Verizon’s early-upgrade Edge program has quietly undergone substantial changes that will force customers to pay more and will effectively remove the early upgrade perk that the program was known for when it first launched to a more conventional upgrade cycle.
Under the old rules, customers could upgrade after 12 months or once they’ve paid 60% of the handset’s retail cost. Under the new rules, customers will now have to wait 18 months to upgrade or pay off 75% of the handset’s cost before they can upgrade. Because of the increase in the number of monthly payments due to the upgrade cycle extension, Verizon is decreasing each monthly payment by $5.
The 500 MB/unlimited voice and messaging plan will now be priced at $20 instead of $30 per month with a $15/250 MB overage rate and single-line plans will be increased to $75 per month for unlimited talk/text and 2GB of data on one line of service. The older single line plan was $60 and now features 1GB of data and unlimited talk/text instead of 2 GB with a a $15/500MB overage rate.Verizon also made changes to its service plan pricing for Edge customers. Customers on Verizon’s More Everything plans with data ranging from 500 MB to 8 GB plans will now receive a $15 per line discount under the Edge program, compared to the previous $10 discount, while the $25 discount for customers on 8GB or higher plans will remain unchanged.
Is this a material change to our retail installment contacts? Or is this just going forward.