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Verizon launches an $80 ‘unlimited’ prepaid plan with several major limits

Verizon launches an $80 ‘unlimited’ prepaid plan with several major limits

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Chris Welch

Verizon announced a new prepaid unlimited plan this week, which gives customers unlimited talk, text, and data for $80 per month without requiring a contract or credit check. Additionally, the plan includes texting to over 200 international markets and unlimited calls to Mexico and Canada.

Of course, there are caveats

That said, this is a major cellular company, so of course there are caveats to the new plan. Verizon’s prepaid unlimited plan will limit video streaming to 480p, and doesn’t include mobile hot spot or tethering. And as the final touch, prepaid customers will be subject to deprioritization of their data by default if the network is congested. In other words, it is worse in every way when compared to Verizon’s contracted unlimited plan, which costs $80 per month but includes HD video streaming, 10GB of LTE speed tethering, and only deprioritizes data after 22GB of usage.

In theory, the new prepaid unlimited plan makes Verizon better able to compete with T-Mobile in the prepaid space, given that T-Mobile already offers a prepaid version of its T-Mobile One plan with unlimited data. But T-Mobile’s plan costs $75 per month, only deprioritizes data after you’ve used 30GB, and includes tethering (albeit it at 3G speeds).

The new $80 unlimited plan joins Verizon’s other prepaid plans, which remain unchanged at 2GB for $40, 5GB for $50, and 10GB for $70.