Pay as you go or postpaid? Provider plan preferences are altering

US postpaid customers have been by means of the wringer this 12 months. Whether or not you’re with Verizon, AT&T, or T-Cellular, worth will increase will probably have an effect on you to some extent in 2024. Whereas many legacy customers nonetheless profit from choose perks, many new customers face the truth of unsure worth jumps. This makes choosing a postpaid plan extra dangerous than ever earlier than.

Fortunately, there’s an alternative choice. In a current function, my colleague Andrew Grush dispelled many pay as you go and MVNO myths, concluding that pay as you go plans are higher for most people than postpaid options. To a big extent, our readers agree.

In a ballot posted on the identical function, 90% of customers mentioned they’d both contemplate switching to pay as you go or are already on a pay as you go plan. Whereas most readers are at the moment on a postpaid plan, 45.3% would contemplate reevaluating their choices. Solely 10% of readers wouldn’t budge from their present postpaid deal.

The feedback are additionally fairly telling. Regardless of the overwhelming victory for pay as you go plans in our ballot, readers have lots to wage towards them.

“MVNO’s are considerably slower than the massive three. They violate web neutrality legal guidelines by selectively throttling sure kinds of content material. For instance, on my Samsung Galaxy S23, downloading an OS replace is massively slower on Seen Plus or Mint Cellular when in comparison with Verizon or T-Cellular respectively,” one person expressed.

One other additionally highlighted the info pace discrepancy: “For those who’re a excessive knowledge person, MVNOs throttle you to loss of life after you attain your knowledge restrict.”

Others steadfastly help massive networks and postpaid plans. “There’s a massive distinction. I pay $55 a month for T-Cellular. I’m proud of it. I’ve tried pay as you go, and I don’t take care of it, it doesn’t matter what different individuals say about it. If individuals begin switching to pay as you go, they may ultimately jack all these costs up, too, similar to streaming companies did,” one other respondent remarked.

There’s no winner between pay as you go and postpaid plans, even when the previous presents a extra affordable possibility. One person might favor the perks with postpaid plans, whereas others will respect the liberty pay as you go presents. Whether or not you at the moment get together with one of many Large Three or are already utilizing an NVMO, it’s clear that our readers are now not happy with their provider’s service.