Verizon Just had a Terrible Quarter That was Only Slightly Less Terrible Thanks to Unlimited Data
  • Posted byby Kellen

Verizon Just had a Terrible Quarter That was Only Slightly Less Terrible Thanks to Unlimited Data

For years, Verizon has been able to continue to add customers, even as carriers like T-Mobile and Sprint have offered comparable plans at rock bottom prices with free phone deals and other gimmicks. Verizon could always fall back on its network being the best, even if their plan selection wasn’t or their prices were much higher than others. Something seems to have changed in 2017, though, as the company just reported what may be their worst quarter ever, a quarter that was actually on pace to be even worse if not for the introduction of Verizon Unlimited. 

According to today’s Q1 earnings release, Verizon lost 289,000 postpaid phone customers, which are the really, really important type. So not only did they not gain any, they lost close to 300,000 of their most important customers. That’s insane. I can’t even tell you the last time Verizon lost phone customers. In Q1 of 2016 (just a year ago), they gained 452,000.

What makes this news even crazier is the fact that they had to openly admit that it was on track to be even worse had they not introduced Verizon Unlimited, their new unlimited plan. In mid-February, just before Verizon Unlimited launched, they were actually down 398,000 phone customers for the quarter, but managed to then add 109,000. Holy sh*t!

It’s a bit like Verizon’s bubble finally popped to start the year. As I mentioned, they have continued to ignore (or be really late in matching) industry trends as the #1 carrier because they always just assumed they’d be fine or that they network and experience was too good for people to look elsewhere. From carry-over data to unlimited, Verizon just didn’t think they’d have to adapt.

Their previous CFO, my boy Fran “ShamWow” Shammo, said just before he retired that people like you and I don’t actually need unlimited data. As it turns out, that doesn’t even matter now. But one thing is certain, Verizon sure as hell does.

Via: Verizon
Written by

Kellen

It’s not often that you get to merge personal passions into a professional life, but that’s what Kellen did when he launched Droid Life in 2009. After working years of unsatisfying jobs in the medical and property management fields, he took a risk to try and create an online community while playing with the coolest gadgets on the planet each day, a risk that has turned out to be incredibly rewarding. Outside of Droid Life, Kellen is your typical Portlander who drinks way too much good beer, complains often about the Trail Blazers, and can be found out on the streets for a run, rain or shine.

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144 Comments

  • It will be interesting to see what the next few quarters brings them. There are a lot of people disappointed in the unlimited plan.

  • Funny part about this is I dropped verizon back in november. They wanted to up my plan by $20 because I still had unlimited data. Putting me at 170 for my plan. I even emailed the ceo trying to get them to keep my business. After speaking to their customer retention team they gave me the run around and could not even get me close to the $100 unlimited plan AT&T was offering me. The last rep i talked to that tried to “see if they could help” I told that they will begin losing customers this quarter because they started losing customers the quarter before. Damn if I was not right. They refused to compete now they are trying to because they are late to the party. SCREW VERIZON!!! 15yrs of loyalty and they just told me to blow off. Should have left years ago AT&T is way better and a hell of alot cheaper!

  • I was a loyal Verizon customer (with 5 lines for myself and family members at my peak – all smart phones with data plans) for a LONG time… much longer than I should have been – and they’ll NEVER get me back. Their ridiculous pricing & B.S. fees (pure greed), forced bloatware and proprietary locked devices, and general arrogance were really starting to p!ss me off a couple of years ago. When they introduced the “Family Share plan” several years ago, I thought that would finally offer a way to cut my ridiculous phone bill down a bit (your phone bill shouldn’t be more than your car payments), but when I did the math, it would have cost me MORE than the five individual plans I had at the time. Pretty much EVERY time they introduced anything new, it meant that your bill was going UP, never down. This was great for their shareholders, but very bad for their customers. The final straw was when they forced me off of my grandfathered-in unlimited plan (by jacking up the price). That finally gave me the motivation I needed to leave, so I did – and I’m NEVER going back – even if their prices become significantly less than their competition. They got away with their abusive ways for far too many years – like the big, bad playground bully, because basically nobody could compete with their network coverage. Thankfully, that is becoming less true by the day. Vuck Ferizon!!! I hope they tank faster than Enron did.

