Yesterday was V-day for me. The long-awaited day in planning since around August or September of last year. What happened around that time you ask? That’s the day I realized that I could get a lot better service at another company for over $20 less than what I was paying at Verizon, and so after my contact ran out on 3/27/10, I switched. Here’s the long and short of it. My Verizon plan used to cost me $55.48 a month, after taxes. With this plan I got 400 minutes of voice calls and 500 text messages, and no data usage at all. Needless to say this was a very bare bones plan I was using. Cut over to Page Plus Cellular. Page Plus has a Talk ‘n Text 1200 plan which gives you 1200 voice call minutes, 1200 text messages, and 50 MB of data usage per month for $29.99, after taxes. All this without a monthly contract. This is because Page Plus is a prepaid wireless company. The plan itself is a “card” you buy each month that puts you on this plan, and you can set it up to buy this “card” automatically each month. One nice side benefit is if you should manage to use up your 1200 of whatever, you can buy a refill card and avoid paying the fee for per minute usage fees. What makes this entire story even stranger is the fact that Page Plus uses Verizon’s towers for their service. Yes, that’s right, their coverage map is the same as Verizon’s, and your Verizon handsets are already setup to work on their service. The only thing that’s required for you to switch is to get the ESN on your phone and give them your account number and pin with Verizon and they can easily port over number and a simple command moves your phone over to their service.

What’s really funny about this whole deal is that Verizon kept calling me to tempt me into buying new phones so I would renew my contract. They would call me and say they could give me a phone free, only the phone they were offering was worse than my current phone. Really? That’s like trying to tempt you out of your Honda Accord with a Geo Metro. One service agent said, “Your phone is more of a full tool, this thing’s more of a toy.” I would then tell them that once my contract ran out I would be switching, told them what Page Plus would give me, and ask them if they could beat it. Generally I was treated to long pauses and a lot of stuttering followed by ended calls. I had one of them actually promise me that they would look into it and call me back, but of course they never did. How typical. So, goodbye Verizon. I won’t miss you and your overpriced service ever again. V-day has come and cellular liberation is here!