Hello everyone.
This is Amber with Story Chasing, and have you heard of the new Verizon Jetpack unlimited
data plan that has no throttle, and you want to know if it's legit?
Then watch this video for my review of the new Verizon no-throttle prepaid plan and how
you can easily get it set up.
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Alright, so you've heard of this new Verizon Jetpack prepaid plan, and let's be honest,
us digital nomads have been waiting a very long time for a plan like this.
It's something that we all talk about, and something that's been a much-needed thing
for us as we travel around the world or travel in our RVs.
So, the good news is, I think it's here, but let's check it out and find out.
So, I'm going to give you all the details on this plan, and I'm going to show you my
speed test and my review, and make sure you stay until the very end, because I'm going
to show you how to easily set this up.
And trust me, it was a little bit of a headache for me.
I had to talk to four different Verizon agents to get this set up, and some of them didn't
even know that the plan actually existed.
Some of 'em want you to set up a new account, some say you can put it on your existing account
if you already have a Verizon account.
And, well, some of it was true and some of it was not, and I finally got it all squared
away, so I'm going to show you what I learned through the process so that you can easily
go in and talk to an agent and get this set up for yourself.
So, the details of this Verizon prepaid Jetpack plan is this.
So, it is truly unlimited.
The old plans were also unlimited as well, so this is still unlimited.
Now, where this differs is the old plans, like the one that I have on my Verizon plan,
is throttled, where this one is not throttled.
And so, there's no cap on it which is good, that's a huge plus for all of us.
The other thing is that it is $65 per month if you prepay for it.
It's advertised on the website as $70, but there's a $5 discount if you
prepay.
This plan is for Jetpack, so if you have one of these little devices, it's a Jetpack from
Verizon, this happens to be a MiFi and the one that I've been using.
So, here's where the clincher is, and you probably knew there would be one.
So, it is network-managed.
I talked to the representative to find out exactly what that means.
So, this is what the Verizon representative told me about network management.
There's this tier of priorities.
So, emergency vehicles like police and ambulances or firefighters, they're gonna get priority
number one.
So, they have the top tier.
The second one is people who are post-paid, which means you have a normal account and
you don't prepay for it, you just have a post-paid, which is like the current plan that I'm on
where I pay for my cell phone and I pay for my hotspot as a different line on my plan,
and that one is subject to the throttle.
So, those have the second priority.
The third priority is prepaid, which is what this plan is.
So, prepaid is at the bottom of the barrel.
I don't really know why they do that, it doesn't make sense.
We're all paying money into it, but that's how they network-manage.
So, of course when the representative told me this, I was a little bit concerned because
I certainly don't wanna be bottom of the barrel, and there are a lot of people out there who
have the regular post-paid accounts, and so being at the bottom of the tier as a prepaid
customer, I was concerned that the network management was gonna be too much and it was
gonna be as if I was throttled like on my existing plan.
I went ahead and decided to get the prepaid account and go ahead and test it out so that
I can find out if it's going to be better than my original account.
Then, I can make some decisions on the original hotspot that I have on my account already,
and it's still under contract.
So, the big question here is does this plan really work, and is it truly a no-throttle
plan as they say?
The short, general answer is 'yes'.
So far, it has been working really, really well for me, except for one specific situation,
and I'm going to get into that in a minute.
But the short answer is, yes, so far in the two weeks that I've had it, it's worked really,
really well.
So I am pleased with that.
I will say, I was very skeptical in the beginning about it, which is why I wanted to test it
and really kind of put it through its paces by taking it to rural areas, to city areas,
and testing it at different times of the day to see what kind of speeds I was getting and
when I would see that slow-down because of the network management.
So, the first thing that we did in order to be able to test this is when I talked to the
representative, we suspended my current, existing hotspot account, which is attached to my cell
phone plan.
And we suspended it temporarily for two months just so I could test out the new prepaid Verizon
plan and also still use my current Jetpack.
I didn't want to have to go buy new equipment.
So, my cell phone plan is still working.
We just suspended the hotspot right now until I test this new prepaid plan.
So, we actually had to set up a brand new account for the prepaid plan, and I got a
new SIM card.
I could've just left the old, original hotspot as-is and still paid for that account and
have my Jetpack and still have a working SIM card.
But instead, what I did was I wanted to suspend it because I wanted to use my existing Jetpack,
which is this one right here.
I wanted to use this existing Jetpack so that I didn't have to buy new equipment, especially
in case I didn't like the plan and it didn't work for me.
So, we suspended the old account, opened a brand new account, got a new SIM card, and
I was able to use that new SIM card in this Jetpack because the old SIM card is not deactivated,
but just suspended.
So, this was able to recognize the new SIM card even though this is still under contract.
So, that's how we worked it.
So, when I purchased the new prepaid plan, I was in Dana Point, California, and I was
there for about a week with the new prepaid plan working.
And I had phenomenal results, actually.