  • A year ago I left VZW after 15 yrs for cricket, service was almost identical (SE FL). Brought back 7 lines to VZW for their unlimited on President’s Day, got free iPhone 7’s with trade in.

  • I think the world is getting smaller and open technologies are gaining more relevance in solving problems of staying connected while traveling and over longer distance etc. Verizon with locked in CDMA technology is getting more and more irrelevant everyday. In Canada they have all recognized this and all carriers are now utilizing GSM technology.

    The data bandwidth is a factor as well, and to keep up with the times all carriers have to offer affordable data plans to stay relevant. But the openness of technology is a big factor in moving forward with the global demand of technology adoption. Verizon and Sprint both will have to find a way to reconcile this.

  • I’ve been a Verizon customer since they bought out alltel years ago simply because of no viable alternative in the area I live and frequent…there still isn’t. I don’t understand why these companies get so pig headed they don’t think they can fail… it just happened to O’Reilly… and he was the number one cable news maker over 18 years and made Fox news literally billions in revenue… any body or company can be brought down overnight. Anyone remember Ma Bell? smh!

    • Same. Had a grandfathered National Family Plan with unlimited data. Was cheaper than any of Big Red’s plans, so I was hesitant to switch. Jacking up the price on UDP was just irritating. When they offered a new unlimited plan, I finally gave up on my original plan and switched over.

  • The fact that they’re coming up on two years without contacts may have something to do with it. The fact they’re not subsidizing phones anymore means people are free of contracts and will bargain shop for devices.

  • Considering how little Verizon seems to value customer service, I love hearing news like this.

  • I’m glad they are getting hit so hard. These companies only care about making money. I had Verizon and I loved the network but when tmo started doing the unlimited plans I left. Cheaper and just as good where I am so it was a no brainer. I was highly upset when Verizon wireless lied to everyone about the unlimited plans and started making people switch to the unlimited call and text back in 2011 or 2012 making it seem as if it would be cheaper and better for the customer. I took the bait because I needed unlimited calling because of my business and was very mad when the changes started to take place and I was stuck in a contract and couldn’t get out. So HaHaHa! glad to see it happening back to them. You reap what you sow!

  • I don’t understand the hullaboo around t-mobile. If I go on the site right now the base charges for 5 lines on T-mobile One ends up being $200. On unlimited Verizon I pay $210 for 5 lines. What am I missing for ‘teh huug savingz’ everyone keeps talking about.

    • Well there is a lot of difference between the way they position their plans. T-Mobile has a new deal just about every week a lot of times that would be better than what customers have already, so they can just switch. For example I have 5 people unlimited everything $180. On top of that Verizon doesnt include the taxes in the ads on their website, I used to work in mobile stores for postpaid customers taxes can be up to somewhere around 25%. In tmobile its included in the price on the ad. In addition T-Mobile is more consistent on discounts on phones and T-Mobile Tuesday even though not the best every week has pretty cool offers all the time. And all in all the customer service is much more consistent and reliable in tmobile in my opinion. I’ve had both btw so that eliminates some bias but obvioulsy not all.

  • For a company so far in the lead, does this slight culling matter? And not all post paid subscribers are equal — ones that use ‘too much’ data or who are on cheaper plans wouldn’t be as much of a loss for the company. (For the record, I have the T-Mobile $30/m prepaid plan and while it’s not the greatest I’m fine with what I’m getting.)

