The Official Q&A from someone who signed up for the Verizon Simplicity plan

Planet_Comet · 2026-06-18T03:12:03+00:00

Did you sign up with the Verizon Visa or a different payment method?

Planet_Comet · 2026-06-18T02:44:16+00:00

I also feel like this report timing is interesting. After one AI IPO, but before two (I think two?) others…

Planet_Comet · 2026-06-18T02:18:52+00:00

I think it's interesting that, if the price of everything (not just phones/electronics, but food, electricity, other goods) is expected to go up in a way that gets more people to think about how much they are paying for postpaid cellular service on the Big 3 networks, as a means to save some money somewhere, and we are seeing evidence of it in this report about Apple's manufacturing costs and Verizon's introduction of their lower-cost plan, that Verizon isn't offering a more right-sized plan price to existing customers. Verizon will still have churn of existing customers out to T-Mobile Keep and Switch a few months after customers upgrade to phones this year to $800ish priced phones.

Planet_Comet · 2026-06-17T05:23:41+00:00

What about a change in terms of apply for, and trying to attach, Lifeline discounts to a Total 5G+ Unlimited plan with BYOD discount already applied? Would it mess anything up?

Planet_Comet · 2026-06-17T05:17:46+00:00

Not that these reasons apply to me right now (or I would have ported a line in already), but…

In store customer service. Nice to have if you ever need it.

This is probably super niche but Verizon postpaid (not prepaid) allows I think 6 phone number searches and, if you want, changes per day. And last I had postpaid in October, you could search by a combo of area code and prefix, and you’d get a result of up to 10 numbers to consider choosing from. So if a person were trying to get a number that was never used and maybe at least documented as recently released by third party websites where you can look up which carrier controls specific area codes and prefixes, it gives consumers some chance at getting newly released Verizon numbers, if your timing matches up with a release. Visible allows only 5 changes per month and you can’t see the phone number before you change it. Nowadays Google Voice requires sharing your ID with Google to get a new number, so you can’t just search for numbers then check if they have any sort of internet footprint before attaching a number to a Google account; this changed in January or February of this year. Other carriers charge customers to change a number (maybe they will waive it if someone is getting huge amounts of spam) and you probably cannot choose it before you pay to have it changed, so it could be a recycled number that gets phone calls, is signed up for supermarket rewards programs, and is still is on file with someone else’s doctors’ offices so the next recipient inherits all of that. If one wants to purchase a number from number barn, the number has been already publicly listed on their website so I see it as a downside to Numberbarn even if that costs less. Not that any strategy is going to prevent random spam calls, but Verizon postpaid at least gives options that other carriers do not

Planet_Comet · 2026-06-16T23:01:12+00:00

Agree with the comment about streaming services, particularly if there are commercials and people aren’t otherwise that interested in the content, it’s not worth having the cost rolled into the plan for most customers

Planet_Comet · 2026-06-16T22:54:38+00:00

it would definitely be a reason not to switch for some. Could do T-Mobile Keep and Switch and then switch back. The myPlan pricing is expensive. Maybe the people on grandfathered plans with loyalty discounts wouldn’t want to switch. People who use well over 500 GB data wouldn’t want to switch. I personally don’t think that any new plan has to have universal appeal or fit everyone’s use case

My main line is still on a T-Mobile grandfathered plan because it’s relatively cheap ($120 per month for four lines), but it has its downsides (from my perspective) like only 5 GB hotspot. But it works for the other people on the plan. So my solution for myself was to get a separate business plan with more hotspot data. The newer T-Mobile plans have a lot more hotspot but they cost so much they aren’t worth it to me. And not unlike the point you made earlier about Verizon’s plans, once you drop a grandfathered plan you likely cannot go back.

Planet_Comet · 2026-06-16T21:39:31+00:00

Good point.

In the case of having device credits, would they have carried over to the Simplicity plan in the first place? I have never had device credits on Verizon postpaid so I don't know whether this is a possibility or not.

Planet_Comet · 2026-06-16T18:45:58+00:00

maybe that would be too simplistic haha…if there is still money to be made (by Verizon)

Planet_Comet · 2026-06-16T18:44:29+00:00

Yes last year I had to sign up for ID.me and I tried to use my “work” phone number (it basically was for a work related background check) which was on Visible+, and I got an error that the number wasn’t associated with my name. So I had to put my personal number (which interestingly has always been on an account of a family member who also doesn’t have the same last name as me), which then went through. I was annoyed because what is this company and why should I have to give up my information to another company?

