Page Plus to Increase Data on The 55 Plan to 2GB on June 6th

PhoneNews.com can confirm that PagePlus will make the biggest change to its $55 “The 55” unlimited voice/messaging plan on June 6th when the monthly data access on the plan will be increased from the current 1GB monthly limit to 2GB of monthly access, making the offering competitive with similar services. The main advantage to this plan on Page Plus is the BYOD option of the service as PagePlus allows activation of older Verizon smartphones and feature phones on the plan, though it still will not activate the Verizon iPhone.

As it stands, The $55 service plan is also notable for being one of the few flat-rate unlimited service plans with all of the associated ancillary fees and taxes included, much in the way MetroPCS does for its service plans, making the plan superior to Verizon’s own prepaid offerings in the Unleashed flat-rate service and the standard prepaid service which recently rolled out an $80 plan for smartphones with 1GB of data access per month.

The plan does have a caveat in that current subscribers on the current 55 Plan with 1GB of data must wait until their service cycle ends on or after June 6th in order to receive the increased data allotment and the plan cannot be renewed with the new allotment mid-cycle. With this new change, Page Plus is clearly becoming a viable alternative to Verizon’s own prepaid services which either nickel and dime prepaid customers for features now common to flat-rate service or price them out of comfortable prices for most customers.

The increase in the data limit may also signal a change in Verizon’s perception of prepaid as a whole, as the carrier recently signed a new deal with competing MVNO StraightTalk to carry the rebranded Samsung Illusion with data access for $45, where previously, Verizon was seen as openly hostile to the idea of such an offering only 18 months ago. With the seeming saturation of the postapaid voice market in the US and the increasing appeal of such flat-rate services in comparison. It looks like Verizon is indeed starting to ease up on its stance regarding cheaper data access for MVNOs and users of such services will undoubtedly reap the benefits of such positive changes.