A few questions about my contract.

[Dan1192]

Now that the Galaxy Nexus is (finally) out, I plan on going to buy one ASAP. But unfortunately, my contract to my ENV Touch doesn't expire until April 27. I can't wait that long, I'm already on my 5th ENV Touch, and now that one is no longer working (they always turn themselves off). So yeah, I need a new phone.
My plan to get out of my current contract is to create a brand-new account for the Galaxy Nexus that I'll buy. And then I'll just make my current ENV Touch's plan extremely limited (no texting, minimum minutes, etc.), and just let it run itself out. But before I go do this, I have a few questions:

1) How much do veteran Verizon users save on their bill compared to new users? Because if my bill is going to be much more expensive as a "new" account compared to staying with my 6-year old account, then I obviously won't bother making a new one.

2) I know that Verizon no longer offers unlimited data plans, but I've heard that people were "grandfathered in" to having it. I've been with Verizon for about 6 years, but I've never owned a smartphone. Will I get "grandfathered in" to being able to have unlimited data for my Galaxy Nexus, seeing as I've been with them for so long?

 

[Cares]

No to being grandfathered in.

 

[FrankXS]

Just convert to a Family Plan and "add-a-line" for $9.99/mo. Switch numbers and put the unused phone in a drawer.

-Frank

Sent from my HTC ThunderBolt 4G/LTE using Tapatalk

 

[NotJustAPhone]

Grandfathering of unlimited data is only available to those who already have unlimited data on their plan.

Sent using Tapatalk

 

[CHIP72]

Just convert to a Family Plan and "add-a-line" for $9.99/mo. Switch numbers and put the unused phone in a drawer.

This is what you need to do, if you want the Galaxy Nexus now and don't mind losing your "new every two" benefit when you upgrade on your existing line. (I'd guess you have a "new every two" upgrade available come 4/27/12.) I assume that you don't want to have 2 active lines after the contract for the ENV Touch runs out.

Your added costs would be 1) $10/month for the second line and 2) increased minutes and/or texting costs, assuming you have low minutes and/or texting on your current single line plan.

NOTE: If you have an "al a carte" texting plan on your current line (the $5 or $10/month limited texting plans), you'll want to cancel that plan on your ENV Touch and add it to the Galaxy Nexus line. With family plans, al a carte texting packages on Verizon are tied to an individual line, not to the overall plan.

By the way, with a smartphone you may text less because you'll be able to communicate via e-mail as well as texting. Actually, if you text a lot, you may want to keep the ENV Touch (well, a new ENV Touch) active because it will probably be much easier for you to text/type with a physical QWERTY keyboard than the virtual one on the Galaxy Nexus.

 

[YourMobileGuru]

Just convert to a Family Plan and "add-a-line" for $9.99/mo. Switch numbers and put the unused phone in a drawer.

-Frank

Sent from my HTC ThunderBolt 4G/LTE using Tapatalk

This is what I have done. You are basically just financing the subsidy over the next two years. If you have any thought s about canceling that line at some point before the two years are up be aware that the fill smartphone ETF ($350) will apply to the line no matter what phone you put on it after the upgrade.

As stated the new line cant have unlimited data but since you're putting a dumb phone on this line anyway it does not matter.