VZ Verizon Communications Inc

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)

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