re: Verizon kills off service contracts, smartphone subsidies

They are not renewing any contracts from my understanding. I just got a new phone on Saturday. We have a group plan and only two phones are left on contract.

With the contracts, we were paying for a data plan that we all used, and each line was charged $40 per month for phones, and $10 per month for the tablets. You paid the discounted upgrade price for your phone ~$200-$250 if you were getting the newest phones. Now I pay $20 per month for my phone to be part of the data plan and no longer get the subsidized phone. For the S6 edge, it was $31 per month. So a total of $51 for the phone in addition to the data plan. I'm paying $11 more per month than before, but didn't have to pay the up front $250. If you take that $11 extra over 24 months, it comes out to $264. So ultimately I'm paying a very small amount more than what I paid before.