  • Reports are now coming in that >10GB hard throttle on Hotspot and Jetpacks is now being enforced and speeds are actually WORSE than Safety Mode! We’re talking 56k analog modem stuff here, circa what, 1996? I’m pretty peeved with VZW right now, being ingloriously booted from my gUDP plan on 4/3 but I’ve still got a trick or many up my sleeve and am luckily on a rural tower with nearly no congestion so the nUDP plan is just saving me the $30 a month that they’ve clawed out of my wallet over the past 7+ years after taking away the old employer discount and then jacking the price up to $49.99. They are also laying a lot of people off right now. Fricking JERKS!

    https://www.reddit.com/r/verizon/comments/66ami4/can_confirm_throttling_has_started_jetpack_6620l/

  • Hahahaha……Screw you Verizon…..I’m one of those customers you lost…..4 lines with 2 of them Grandfathered Unlimited data plans. I’m a happy camper over on Cricket now w/ 5 lines for less than half the cost.

  • SCREW YOU VERIZON. I was with you before you became Verizon. You just kept raising rates over and over again. Made me pay ridiculous amounts to keep my Unlimited Data Plan. I left for T-Mobile and saved 75% on my monthly bill (we have 5 in our group). Sure the network isn’t near as good, but T-Mobile is working on it. T-Mobile tech support is TERRIBLE, but my phone works and that’s all I care about. I carry a spare SIM if I get in any emergency in the open road where T-Mobile has no coverage (which is hundreds of miles in come cases). The 600 MHz spectrum will solve this in time. Verizon is in trouble and buying DISH is not the answer. You screwed over too many people and you will soon be a minor player. Goodbye. I wouldn’t come back even if you matched the rate. Your attitude SUCKS.

    • And what Verizon claims as “Unlimited” proves they have NO IDEA what the word means. SCREW VERIZON. I will never bring my company back to you. I’m not saying T-Mobile is the only answer, but they are progressive and are undergoing a LOT of growing pains. There is no longer any way for “good” customers to get to Executive Relations. They need to give high value customers better support. They don’t.

    • Exactly! As of Q4’2016 (latest industry #s I have access to):

      Verizon: 145.74M
      AT&T: 134.86M
      TMO: 71.46M
      Sprint: 58.56M

      What “shocked the industry” was that this is the 1st time in a looooong time Verizon did not have a net gain of subscribers in a quarter. I’m also waiting to see how AT&T did. If they both lost subscribers, that will tell you something about TMO impact to the overall market. If they basically “traded” subscribers between the big two, that will say less about TMO and more about Verizon. I.E. I’m fed up with Verizon, but still need a big, reliable network.

  • I love capitalism for this very reason. When you have competition like you do in this space and the fact that T-Mobile lit a fire under all other carriers, shows that when competition is important, customers win and we are winning big time.

      • Not really true. My wife and I have been off Verizon for 3-4 years on pre-paid plans with great rates (Cricket, Go-phone, etc.)

        Having the view that competition takes “too long” to bring prices down is a very short term way of looking at things. In the big picture, smartphones and data plans have been around for a trivial amount of time. Demand for better phones and faster speeds was insane from 2008-2013 or so. With people willing to pay exorbitant prices, carriers charged whatever they wanted. And people didn’t seem to mind; subscriber growth proves that!

        What eventually happened is that everybody who wanted a smartphone got one. Now you primarily have people switching from one data plan to another. You don’t necessarily have massive amounts of people moving from “dumb” phone plans to a smartphone one. Now that things have calmed down you are seeing the market settle into what is likely a long-term competitive trend that will continue to improve services and reduce prices.

    • Yup, I agree. I wish we had this sort of competition for cable/fiber internet services.

  • Throttled streaming is a no-go. Regular non-unlimited VZW is the way to go for high-rez streaming.

    • Vids stream in full quality and data throttling only occurs if you used 22GB+ of data already AND the site you’re in is congested at the time. If it’s not congested, or if you haven’t used 22GB of data, you don’t get throttled at all.

  • I left VZW 3 years ago. Went to T-Mobile for a year, and been on project fi for two years now. Doing the math, I have saved around $2,000 on 2 lines since.

    • Can you root your toaster? How about your TV? Does your PS4 let you root it? How about your XBOX? It’s just a fact of life that these things are becoming harder and harder to hack because they have to be. Look at all the IoT devices that got turned into bots for a spam network. If you absolutely need an unlockable phone, then don’t buy one that you know is going to be locked.

