For $45 a month, Verizon now offers 2GB of data, up from the 1GB of data previously offered. Meanwhile, Verizon’s $60 a month plan also saw a sizable increase, going from 3GB to 5GB of data. Finally, the $30 prepaid plan offers unlimited talk and text, but only grants data usage when connected to Wi-Fi.
On top of these data allowances, Verizon’s prepaid customers can add an additional 500MB for $5, while forking over $10 and $20 will grant them 1GB and 3GB of data, respectively. In addition, just like before, all of the revamped prepaid plans include unlimited voice and text. Finally, if you sign up for automatic payments, Verizon will toss in an additional gigabyte of data.
Verizon’s announcement that it was giving its prepaid plans additional data felt almost mandatory in the face of similar steps recently taken by AT&T and T-Mobile. More specifically, Verizon’s prepaid plans are now on par with AT&T’s GoPhone offerings, in terms of pricing.
However, T-Mobile’s prepaid offerings still remain more affordable, with customers granted the added benefits of music and video streaming that won’t count against their monthly allowance. That last benefit may have landed the so-called “Un-carrier” in hot water as of late, but its prepaid plans also include free data roaming in Mexico and Canada, while Verizon’s prepaid plans grant unlimited texting to the two countries, as well as Puerto Rico.
As usual, the same rules apply to prepaid as they do to postpaid: make sure you have proper coverage in your area before going with one carrier over the other. That choice now involves more competing options, since T-Mobile’s coverage and data speeds are finally on par with those of Verizon and AT&T.
