Verizon’s Prepaid Plan Cut By Nearly Half

Tomorrow Verizon Mobile will begin to offer a new unlimited prepaid plan at almost half the price of the current plan.

The new plan will be $50 a month for unlimited talk, text, and picture or video messaging. Mobile Web access is an additional 99 cents a day, and e-mail is an additional $7 for 30 days of service.

While a big discount from Verizon’s former $95 unlimited plan—which, like the new plan, didn’t include Web or e-mail—it is still more costly than unlimited monthly plans from competitors such as Boost, whose $50 unlimited prepaid plan can, over time, drop to $35 a month as a reward for consistent purchases; AT&T’s GoPhone is $50 a month including e-mail and Web; prepaid-only providers like Cricket, which has an unlimited plan including 1GB data for $55 a month; or Metro PCS, which offers unlimited talk, text, Web and e-mail for $50 a month.

In all cases, when there is no contract, the phone must be purchased separately—often at a price higher than a comparable phone purchased with a two-year contract. While some competitors offer smartphones, Verizon offers its new plan only on feature phones.

In fact, the Verizon deal is available only for what it calls “phone-in-a-box” bundles. Those are phones sold with service, usually found hanging on racks in plastic packs. Those packages can be found at Verizon stores, online, and at retailers such as Walmart, Best Buy, Radio Shack and Target.

So this is a better deal from Verizon. As to whether it’s a good deal overall, that’s debatable.