      • i dont need one, which is why i got the z play coming from a rooted nexus 6. but im not renting the phone, i bought it outright. so i should be able to do as i please if i want to. its just verizon flexing its muscle. they will eventually let the bootloader to be unlocked in a year or so, just like past moto phones

  • If they want to get customers back, bring back true unlimited. Also, stop changing phones….nobody uses the VZ branded crap. That would speed up the update process and save tons of cash that could otherwise go into adding more bandwidth to support the fully unlimited service. Idk, maybe I am being too logical

    • technically… it is true unlimited. despite what people think. you can use 500gb of data and never get throttled. they throw in the caveat that going over a certain point means that you can get throttled if connecting to a congested tower. which may never happen to most people depending on their lifestyles.

    • Someone out there has to be dumb enough to pay for Verizon Navigator. With Google Maps built in and other options, why would Verizon keep updating that pile of poo? The answer is that someone out there has be mentally hopeless enough to use it and even pay for it.

  • if they’d allow corporate discounts on the unlimited plan they could pinch some more money out of me. But $50 is just asking way too much for me to bump two lines up from a 12 GB + 4 bonus GB bucket to Unlimited. Also, i don’t understand the whole 2 GB bonus data for “life” when basically it dies off any time you try to upgrade your plan (i.e. verizon plan to “new” verizon plan). I put up with Verizon because I get a decent rate on my phones and 16 GB and great coverage but they’d have to try hard to pry me from what I have now to take on any of their current offerings.

    • I’m in a similar boat. I have 10 GB plus off contract discounts for all lines. So, it’s a $15 per line fee and the corporate discounted data fee. My bill for 4 lines is $130 with taxes and fees. I can’t justify bumping that up to the unlimited plan. If they offered the corporate discount there, I’d probably jump.

  • Still holding onto my grandfathered unlimited. Would cost me over $100 every month to move to Verizon’s new unlimited data. Actually kind’ve happy to hear this. Hopefully this means Verizon will start caring about their customers. They’ve always taken care of us so I can’t say to many bad things about them.

    • Since I switched to Big Red’s new UDP plan, I’m saving $36/mo. I’d have stayed with the true UDP, but they started raping us by jacking up the price to get us to switch. Now that the other carriers are starting to catch up, VZW doesn’t have the luxury of resting on its laurels. They have to start competing again.

  • I was one of those lost subscribers! Finally I can say that. Got rid of the shackles after 12 years.

  • reading this is one of the few things to bring a smile to my face today. grinning ear to ear knowing i’m one of those important customers they lost this year. so proud to contribute to their worst quarter ever!!

  • Shammo is sort of correct, I really don’t need Unlimited Data on my phone. I just don’t want to have to worry about going over my plan. I think they have found a good middle ground with throttling.

    I understand that they need to throttle those that abuse it, but a lot of data is optimized for mobile networks. I think Verizon and other carries are realizing that putting pressure on normal day to day users to throttle their own data use wasn’t working for them. The carriers should be putting pressure on content providers to help optimize the data so less is used.

    • Most don’t use enough to justify the extra cost for unlimited, but with how cheap those pipes are for carriers these days there shouldn’t be limits anyway; putting limits on with current tech is nothing more than a greedy ass money grab.

      As you stated, it’s the whole going over concern for me…I always try to be on unlimited, but in reality, I usually use 10-15gb’s a month, and every now and then hit 25+.

      What I’m worried about now though isn’t carriers, it’s home internet providers. We cut the cord a while back and stream everything now (Netflix, Hulu, HBO and I use my mom’s DTV login to get other channels like USA and AMC). I have Comcast and they’ve had a 1TB limit in place for a long-time now, not sure how long, but they never enforced it. I think they may be doing that now though, my account now shows one of two free “courtesy” overages have been used (1.3TB) and after those two it says I will be charged an extra $10 per 50GB over…That’s F’d up. If they do that, as much as I was displeased with frontiers service (fiber, that somehow has HIGH latency) I may go back.

