Verizon 55+ plan worth switching to?

[2Yung2 Quit]

Originally Posted by Finance

We used it for a short time in 2019 and dropped it due to frequent issues with low prioritization. Four bars of signal and no internet bandwidth!

That was my experience also. I live in California, but was able to get it. They referred to it as a customer loyalty thing. The 55+ plan sucked for me. If I was using it at 3am,it was just okay. The rest of the time it was unusable.

[GypsyR]

Yep, too late and all this was a waste. The 55+ WAS available in many states and some people are lucky enough to be grandfathered in, but no more. Just Florida now.

Back to same old budgeting usage when we go out and/or paying overages. No big deal. No one offers another plan I've any interest in switching to at this time.

But I'm going back to checking my data usage. This time I'll catch up on Stranger Things and see if the data usage is the same as watching Monty Python. Or higher. Theory and conjecture are OK up to a point.

My experiment with Monty Python showed 390 mb usage for the first hour and 220mb in the second hour. Not sure what to make of that. It does tell me that simply streaming one thing for one hour won't give me a big enough sample rate. It's not longer that important but it would be kind of neat to know exactly what I can watch for how long so I'll get back to it sometime.

[creativepart]

Originally Posted by GypsyR

My experiment with Monty Python showed 390 mb usage for the first hour and 220mb in the second hour. Not sure what to make of that. It does tell me that simply streaming one thing for one hour won't give me a big enough sample rate. It's not longer that important but it would be kind of neat to know exactly what I can watch for how long so I'll get back to it sometime.

Are you streaming on a phone or via a jetpack mifi device on your TV?

[GypsyR]

Just using my phone as a hotspot for the TV to connect to via wifi. As a fulltime workaholic my actual RV use time is limited. So I have to TRY and be judicious about how much money I put into it. No interest in a jetpack currently.

[Z714X4]

Sorry I cannot help with the 55+ plan. However, I just recently switched to Unlimited Play more. More affordable since we have 6 people on my account and I use a debit card for maximum credit. Been with Verizon for many years and have zero interest in switching carriers. I motorcycle ride in the back country and have often had service when others did not.

I have smart TV's and Apple TV in my motorhome so I can watch using either a hotspot from my phone or mirror my phone to the Apple TV and watch that way. So far, everything works great and there are no issues with two bars of service on the phone.

According to Verizon each line has:

Premium Unlimited 4G LTE Data (up to 25 GB) Premium unlimited data provides superior service up to the allotted limit (25 GB), at which point your data may be temporarily slower than other traffic in times of congestion.

Unlimited Mobile Hotspot (up to 15 GB of 4G LTE Data) You get 4G LTE up to 15 GB and 600 Kbps past the allotted amount.

720p HD-Quality Streaming

I have never used 25 GB on a mobile device, in fact four of us have never used that much in a month so I think I'm good with this. If for any reason I max mine out I'll just use the DW's data

[Miked3534]

With Straight Talk you can have Verizon unlimited talk, text, and data for $45/mo per phone. For $55/month you can add hotspot. Check it out.

[creativepart]

Originally Posted by Miked3534

With Straight Talk you can have Verizon unlimited talk, text, and data for $45/mo per phone. For $55/month you can add hotspot. Check it out.

You do know that “unlimited data” doesn’t mean unlimited data in high enough speeds to stream TV, right?

There is a very limited amount of high speed data. Once used up you go to 2G speed or slower. You can use all of that you want, hence the term unlimited data. But it’s simply not really usable speed for most things. 2G speed is equivalent to dial internet from the 90’s.

[cavie]

Originally Posted by GypsyR

Watched Netflix in the coach for an hour or so and it looks fine to me at .7 Gb. Or that is what the Netflix setting is supposed to limited to. I don't trust it not to have some goofy protocol to ignore what I told it to use since it can see there's a lot more bandwidth available.

So it would appear that the 55+ might work OK for what I want despite the naysayers so far? I'm more on the side of the naysayers so far until I have PROOF of what I think I see. I seem to recall seeing something on my wifi router that showed the data rate of connected users. So I'm thinking I can let the stream run and maybe see what actual data is being used.

The main thing is that I am tempted by the unlimited data but don't want to be stuck if the reality doesn't pan out. Anyone actually using their 55+ plan to stream Hulu and/or Netflix off their hotspot like I am interested in doing? I haven't seen where anyone is doing exactly that in a reply yet. I did see where someone didn't bother as they never got good enough connection.

I have 55+. 2 phones. Works great for all internet, email and facebook we can throw at it. It will not stream Rouko, Netflix etc. Went to Verizon and was told the phones can not hot spot streaming to a smart TV. You can use a Tablet to watch streaming. We are very satisfied with the unlimited as we have never been over and always does what we need it to do. We have DTV for TV. Hate the customer service but I can watch NASCAR and the wife can watch Baseball.

[cavie]

Originally Posted by Miked3534

With Straight Talk you can have Verizon unlimited talk, text, and data for $45/mo per phone. For $55/month you can add hotspot. Check it out.

Will not hot spot Netflix etc, to a smart TV.

[Enjoy Life]

Have you tried t-mobile? We have the 55+ plan and unlimited data for 70 bucks with 2 phones. Never had a signal problem either. Love the unlimited data. Hated Verizon.

[docj]

There are clearly two groups of people posting past each other in this thread. There are those who use the internet for the things that most have done for the past ~10 years--email, Facebook, reading the news, etc. And there are those whose internet usage now includes their video watching along with the more traditional activities.

There's little point to these two groups trying to convince each other as to the best plans. Cellular plans such as the Verizon 55+, or Straight Talk, etc, won't hack it if your primary interest is streaming video. OTOH if all you want to do is to surf the internet then you may not notice all that much if your download speed drops to <600 kbps.

~10 years ago we had the same sort of "arguments" between those who only used the internet for email and those who wanted to engage in web surfing, which, at the time, was a fairly new activity. Those who only wanted to send and receive email couldn't understand why AOL wasn't all that anyone needed.

[Cal-Oregon]

We picked up the FMCA sponsored Sprint unlimited hotspot for $49/month. We have been streaming Netflix since October (4months). There is no limit, and no auto speed reduction as there is with Verizon. Coverage on Sprint has greatly improved.

[creativepart]

Originally Posted by GypsyR

Since I've put a smart TV in our coach I'm thinking it would be nice to hotspot a phone so the TV can get Hulu, etc. The TV is 720p so I'm thinking Verizon's bandwidth limitations for hotspotting would be OK.

Yes, Joel, you are correct... two different groups of Data users In this thread is correct. I know I’ve been responding to the OP’s initial post.

[Roadwarrior7]

We recently switched to T-Mobile's Magenta 55 plan. They have 2 versions, $70 for 2 lines or $90 for 2 lines. Both unlimited data. The $90 plan comes with Netflix and has more data available in Mexico and Canada.
It was fantastic last month to tether our MH TV to the phone and watch Netflix and or Hulu. Used over 40 GB of data in January, but ran out of data from streaming in Mexico.

I know this isn't Verizon, but that's a good thing in my book.