on Verizon’s site can lead one to think that its “$70” 8 GB plan costs less than the unlimited plan, when in reality that 8GB plan will run you $90.
Conversely, I’ve seen some readers assume the new unlimited plan really adds up to $100 on one device, more than the current $95 cost of the unlimited plan Verizon stopped selling in 2011.
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That $95 cost factors in the cheapest combination of voice minutes and texting available then, plus a $20 price hike imposed on the old unlimited deal last year. Since that option excludes tethering, you should dump it unless you somehow burn through over 22 GB a month on your phone alone.
Verizon’s advertised prices for its new plan also assumes you’ll set up automatic payments. That’s not an unusual request, but Verizon further requires you to make those payments from a checking account or a debit card--meaning you can’t put them on a rewards-earning or cash-back credit card.
“The majority of our customers use checks and debit cards to pay for their monthly bills,” said Crummey, the Verizon spokeswoman.
The unlimited plan, unlike others, also requires giving up existing employer and educational discounts. But Verizon’s 15% military and veterans discount still applies, Crummey said.
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Rob Pegoraro is a tech writer based out of Washington, D.C. To submit a tech question, e-mail Rob at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/robpegoraro.
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