  • I’m fine with Verizon. Even went with the new Unlimited data plan and get my veteran discount. I don’t tether too much so it all worked out. Just got my s8+ so not worried like I used to be about rooting and custom rom on my phone to bypass tether. So now I can use my phone normally.

  • Being a Verizon customer for 12+ years reminds me of a time when I was in a bad relationship that needed to end but I kept dragging it out.

    I’m still pissed/disgusted that they jacked up my UDP rate.

    Reading comments about customers not needing unlimited leaves my eyes rolling.

    I’ve been waiting for the S8 to drop so that I can switch to T-Mobile. Not only do I not want to be a part of Verizon anymore, I actually want them to fail.

    • I feel you, bro. I was also a VZW customer since 1996 (it was Airtouch back then). I moved to T-Mo for the exact same reason.

      • Same. I moved my family from Verizon to TMo in 2013. It was a bit painful early on, before T-Mobile bought all that extra spectrum. But we were fed up with VZW and its complete arrogance, not to mention the slimey way they screwed me off my unlimited plan. By the end of 2015, I actually began to notice I was having better service than friends with VZW. Yeah, I want to see Verizon crumble, too. What a lousy company.

  • Eh, markets fluctuate. That’s a drop in the bucket when they’ve had quarter after quarter of solid gains for years. My guess is many will flock back after lower tier carriers disappoint customer expectations. Not a fanboy but still a reality that Verizon coverage is top nationally in coverage.

  • My problem is, I travel to Montana too often and I have a couple lines with people who live in Montana. I’m glad unlimited is back but it’s BS that corporate discounts don’t count.

    • You sound like me. I too travel to Montana often enough that it’s nice to have Verizon.

      • You are in Seattle right? I need soe places to eat at while I travel their. Know any really good ones?

          • I’m traveling so I really don’t care how far outside. Just want some good grub

          • Ballard: Shelter Lounge, Bastille Cafe, Jones Bros.
            Cap Hill: Americana, Seven Beef (Meat/Asian)
            Phinney Ridge: Red Mill Burgers
            Fremont: Paseo Caribbean
            Seattle Center (near Space Needle): Sport Restaurant/Bar
            Belltown: Mama’s Cantina (Mex), Any Tom Douglas joint (Lola, Palace Ktichen, etc.)
            SoDo (near stadiums): Pyramid Alehouse, F.X. McRory’s,
            Eastlake: Novilhos Brazillian Steakhouse, Serafina
            Mercer Island: The Islander
            Redmond: La Isla (Puerto Rican), Tipsy Cow (Burger)
            Bellevue: Chantanee (Thai), Tavern Hall, Lunchbox Lab, Mediterranean Kitchen
            Renton: Whistle Stop Alehouse

    • Same with me but Northern Wisconsin. T-Mobile only roams on AT&T up there. But, with their 600Mhz winnings, I’m looking forward to a little more competition in the North Woods.

  • I have been holding onto unlimited all this time since they cut it, all the way up until now when they brought it back. But I have still been wanting to leave for quite some time. Why? Their incredibly limited network. I want to be able to use the P10s and Mate 9s and other “mid-range” devices that are actually just as capable as the most popular flagships, but I can’t because of their crap CDMA network. The sheer hassle of switching has been the only thing that has kept me hanging on, but now I got the S8+ through Verizon so I guess I’m sticking around.

    TL;DR I don’t think it’s only the plan choices that are making people leave, but also the lack of options. There are so many other phone options, at cheaper prices, with T-Mobile and AT&T. I don’t think lack of versatility is something Verizon will fix any time soon either, honestly.

  • They walked a fine line for quite a long time, pissing off their customers, but just not enough to make them leave. Then the unthinkable happened:

    A competitor changed the landscape completely and suddenly all that resentment they’d been building over the years backfired on them and subscribers left in droves. Thankfully they watch their metrics, probably in real-time, and were able to react.

    Yeah, Verizon had to react.

    Now there’s a sea-change for ya.

  • In other words, Verizon finally squeezed their customers hard enough to where they felt it was prudent to leave. I have to say, I was going to buy the S8+ on pre-order but decided against it because I was facing that activation and/or upgrade fee from Verizon. So, I’ll either skip it or get it private party…. stupid fees.

