Verizon Relaunches Prepaid Service Under “Allset” Brand

Verizon has made a substantial change to its prepaid mobile service in the wake of increasing competition in the space by virtual operators and other carriers. Beginning today, the new Allset plan slate from Verizon is designed to cut base plan costs and add features not normally found on other brands without significant additional expense.

Split into two main plans for featurephones and smartphones, the base plan for feature phones starts at $35 monthly before additional taxes and fees, which features 500 voice minutes and unlimited SMS text messaging while stepping up to unlimited monthly voice makes the plan jump to $45 monthly. Smartphone plans start at $45 and include the aforementioned base features as well as unlimited voice minutes. International SMS messaging to Canada, Mexico and Puerto Rico is also included.

What makes the Allset plan different is in the way additional data packages are priced, with an additional 500 MB package for either featurephones or smartphones costing $5 monthly, 1GB at $10 and 3GB at $25, with unused data carrying over every month. As an additional incentive to purchase data, the 1GB and 3GB packages feature a 90-day duration period for every purchase, making it more economical to purchase the larger data packages to spread costs over time for lighter users.

Finally, the Allset plan for smartphones also includes mobile hotspot support for smartphones, making the above options even more cost-effective, even though the service is still limited to 3G smartphones. For a limited time Verizon is doubling data for all new smartphone users to 1GB and throwing in 1,000 voice minutes per month for international calls to users on both $45 Allset plans when enrolling in auto-pay during initial activation.