After the new post-paid plans announced by Verizon earlier in the month, it seemed like only a matter of time before changes would reach their prepaid plans as well. Well, that time has come. Verizon has updated its prepaid plans, and taking inspiration from the ‘Safe Mode’ throttling available in its post-paid plans, included "Always-On" throttled data at no extra cost.
Perhaps unlike the revisions made to the post-paid offerings, the changes made to Verizon’s prepaid plans are actually a solid upgrade. The main feature to be added to Verizon’s prepaid offerings, last revised in May, is the inclusion of ‘Always-On’ data throttling when prepaid data limits have been reached. Like ‘Safe Mode,’ ‘Always-On’ throttles data down to 128Kb/second when the data limit on the plan has been reached. Unlike ‘Safe Mode,’ ‘Always-On’ comes at no additional charge to prepaid customers. Verizon claims that ‘Always-On’ is enough for using social media and sending email, which it may well be, but doing so is going to be near dial-up levels of slow.
Verizon also added mobile Wi-Fi tethering support to both the 2GB and 5GB plans. Of course, this usage comes from the allocated pool of data that the customer has already paid for with the plan, but it is a nice touch to empower customers to use their data how they choose. Verizon didn’t specify whether or not ‘Always-On’ would work in conjunction with the tether. Either way, this adds a nice degree of utility to a simple prepaid device.
While Verizon is usually the target of criticism over its pricing and restrictions, this was a refreshing move towards giving customers more value without additional cost. These also add a degree of reliability to Verizon’s prepaid plans by guaranteeing that customers are never without available data access.