Don't Pay Verizon's $10 'Premium Video' Upcharge
There's a lot not to like about Verizon's initiative, which kicks in Friday, to charge $10 per month extra - per line! - for the privilege of streaming video at better than 720p resolution. There's the gall that Verizon throttled its unlimited plan in the first place. There's the pernicious creep of tacked-on charges industry-wide. But most of all, there's this: On almost every smart phone, your eyes can't even tell the difference. You'll be paying $120 a year extra, with nothing to show for it.
The mini-saga began over the summer, when Verizon first announced that it would turn its "unlimited" plan into two separate plans. The first, the $75 Go Unlimited rate, caps all streaming video at 480p resolution. That's "standard def," a level at which you can see individual pixels when you're streaming video. For $85, Verizon would bump you up to
720p, or 1080p on tablets, and that was it.