Verizon recently announced that it was getting rid of two-year contracts for smartphone upgrades. That’s not all. It has also decided to increase the smartphone upgrade fee from $20 to $30. Verizon customers will now be charged the additional $10 when they buy a phone outright or on one of the carrier’s device payment plans. Customers should also keep in mind that this $30 fee is over and above the activation fee that they have to pay whenever they activate a new line of service.
It’s not like Verizon is the only carrier that’s doing this. Both AT&T and Sprint also charge upgrade fees from their customers. T-Mobile also charges a similar fee from customers who don’t upgrade via its Jump or Jump On Demand programs, Magenta’s $20 “assisted services fee” is charged when upgrading through its stores or via customer support.
When reached out for a comment on why it decided to increase the upgrade fee, Verizon said that “These fees help cover increased cost to provide customers with America’s largest and fastest 4G LTE network.” When pressed for more details, the country’s largest network only said that this fee is spent on “ongoing costs to maintain and enhance the network.”
Verizon customers also have another thing to worry about. It’s telling unlimited data hogs using more than 200GB of data per month to get off the plan or face disconnections.
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