Is Verizon Share Every Thing Plan Good?

Yesterday, Verizon wireless revealed a new plan to allow customers share a pool of data for up to 10 devices. Is the new plan better for a customer with five smartphones?

	Verizon: Current	Verizon: New	AT&T	T-Mobile Value
Monthly	$279.95	$250.00	$229.96	$124.98
2 Years	$6,718.80	$6,000.00	$5,519.04	$2,999.52
Activation Fee	$175.00	$175.00	$180.00	$175.00
Cell Phones	$999.95	$999.95	$999.95	$1,999.95
Est. Sales Tax	$232.50	$232.50	$213.12	$154.61
Total Cost	$8,126.25	$7,407.45	$6,912.11	$5,324.13
Compare with T-Mobile	$2,802.11	$2,083.31	$1,587.98	0

Notes:
Full retail price for Samsung Galaxy S III 4G 16GB at Verizon Wireless is $599.99, at AT&T Wireless is $549.99
Buy Google Galaxy Nexus $399 to use with T-Mobile Value Plan. Amazon Wireless sells Samsung Galaxy S III 4G Android Phone 16GB (GSM for AT&T and T-Mobile) for $649.99

Conclusion:The new Share Every Thing plan is cost less than the current plan for five smart phones. However, there is 1GB data to share between five devices. Both Verizon plans still more expensive than AT&T and T-Mobile.

Compare Family Cell Phone Plans

Buy your own device without contract or a discount cell phone with 2 years contract, which one is better? Let compare three contract plans from big three against T-Mobile Value Plan Bring Your Own Device (BYOD). Assume all five lines in a family account using smart phones as of April 15, 2012

For 4G Android smart phones

	Verizon Wireless	AT&T Wireless	Sprint	T-Mobile Value Plan
Monthly	$279.95 (1)	$229.96 (2)	$239.96 (3)	$124.98 (4)
2 Years	$6,718.80	$5,519.04	$5,759.04	$2,999.52
Activation Fee	$175.00	$180.00	$0.00 (5)	$175.00
Cell Phones	$999.95 (6)	$499.95 (7)	$0.00 (8)	$2,999.95 (9)
Est. Sales Tax	$251.87	$174.35	$266.00	$232.50
Total Cost	$8,425.57	$6603.3	$6,265.00	$6,299.45
Compare with T-Mobile	$2,126.12	$303.85	-$34.45

Notes:
(1)Verizon Nationwide Family Share Plan: 700 minutes. Unlimited text. 4GB data per line.
(2)AT&T Nation 700 FamilyTalk w/Rollover® Minutes. Unlimited Calling and Messaging to or from any Mobile in the U.S. DataPlus 300MB for Smartphone 4G LTE.
(3)Sprint Everything Data Family 1500 minutes plan. Unlimited data, messages and calls to any mobile, anytime while on the Sprint Network.
(4)T-Mobile Family Value Plan: 1000 minutes. Unlimited domestic messages (text, picture, and video). Unlimited - Plus (up to 2GB of high speed) data. $9.99 SIM or Micro-SIM card waive for web order.
(5)Activation fee at Sprint is $36 per line. This activation fee is waive for the promotion as of April 15, 2012
(6)Two years contract price for HTC Rezound is $199. Its full retail price is $649.99. HTC Rezound has 1.5GHz dual core processor, 1GB DDR2 RAM, 16GB internal storage, 8MP camera in the back, 2MP camera in the front, and 4.3” super LCD screen, 720 x 1280, HD 720p
(7)Two years contract price for HTC Vivid is $99.99. Full price at AT&T is $499.99. HTC Vivid has 1.2 GHz dual core process, 16GB internal storage, 8MP camera in the back, 1.3MP front camera, and 4.5" qHD, 540 x 960, Super LCD with LED backlight
(8)Free Goolge Nexus S 4G for two years contract.
(9)HTC Amaze 4G sell at Amazon Wireless is $599.99.

Using iPhone 4S 16GB for all carriers
49

	Verizon Wireless	AT&T Wireless	Sprint	T-Mobile Value Plan
Monthly	$279.95 (1)	$229.96 (2)	$239.96 (3)	$124.98 (4)
2 Years	$6,718.80	$5,519.04	$5,759.04	$2,999.52
Activation Fee	$175.00	$180.00	$0.00 (5)	$175.00
Cell Phones	$999.95	$999.95	$999.95	$3,245.00
Sales Tax	$251.49	$251.85	$314.84	$251.49
Total Cost	$8,425.19	$7,180.80	$7,313.79	$6,544.50
Compare with T-Mobile	$1,880.69	$636.30	$769.29

Compare 3G, 4G,Wi-Fi, WiMAX, and Ethernet (Wired)

Summary from Wikipedia and other places in internet:

3G is a generation of standards for mobile phones and mobile telecommunications services fulfilling specifications by the International Telecommunication Union. Application services include wide-area wireless voice telephone, mobile Internet access, video calls and mobile TV, all in a mobile environment.

4G is the fourth generation of cellular wireless standards. It is a successor to 3G and 2G families of standards. A 4G system is expected to provide a comprehensive and secure all-IP based solution where facilities such as ultra-broadband (giga-bit speed such as 1000+ MiB/s) Internet access, IP telephony, gaming services, and streamed multimedia may be provided to users.

Wi-Fi is a trademark of the Wi-Fi Alliance. It is not a technical term. However, the Alliance has generally enforced its use to describe only a narrow range of connectivity technologies including wireless local area network (WLAN) based on the IEEE 802.11 standards, device to device connectivity.

WiMAX (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access) is a telecommunications protocol that provides fixed and fully mobile Internet access. The current WiMAX revision provides up to 40 Mbit/s with the IEEE 802.16m update expected to offer up to 1 Gbit/s fixed speeds.

Ethernet is a family of frame-based computer networking technologies for local area networks (LANs).  Ethernet is standardized as IEEE 802.3. The combination of the twisted pair versions of Ethernet for connecting end systems to the network, along with the fiber optic versions for site backbones, is the most widespread wired LAN technology. It has been used from around 1980 to the present.

Data transfer rates in order from low to high speed:

• 3G:  128Kbps to 384Kbps
• 10BASE-T Ethernet (Wired) 802.3: 10Mbps
• Wi-Fi 802.11b: 11MBps (Max)
• Wi-Fi 802.11g: 54MBps (Max)
• 100BASE-T Fast Ethernet (Wired) 802.3u: 100 Mbps
• Wi-Fi 802.11n: 300MBps  (Max)
• 4G: 100Mbps (mobile) to 1GBps (fixed)
• WiMax 802.16m: 40Mbps to 1Gbps
• 1000BASE-T Fast Ethernet (Wired) 802.3: 1GBps

4G and Wi-Fi have almost the same bandwidth. The difference between them is in range. Wi-Fi is targeted to cover low range networks, while 4G was designed to replace high range mobile networks.