[tiramg]

So my wife wants to upgrade to the iphone 5 (ya....don't get me started). We are on Verizon and are grandfathered into the Unlimited plan.
I have the Galaxy Nexus.
I called verizon yesterday and they told me that together - we average only 700mb a month on data. (We have ISP wifi at home)
If we combine my highest data use and her highest use (which were separate months btw) we are still just under 1Gig.

Switching to the 2Gig shared plan will save us approx 30 bucks a month! Even going up to the 4Gig plan is just about the same as what we currently pay for your phones.

The math for switching makes sense....but i have this VERY uncomfortable feeling about giving up unlimited.
Is that rational?
I don't think i'll ever give up my ISP. I do a lot of downloading and gaming on my laptop so i don't think i'll ever be tethering my primary computer to my cell.

I'm looking for a good reason to keep my unlimited.

Thanks!

[NickA]

Tough call. On one hand you'll be saving money. On the other hand, you'll give up unlimited. But you don't use that much data anyway, but someday you might. And someday, VZW may do away with the unlimited for currently grandfathered customers.

I'm in the same boat as you. I'm on wi-fi all the time, but like the flexibility of unlimited so I have it when I need it. And I use it for tethering to my tablets.

I say you keep the unlimited, and tell your wife if she wants the iPhone 5, she'll have to pay full price for it. Then you won't have to use your upgrade and lose your unlimited. I'm not sure how well that will go over, but it's worth a shot!

[Mooncatt]

As long as the tiered plan is very generous compared to your usage, I say go for it to save some money, even without taking the upgrade into consideration. I was in the same boat a while back, but on a much larger scale. I was on unlimited on a 3G air card because it was my primary way to get the net, and kept turning down the special tiered offers when Verizon would call. Even they agreed with me based on my usage. Then one day they call and offer a 20 GB plan for the same monthly price I was already paying, free 4G air card, and no activation or other costs. My highest usage was 9 GB before that, so i took it. Since then, I do go higher because of the speed, but even now my highest usage has been only 16GB without feeling like I'm having to cut back.

It sounds like in your case, you'll still rely the same on your wifi and probably won't see 3/4G usage rise much at all. If it's been like this for a while, then you don't have anything to worry about and will likely get adjusted to the limit easily. About the only issue I see is if you went on vacation for an extended period, but most hotels offer some form of wifi now too.