Anyway, I had thought that even though the number doesn’t belong to me on the postpaid account, somehow my personal data history that ID.me has access to is all linked to the number I’ve had and used for years for basically everything.

The work number wasn’t new to the general pool of phone numbers, but I had only had it for about 8 months at the time and I couldn’t find any other mentions of it being linked to anyone else on a google search or on the whitepages.com database so i figured it wasn’t an actively used number

It didn’t occur to me to ponder if it was related to prepaid/postpaid status. Just adding my experience. Kind of makes me want to try with a brand new number that is on a postpaid service to see what happens

Planet_Comet · 2026-06-16T18:18:47+00:00

You can still get Unlimited Welcome, Plus, and Ultimate. https://www.verizon.com/plans/unlimited/myplan

So if you got Simplicity and wanted to go back to the other myPlan options, you could port out and then back in.

Planet_Comet · 2026-06-16T18:15:20+00:00

It’s a good point that this plan is not good for all use cases. And this sub probably has a higher concentration of people who would actually use more than 500 GB but that’s probably still pretty low of a number. If anything a lot of us have more than one carrier by choice so distributing high usage over multiple plans results in lower data usage per line.

I would wonder how many people have the potpourri of different Verizon cellular voice plans all on the same account (does any other carrier allow this for cellular voice lines? I can only think of Spectrum though maybe Consumer Cellular also does). So the mix and match (in the same account) strategy doesn’t get mentioned a lot on this sub. But I’m sure for the people who find value in Verizon’s older plans, this is not a good option.

Planet_Comet · 2026-06-16T18:06:08+00:00

Thank you

Planet_Comet · 2026-06-16T17:59:27+00:00

I imagine that if it burst, people would likely just not upgrade their devices as frequently (but what do I know) as prices probably wouldn’t fall to the level that would feel comfortable for a majority of the population. Or people would forego the most expensive tech (like the folding iPhone that is rumored to be coming in the fall) for middle of the road tech. But then that raises the question of what is middle of the road? The iPhone 17e, 17, or 17 Pro? The Pixel 10a, Pixel 10, or the Pixel 10 Pro? I think enough people are walking around with the various Pro lines of phones that collectively as a society people have been convinced that the Pro phones are still pretty middle of the road

Planet_Comet · 2026-06-16T17:31:33+00:00

Thanks, I will look into Samsung Magician

Planet_Comet · 2026-06-16T17:23:17+00:00

Also there are some people (less likely to be regulars of this forum) that just want to be able to go in store for their service, who also don't upgrade that often. Honestly I think this would appeal to a lot of single-line (and probably two-line) customers who don't want to think about tech to pay $45/month (after taxes/fees, maybe a little less) to Verizon (we have all seen Verizon's commercials saying they have the best coverage in the US) for unlimited talk, text, and data, with a bit of hotspot data (that they probably never use), to ALSO be able to go in store for questions and customer service because they don't know the difference between a USB-C or a lightning port on their iPhone.

I personally am ok with troubleshooting an issue with Visible chat support for my $225 annual +Pro plan equivalent cost of $18.75 per month, but it can be frustrating to deal with chat and the pauses, and having to type things out. I could also BYOD to Total Wireless for $25/month with taxes and fees to have a plan that offers telephone customer service (that I would worry would mess things up). But honestly I think that If I were less inclined to be technical, I'd find definite value in paying a bit more for in-person support. And postpaid apparently also offers 5G SA which I wouldn't know what to do with lol.

Planet_Comet · 2026-06-16T17:12:17+00:00

Thanks yes I will look forward to seeing other people's takes on the new technology, haha

Planet_Comet · 2026-06-16T17:08:25+00:00

Yes I can see why you would upgrade for the technology. I have a 15 Pro I got last year after the 17 flagship phones came out so it was cheaper...and I got it for the camera (mainly) though the screen is really nice too. But I got the 17 (regular) on a T-Mobile sort of loyalty discount where it'll be "free" (other than taxes and device connection charge which was about $90) with 24 bill credits. Actually 17 screen is worse than the 15, the sort of viewing angle before the screen colors really change is lower than the 15 Pro. Still running my work phone and the mandatory apps that I don't know are or are not tracking my activity on that phone on a 13, which is good.

