Verizon and AT&T Increase Certain Customer Fees
January 10 2017 - 8:07PM
Dow Jones News
By Nathan Olivarez-Giles
If you're a customer of Verizon Communications Inc. or AT&T
Inc., you may see some larger numbers in the fine print this
year.
Verizon has increased the price it charges subscribers to
upgrade to a new device or add a phone to a new line. AT&T is
nudging up the price of its unlimited data plans, which are no
longer available but are still held by certain longstanding
customers.
Verizon increased its upgrade fee from $20 to $30 as of Jan. 5.
This fee is paid whenever you buy a new phone from the carrier, at
the full retail price or through one of Verizon's device payment
programs. Verizon also upped its activation fee, for adding a phone
to a new line, to $30.
The fee increase is a way for Verizon to help cover the ongoing
cost of building out its cellular network, said Kelly Crummey, a
spokeswoman for the carrier. However, enterprise and government
customers don't have to pay the upgrade fee.
If you buy a phone outside the carrier's retail operation --
from Apple, for instance -- you also skip the fee. (Just pop your
SIM card into the new phone and your service will continue.)
Last July, Verizon increased the rates on all of its data plans
by $5 to $10 a month, depending on the plan. More recently, it also
introduced some cost-saving benefits such as rollover data and
overage protection.
Unlike AT&T, Verizon isn't raising the price of its
grandfathered unlimited data plans so far this year. But it did
increase the cost of those old unlimited plans by $20 a month, over
the last two years, Ms. Crummey said.
Verizon recently began to force heavy users of the legacy
"unlimited" plan -- those hitting the 200GB ceiling -- to switch
plans or leave the carrier. Those subscribers using more than 200GB
of data have to select a new, data-capped service plan by Feb. 16
or their service will be disconnected, Ms. Crummey said.
AT&T is levying a $5 hike on people still on its unlimited
plans as of March, following a $5 price increase last February.
AT&T spokeswoman Emily Edmonds said the company hopes customers
will move over to one of its newer unlimited data plans, which also
requires a subscription to one of the telecom's TV and internet
services, DirecTV and U-Verse.
No matter what AT&T unlimited data plan you have, the
company will slow down your data speeds for the remainder of your
current billing cycle if you exceed 22GB of data. Verizon doesn't
throttle data speeds for its few remaining unlimited-plan
subscribers.
Write to Nathan Olivarez-Giles at
Nathan.Olivarez-giles@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
January 10, 2017 19:52 ET (00:52 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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