I have a spare Galaxy Note 2 smartphone. I want to activate it on one of my other lines, which currently has a dumbphone. (my primary line is also a Galaxy Note 2 with unlimited data)
I know Verizon will prorate the 2GB data plan charge if I deactivate it after 5 days. However, I'd like to know how much data I can use during those 5 days? Is it 2GB or is that prorated as well?
Thanks!
I am not an expert, but if I understand you correctly, you are planning to activate a smartphone on a line with a 2 GB data plan and only pay for 5 days of that data plan within a normal month.
I would caution you based on my own experience:
1. I have a family plan with 550 minutes. It's currently suspended without billing. However, in a normal month, after my discount, I pay almost exactly $60 for 3 devices to share 550 minutes. That's before any data plan which is added separately to each line since it is an old Nationwide plan.
Last month, I decided to activate the lines for two weekends-4 days total. $60/30days in a month is $2 per day, so each weekend I was charged the prorated amount of $4 for each 2 day period or $8 total. When it showed my minute allowance, it was 73. 550 minutes/30 days =18.33 per day * 4 =73 minutes
2. Before I got a 4G phone, I had the Droid X and wanted a legal and easy way to tether. As part of Verizon's attempt to cause the Palm Pre Plus to catch on, they allowed all purchasers of the device to heve 5 gigabytes of tethering in addition to the Unlimited Data they would still enjoy on the phone. This was pre-tiered data. I bought a used Palm Pre Plus on Ebay for around $80 and would activate it a day or two out of the month when I wanted to tether to my laptop. I was definately under 5 gigabytes of tethering, but because I had only activated the device for 2-3 days out of the month, my 5 gigabyte allowance became something at was 500 MB or less and I remember I did pay a few dollars in kilabyte overages one month.
3. I recently traveled on vacation and activated the Global Data Plan for $25 for 100 megabytes. However, I only paid for the plan for 10 days and was charged around $8.33 but my bill also reflected that my 100 megabyte allowance was only around 30 megabytes.
4. During my 1st example, I was using one of the cell phones that had unlimited data. I was downloading some files and streaming video and used well over 1-2 gigabytes during one of those 2 day periods. However, as you may have guessed, since my data plan was unlimited I had no problem.
Under the tiered plans, 2 gigabytes is $30 for the month. Lets say that this month is 30 days. Now of course, if you pay for the entire month and use no data for the first 28 days, you can use a gigabyte on each of the last 2 days and be fine. However, if I am understanding you correctly, you'll only be using a 2 GB data plan for 5 days out of the month and then potentially deactivating it either by suspension or by replacing your Note 2 with the basic phone.
Lets assume that 2 gigabytes is exactly 2000 megabytes. 2000/30=66.66 megabytes per day or 333.33 megabytes for 5 days. 5 days is 1/6 of 1 month so you would pay $5 or 1/6 of the $30 data plan. (333.33 *6=2000 megabytes)
I'm just saying I would be careful because I would be very surprised if you could pay $5 for 5 days, use the full 2 gigabytes, and not have overages.
Conversely, since Unlimited = Unlimited, it would be very easy with an Unlimited data plan to use 10 gigabytes in 1 weekend, pay roughly $2 for 2 days and still be sitting pretty for your next bill.
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