  • Being at the top is dangerous when you just sit on the lead you have and don’t try to alter your plan. Ask Blockbuster how that worked.

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        • The Hollywood Video my parents took me to as a kid had a whole section dedicated to wrestling, especially WWF (at the time) and WCW. Any video was like 99 cents for 5 nights…that was certainly better than the newest blockbuster like 2.99 for 1 night.

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    • In all fairness, blockbuster was doomed once streaming and Redbox became widely used. There was no saving them.

      • They took a pretty big hit just prior to that with Blockbuster Music being such a huge investment and then flopping as well. Digital media + direct to customer + convenient boxes destroyed them with that good ol’ one, two, three K.O.

      • This and RIM/BlackBerry (and Palm too, I guess) should remind anyone on the leading edge of technology to always update their strategy and stay abreast of competition. People want the new hotness. You have to be that new hotness and keep their attention and can’t focus just on what your current customers are buying. Something hotter comes along with a touchscreen UI while you’re working on that trackball.

      • Every day I pray to Jesus that he will do something to take out Amazon like he did blockbuster and BlackBerry

        • What’s wrong with Amazon? I doubt Amazon will ever disappear they keep investing all their profits into the company to continue growing

          • they will destroy retail and enslave us all. they run drop shipping scams with fake sellers on their site. jeff bezos is a sociopath. amazon jobs are part time, low wage, abusive and high turnover. there will reach a point where you wont have any choice about where you buy or work but amazon

        • As with Verizon, prices will be their downfall. Amazon keeps cutting services and raising prices. A few things they’ve done recently:

          – Prime no longer means 2 day shipping. There is now “Prime 3 day”, “Prime 4 day”, etc.
          – Prime prices are not always the best prices, but it is always what Amazon shows on the front page of the product
          – Small items with “free” Prime shipping whose prices are $10 over what you can get them for at Home Depot, Wal-mart, etc. They obviously do this to cover the shipping cost
          – Raising “add-on item” minimum purchase to $35
          – Fluctuating price system with prices that are often far more than alternative online retailers

          • amazon is nothing but crooks. they use the “buybox” to guide buyers to higher prices sellers while they hide the listings of lower priced sellers . they also load up their site with fake sellers who have no inventory. they take orders for new products then drop ship a used product from another amazon seller and pocket the difference . that isnt “busniness” that is FRAUD pure and simple

          • fight amazon and the illuminati. stop using facebook, dont buy at amazon, boycott chase/wellsfargo/bofa/citibank and dont let anyone u know join the us military (oppose ALL new world order wars)

      • The fall of Nokia is actually pretty sad. I liked them. They made some of the best quality cellphone hardware the world has ever seen. Those old Nokia phones were nearly indestructible. They were totally unprepared for the smartphone revolution. Then they bet on the wrong horse when they partnered with Microsoft. Had they embraced Android instead, they may have recovered. Such a shame.

    • What’s really sad is thast a Company that doesn’t make 8% more profit year after year is considered a failure.

      Seriously, companies earning profit of 4 Billion a year isa failure if it doesn’t earn an additional 8%+ more every year, can’t have stagnate profits?

  • That’s really surprising actually. I would have thought they would have seen a gain after offering unlimited again, it got me to port back to them.

      • I only “finance” them if it involves a deal. For instance, BB was running a deal a while back for the Turbo 2, less than half retail on payment plan, then they did it with the Moto Z Play ($10/month = $240) w/ a $200 BB gift card. Did both of those. Then the G6 for $120 ($5/month) with free spare battery and charging cradle; bought three of those and sold all. What I made from those, the Moto Z Play and the Turbo 2 paid for the LG G6 I am using now.

        As such, j LOVE these new payment plans that result in STEALS. I buy em, as many as I can, then sell them.

        • I haven’t found any that allows you to pay them off early and keep the discount. If you pay it off early you don’t get the monthly ​discount.

