With the current economic situation causing many Americans to take a hard look at their monthly spending, more and more folks are switching to prepaid since the plans are not only cheaper, but also provide the comfort of knowing that you can leave at any point in time and not face an absurdly high termination fee. Over the course of one year, prepaid subscriptions with Sprint and MetroPCS increased by 23% and 29% respectively. According to The Wall Street Journal, Verizon Wireless is going to start offering a $50 per month unlimited everything starting tomorrow to capture some of that prepaid growth. When we say everything, we mean everything. Talk, text, and data is included. There’s a slight snag though. Only four devices will be able to take advantage of this plan, and said devices are feature phones, or more appropriately called “dumbphones” since they don’t run applications or have a decent web browser. The exact models haven’t been specified yet, but they’ll be devices from LG, Pantech, and Samsung.
If you’re thinking of signing up for this, then you should be aware of what the competition offers. Both Virgin Mobile and Boost Mobile offer a similar unlimited everything plan, the former charges $55 per month for unlimited, but unlike Verizon they actually offer smartphones. Virgin Mobile has the Motorola Triumph, which has a great 4.1 inch screen with a resolution of 800 x 480 pixels and a 1 GHz processor, and it’ll run you just $300. Boost Mobile has the Samsung Prevail, which honestly is a device we wouldn’t recommend since it’s so … basic, but then there’s the SIM only option. Two MVNOs (mobile virtual network operators) exist that offer unlimited everything for $60 per month. One is Simple Mobile, which uses T-Mobile’s network, and H2O Wireless, which uses AT&T’s network. The catch with those guys is you have to supply your own smartphone, which isn’t a bad thing since you can buy an unlocked iPhone straight from Apple, cut your SIM card down to size, and boom, you’re escaping AT&T’s ridiculous fees.