Verizon Wireless on Thursday unveiled new prepaid data plans for some multimedia and 3G smart phones, including several BlackBerry and Droid handsets. The offerings include an unlimited data package for $30 per month; and a $10 plan with a stingy 25MB monthly cap (with a 20-cents-per-megabyte overage fee).
While carriers subsidize phones for their contract customers, they recover the discount over the life of the plan. But if that’s the case, shouldn’t prepaid customers catch a break on monthly charges?
I configured the least expensive monthly plan for Verizon customers who buy a Droid X and who want unlimited data. (If you’re getting a powerful Droid X–more a wireless mobile computer than a phone–Verizon’s $10 per month 25MB data plan is a joke.) As the chart below indicates, not only do prepaid users pay nearly $200 more for their phone, but they also pay $5 more per month in fees.
Verizon’s Droid X plans: Contract vs. Prepaid
|
|
2-Year Contract |
Prepaid |
|
Droid X price |
$199 |
$395 |
|
Unlimited data |
$30 |
$30 |
|
450 voice minutes |
$40 |
$45 |
|
Text messages |
20 cents per message sent/received (25 cents for video and picture messages) |
20 cents per message sent/received (25 cents for video and picture messages) |
|
Early termination fee |
$350 after 30-day grace period, minus $10 for each contract month completed |
None |
|
Monthly total (excluding taxes and additional usage fees) |
$70 |
$75 |
Again, if the phone subsidy is built into the cost of the two-year contract, where’s the service discount for no-contract customers who pay twice the subsidized rate for their phones? Not only is there no discount here, but prepaid users actually pay a little more per month.
The moral here? You’ll pay a penalty for prepaid.
Contact Jeff Bertolucci via Twitter (@jbertolucci) or at jbertolucci.blogspot.com.