Verizon’s 2021 Wireless and FIOS offerings (Pepcom Home Now! 2021)
Back to: Pepcom Home Now! (June 2021)
Verizon is a top brand in the United States offering home internet and mobile cell services. While you can find many offerings from different companies, it’s always good to know what a leading brand has on offer. With a baseline set from there, you can always look around to see how much difference there is in availability.
For this rundown, we focused on Verizon Wireless unlimited plans, FIOS internet for the New York City area and their LTE Home & 5G Home alternative to broadband. While it won’t be the same everywhere (especially if you’re suburban or rural), it should at least give you some general ideas. These plans and technologies are current as of June 2021.
FIOS (Fiber Optic Internet)
There’s at least two huge advantages that FIOS has over cable companies. First, the speed (or bandwidth) is shared if the provider is cable. You’re in fact sharing the line with the people in your building or your neighborhood. So while you may be getting 400 mbps speeds on a good day, it may actually slow to a crawl when everybody’s at home using the internet (like after work at night). You may not even see a quarter of the speed you’re paying for.
Second, the upload streams are almost as fast as downloads with FIOS. On the other hand, if a cable company says you’re getting 400 mbps, they mean download speeds. They’ll fail to mention the paltry upload speeds that will max out at around 25 Mbps (if you’re lucky).
This matters because you’ll notice lags in your Zoom calls for work (or kid’s online classroom). It’s also terrible for content creators and gamers who depend on good upload connections to get their work done or compete properly in a match. The problem is compounded when you consider point 1 above; when everyone is at home using the internet, your upload speeds will get even slower.
On the flip side, speeds might actually increase somewhat when the internet is “not busy” in your area.
Keeping this in mind, here’s what Verizon FIOS is currently offering:
- 200 mbps $39.99/month
- 400 mbps $59.99/month
- Gigabit (1000 mbps) $79.99/month
There are no data caps or limits like you have with LTE data on your phone. In addition, if you have both a FIOS and a phone plan, you can be eligible for a $20 per month discount via Mobile Plus Home Offers ($10 off FIOS and $10 off Wireless). It all sounds good, but the catch is the additional fees, taxes and router “rental costs”.
FIXED WIRELESS ACCESS
Imagine finally having access to acceptably fast internet where before you only had one broadband provider who charged too much for snail-like speeds. That’s basically what Verizon’s Fixed Wireless Access is. Since there are no cables to install or wires to run on telephone poles, you can easily bypass the slow, wired provider with one of two options: LTE Home and 5G Home.
The clear winner, should you be lucky enough to have coverage is 5G Home. Speeds range between 300 mbps to 1 gbps but since 5G is new and not yet saturated, it’s very likely you’ll experience something even faster than 1 gbps.
For existing Verizon customers, the service is $50 per month – that’s ALL IN (taxes & fees included with no data caps or throttling.) For non-customers, the price is $70.
For rural areas where internet is spotty or non-existent, LTE Home may be an option since 4G currently has longer reach than 5G radio waves. Priced at $40 a month for existing customers and $60 for non customers, this too is ALL IN (taxes and fees included with no data caps or throttling.) The trade-off for the reach LTE provides are slower speeds of 25-50 mbps.
The best thing about this service is the easy set up. It’s basically an antenna/mobile hotspot that you hang on your window. Simply hang it up and connect your devices to it via WiFi. No visits by service technicians, no need to punch holes into your walls, and no need for wires or cables.
VERIZON WIRELESS MOBILE
Most people I know have at least one smartphone. And while little has changed with those “candybar” designs, operator plans have all shifted to monthly contracts giving customers the freedom to switch providers – without being forced to pay a penalty. Verizon currently offers two types of data plans; Unlimited and Shared. For this rundown, we’ll look at the unlimited plans they offer.
In general, Verizon Wireless unlimited data plans are as they say; unlimited with no extra charges for overage. However, sometimes data access will be prioritized in congested situations if you’ve already used up a certain amount of data. So for example, if you’re at a crowded football stadium with 50,000 people and suddenly everyone tries to send a photo of Justin Timberlake performing at half time, customers using the highest tier plans will receive priority while everyone else will have a somewhat slower connection. The good news is, if you’re using 5G there’s no such thing as prioritization. That only happens when using 4G LTE.
The unlimited plans currently offered are:
- Start Unlimited: $35/mth per line for 4 lines
- Play More Unlimited: $45/mth per line for 4 lines
- Do More Unlimited: $45/mth per line for 4 lines
- Get More Unlimited: $55/mth per line for 4 lines
The basic Start Unlimited plan will be the cheapest. You pay $140 per month (4 lines at $35 per line) plus taxes, fees and whatnot. You could of course buy a single line, but the less lines you purchase, the more expensive it gets.
The Play More and Do More unlimited options cost $10 more per month per line, but each come with different value added services.
“Play More” for entertainment content. Included in this package is:
- Disney+
- Hulu+
- ESPN+
- Apple Arcade or Google Play Pass (for 12 months)
- 22 GB of high priority data per month (applies only for 4G LTE)
- Unlimited ultra wideband (5G)
- Unlimited hotspot usage (on 5G)
- Discovery+ (for 12 months)
- Apple music (for 6 months)
“Do More” for productivity. Included in this package is:
- Disney+ (for 6 months)
- Hulu+ (for 6 months)
- ESPN+ (for 6 months)
- Apple Arcade or Google Play Pass (for 6 months)
- 50 GB of high priority data per month (applies only for 4G LTE)
- Unlimited ultra wideband (5G)
- Unlimited hotspot usage (on 5G)
- 600GB of cloud storage
- 50% off any unlimited device plan (like Apple watch or Jet Pack)
“Get More” for everything
- Disney+
- Hulu+
- ESPN+
- Apple Arcade or Google Play Pass (for 12 months)
- 50 GB of high priority data per month (applies only for 4G LTE)
- Unlimited ultra wideband (5G)
- Unlimited hotspot usage (on 5G) with 30GB of prioritized data (on 4G LTE)
- Discovery+ (for 12 months)
- 600GB of cloud storage
- 50% off any unlimited device plan (like Apple watch or Jet Pack)
We’re told that customer feedback on ultra wideband has been phenomenal, with speeds as fast as 4 gbps being reported by some customers. To me that’s insane – it’s faster than FIOS! Question is, what does this mean and how will it affect data services in the future?
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More Info: https://www.verizon.com
Event: Pepcom Home Now! (June 2021)