          • All the ones I mentioned above I paid off within 24-48 hours of buying them. The ONLY time i had a problem is when I tried to do two in the same day, that seemed to trigger something in Verizon’s system that wouldn’t let it go through.

            I spoke to Verizon and Best Buy EXTENSIVELY on that for quite a few days and it was basically a glitch in their system. Both Best Buy and Verizon said there is nothing in the payment agreements that don’t allow you to immediately pay a phone off and buy another one, rinse and repeat. I told BOTH Verizon and BB exactly what i was doing (buying a deal, paying off and reselling them) and they both said there is nothing stopping me from doing it, that it’s perfectly fine to do it.

          • Beastbuy just uses Verizon’s payment method with Verizon’s discounts. They have switched to a monthly discount instead of an upfront discount. This changed last year, at least 6 months ago (when I got the 6P), but I think quite a bit longer than that. If you remove it from your account you will no longer get the monthly discount, and will have to pay the entire balance. The discount doesn’t even kick in for 2-3 billing cycles. You pay full monthly payments for a few months before the discount even kicks in. Unless you are using some kind of work around?

        • The only one I have done was for the iPhone 7 Plus. I got the 256GB for $300 with a trade in I bought for $200, so $500 for a retail $960 phone. But now I can’t leave because they credit the account each month some $, which will stop if I leave.

          • Lol I was wondering. I want a new phone, this Turbo 2 is driving me nuts. So the first one of G6 or S8 that comes out with a good deal I’m in on.

          • For what, $150+, less than the S8 this G6 is an awesome phone. Best from LG since the G2 IMO.

            My only complaints are the LCD instead of AMOLED, no Samsung pay (minor thing to me) and FPR on the back, I prefer front, but then, the S8 now has it there too and in an even worse spot.

            Also, up until porting back into Verizon for the new unlimited a few months ago, I was on GSM for a few years and was going through phones like mad, often selling a pre-ordered one just weeks after launch then deciding a few months later I wanted to try it again (some, 3 times –> I have issues…). In that time I was buying either stock Android (Moto’s, Nexus, OP’s, Pixel Etc) or Samsungs. What always got me to decide to sell the Samsung’s was the TouchWiz LAG-FEST. Didn’t matter if it was an SD chip or Exynos (though Exynos was always a bit less irritating, but still lagged a lot). I always thought it was ALL skin’s, until that G5 $120 deal I mentioned above. I decided to use one for a few weeks and BAM, totally obvious then that it’s not all skins, it’s Samsung’s skin. That G5 had no lag at all, neither does the G6 I have now.

            With that, the S8, as nice as it is, is a pass for me. I’ll likely do the Note 8 though; as much as Sammy’s skin lags, I’m still a bit of a sucker for the Note line.

            If LG’s G7 is built as well as this G6 with a kick ass design and no curved screen with an AMOLED panel instead of LCD, THAT would get me to stick with a phone for a year again, something i haven’t done in at least 4+ years.

    • I find it surprising too. i know of a few people who have dumped VZW but it was either to get on a GSM carrier and be able to have access to a wider array of handsets or out of cost. On the same token I know tons and tons of people who are still happily on VZW. I actually gave up my out of contract grandfathered UDP and switched to the “new” unlimited plan and haven’t missed a beat. So yeah, they are not getting the ARPU out of they were a few months ago but I’m also less likely to jump ship

      • Yup. I ditched Verizon years ago and also let my GUDP go and went to cricket (I knew at&t’s coverage was fine for me in my area and it was a lot cheaper for a lot more data allotment). When I left cricket I was paying $65/month for unlimited. Then when Verizon brought unlimited back, I ran the numbers on my mom and step dad’s plan (they have had Verizon forever) and adding my line to their plan was $5/month LESS than what I was paying on cricket even. So, no brainer, better network, lower cost…Done.

        Plus, limiting my selection of phones is good as I went a bit nuts with trying out every phone out there while I was GSM, many multiple times :-/ no more.

  • They reap what they sow. Someone predicted this a week or two ago… Wish I could remember where I saw it.

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