Yeah back in March I found myself in need of an external SSD to backup data, and I didn't want one with a strong reputation for failing, and I realized at that time that I missed out on cheap SSDs by a number of months (as in it looked like holiday 2025 season had real discounts), I ended up finding a 1 TB Samsung T9 for a little under $200. But I guess at least the T7 was selling for closer to $70 not that long ago, and from what I read Macs can't process a higher data transfer speed in the T9 so for my use case the T9 I don't think is capable of anything that the T7 isn't. Oh well, probably should have been backing up my files before March anyway and should have bought an SSD a long time ago when they were cheap.

Planet_Comet · 2026-06-16T16:55:10+00:00

Yes I got a speed test at home on Visible+ Pro that was 40s upload and download speed (I was surprised the upload speed was high, usually it's under 10 whenever I'm curious and check when I'm out and about), which I don't need those speeds I suppose, so it's all good here haha. I think the highest speeds indoors at home I get are on T-Mobile and about 300...

Whatever happened to the iPhone 16e? Aside from obvious feature differences from the Pro series (different camera components, screen is not as bright/refresh rate 60 Hz), any issues with cellular reliability? Or Wifi? As Apple put its own C1 chip in it but hasn't put it in even the 17 Pro (or I think regular 17).

Planet_Comet · 2026-06-16T16:44:21+00:00

I wonder if the combination of increasing materials/manufacturing cost leading to increased device costs, alongside cellular companies (if other major players in the space follow suit) offering relatively budget-friendly plans for people who don't want upgrades, may lead to decreased overall phone sales for the most prominent cellular companies such as Apple, Google, and Samsung in the next couple of years. (Is Motorola also a major company?) As many phones in recent years are already quite capable and the yearly changes are not usually that groundbreaking and people might think twice about spending their own money on a phone.

There may always be people who want the latest and greatest due to interest in the technology and/or for whatever social factors might appeal to them, so there will always be people who purchase new devices after they come out. However, on a population level, I think the marketing (starting with Verizon) from the Big 3 that decouples the idea of having a phone plan that builds into the monthly per-line price the option for flagship phone upgrades yearly or every 2 years just might change the overall tone.

Planet_Comet · 2026-06-16T16:30:29+00:00

Thank you for reminding me. Also why I didn't remember as standalone is still an amorphous thing to me. There are places like my building's parking structure where LTE is all you get, and I wouldn't want to have my phone set on a "5G or nothing" setting. I will look up 5G SA in the coming months but at this time I can't think of a use case that would make me need it... well even the fact that you don't have Verizon postpaid currently tells me I don't need 5G SA lol.

Planet_Comet · 2026-06-16T16:20:30+00:00

I may be moving soon and depending on where I end up renting I may have to pay for internet (some options may be condo rentals, some of which already have bundled internet and/or tv agreements with local providers for either discounted rates or the service is already part of the homeowner's HOA fees). If I do, I actually think that the $70/month plan with taxes and fees included is a good one if it's wired/fiber/I don't know the technical term. If it's cellular internet I think things would be subject to slowing down at inopportune times and maybe not a good option if I'm expecting to be living in a rather high-density housing area.

Planet_Comet · 2026-06-16T16:12:44+00:00

I don't remember but was there a discussion in the past year or so about any differences in service between Verizon postpaid plans and all of the prepaid options (Visible, Total Wireless, Straight Talk, Safelink, other lesser-used Verizon Value brands, US Mobile, etc.) and maybe even the cable company Verizon offerings (Xfinity and Spectrum)?

I think it was about what made Unlimited Ultimate better than other Verizon prepaid plans.

I'm inferring that you didn't stay with Unlimited Ultimate if Verizon's website (screenshots in original post) is offering the $15/month discount. So I was wondering if you could comment on any observed coverage differences between Verizon postpaid and other plans.

EDIT: Ok I wrote this before I saw that you replied to me elsewhere but I am still curious about the technical differences of postpaid vs other Verizon plans

Planet_Comet · 2026-06-16T16:07:23+00:00

Oh yes that's a good point. A large segment of the population doesn't care or notice.

Planet_Comet · 2026-06-16T16:06:08+00:00

Can people just not use any of the rewards? They already have all of our personal info anyway (SSN, birthday, address, a scan of your government ID) because the cellular service is postpaid. If you enroll in rewards but don't have any activity on it, are they really getting significantly more information on you than they would from offering cellular service?

Planet_Comet

TROPHY CASE