Alright, as I've posted before I have the Verizon Home Phone Connect plan and equipment.
There have been a couple changes. For one, I upgraded my Verizon Family Share Plan to the new Share Everything Plan. If you haven't heard, Verizon is basically replacing its per minute plans (including the Family Plans) with new unlimited plans that have a flat monthly rate per device plus a data plan. For example, a non-premium "feature phone"- a non-smartphone- will start at $30/mo. A Smartphone starts at $40/mo. This includes calling and texting. Then you add your data allowance, which can be shared.
So what does this mean for my Verizon Home Phone Connect, which I use as my home phone? Previously, I had the option of sharing my minutes with my family plan for $9.99/mo as an "add-a-line" on my family plan or paying a little more for unlimited. With the old family plan, you could have up to 5 phone lines on one plan. After paying the base family plan rate for your first 2 phones, each additional phone was $9.99 per month. Now under Share Everything, the Home Phone Connect is a flat $20/mo. In my account, for example, I pay $40 for a smartphone plus $30 for one non-smartphone and $20 for the Home Phone Connect. Then I pay $50 per month for 1GB of data, which is shared between all the phones on my account.
As you may already know, Verizon offers a free cell phone upgrade every 2 years for existing customers. Or more specifically, once your existing phone is 2 years old (or you have gone 2 years without taking advantage of a subsidized phone purchase for that specific line), you can upgrade your phone at a subsidized price- as if you are a new customer. This can be done online very easily these days. Many of the upgrade phones are free, and right now Verizon offers a free iPhone 4, among other options.
I am somewhat tempted to "upgrade" my Verizon Home Phone Connect device to an iPhone, which would also require upgrading the service from home phone to a smartphone subscription, though technically this phone line would still serve as my Home Phone. My home phone was just become an iPhone, and I would retain the same home phone number that I have been using since it was a landline 12 years ago.
Are there any cons? Well, upgrading from Home Phone to Smartphone would cost $20 extra per month plus taxes or close to $300 per year. On the surface this would seem to run counter to the whole idea of saving money on home phone service. The most likely option is to not use the upgrade option at this time and 1. Save it in case the Home Phone Connector device breaks at some point and needs to be replaced or 2. Shift the upgrade credit to another line and use it to upgrade another device.
Yes, Verizon Wireless allows you to use your upgrade credit from one phone and switch it to another phone. For example, one of my phones says it is upgrade eligible on 11/02/2013! I will not be able to get a discount on that phone before that date. However, I can log onto My Verizon account, select "upgrade" and use the eligibility from the Home Phone upgrade on any of my other devices instead.
For right now, I think I will just hold tight. I don't want to pay more for my home phone, and I don't really need a new phone for any other lines.
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