I was really surprised by that, because I'm in this city with a lot of people, it's Southern
California.
Los Angeles is right there, it's just a huge urban area.
So, I was again, very skeptical that it was going to work, but it did work, and I was
actually able to upload a YouTube video on it within 30 minutes, something that might've
taken me an hour to an hour and a half using my AT&T hotspot, which wasn't getting really
good service there at that point in time.
Verizon was a stronger carrier in that area, so it was really great to see that it was
able to upload a video, no problem whatsoever, in a very populated, urban area.
So, fast forward another week and I actually went to the desert and decided to test it
out in that area.
So, this particular area that I was in has great service for AT&T and Verizon, and I
decided to go ahead and do some speed tests in the evening and in the morning to see what
that was like.
And I'm going to show that to you now.
So, the first test we'll do is the Verizon AM speed test.
And I will tell you, this really underperformed especially compared to what the speeds were
when I was in Dana Point, California, although I did not get an actual speed test on record
like I am here.
AT&T speed test in the morning actually did really, really well.
And again, this may or may not be because of the cell tower strength here, it may just
be that AT&T has a better signal in this rural area that I'm in versus Verizon.
So it can't be considered conclusive, but these results that AT&T is necessarily better
than Verizon and that Verizon doesn't actually perform very well, or there's the network
management issue.
So, even though both carriers are working very well in this rural area, Verizon underperformed,
and that was pretty surprising.
I tried it in the morning and the evening as you saw, and I was very surprised by underperforming,
especially compared to a city that was so populated.
There's not very many people out here where I'm at in the desert, so I'm not sure why
that is, but it was just an interesting thing to note, and we'll just continue testing it.
So, I'm curious if you guys have already been set up on this prepaid plan, and if so, leave
me a comment below.
I'd love to hear what your thoughts are on it, what your findings have been.
Are you using it a rural area, or a city area?
So, make sure you leave me a comment below if you've already signed up for this plan.
Whether you have an existing account or your not a Verizon customer at all, you're going
to need to set up a brand new account.
So, prepaid accounts have to have their own account, separate from an existing Verizon
account that you have.
So, if you are a new customer to Verizon, this is going to be pretty easy.
You literally just go to their website and you go ahead and sign up for an account.
So, click on the link in my description box to go directly to the prepaid plans area,
scroll down to find the Jetpack and tablet plans, and you'll see the unlimited plan for
65 dollars.
And then you'll need to pick out your actual Jetpack, the one for the MiFi is actually
on back order right now, so the Ellipsis is the only one available.
Click 'next steps', 'new customer', and then they have these different plans, but the one
you wanna select is the unlimited data for 70 dollars, although it is 65 dollars prepaid.
So, if you're an existing Verizon customer, this is where it can get a little bit tricky.
So, you can go through the same methodology that we just went through with setting up
a new account if you're an existing Verizon customer no problem whatsoever, you can do
that completely separate.
But if you're like me and you have that Jetpack already and you wanna use an existing Jetpack,
then you will have to either deactivate the old SIM card you have and get rid of that
particular line if you no longer want it and use the new SIM card on the new account and
put that into your Jetpack.
Or you could do what I did so that you can test it out and then just suspend your existing
account, go ahead and get the new prepaid account, and use that SIM card in your old
Jetpack.
So, the trick is, is if you want to use your existing Jetpack.
If you still wanna use your existing Jetpack, then these are the steps that you need to
go through in order to make sure that your old Jetpack works with your new SIM card.
So, once you know the steps in order to get the account set up, then it shouldn't be a
problem for you whatsoever, even if you wanted to go into the store and get it all set up
there, just show them exactly what I showed you on the website by going to the prepaid
plans option, and then click on that one that says 70 dollars.
And remember, it's really 65 dollars, but it's a five dollar discount for prepaying.
So, that's where the 65 and the 70 come in.
So, so far I really like what I see with the plan.
I had that one exception in the rural area, but other than that, I was able to upload
a video pretty quickly, so I'm pleased with that.
I think it's still a little too early to tell right now if I'm going to stay with this plan,
but I am testing it for two months, so I will do a follow-up video review after two months
to let you know my findings and show you speed tests and the places that it actually really
worked well, and the places that it did not work well.
And let's just decide if it's a plan that's worth keeping, or should I go back to my original
hotspot contract and just use that particular account for my backup to my AT&T account.
So, here's the thing about these plans.
If you're anything like me, I wanted to jump on this before anything changed with the plan
so I could start testing it right away.
The good news is, it's a prepaid plan and no contract, so if you're wanting to jump
on this plan as well, then click the link in my description box or in the pinned comment
to go directly to the prepaid section of the Verizon website and go ahead and get your
account set up as well.
As I mentioned a moment ago, I also have an AT&T hotspot in conjunction with my Verizon
hotspot.
And I use both of them as backups depending on the area, but I'm going to put together
another video that shows exactly how I stay connected on the road in my camper van and
how I work remotely as a digital nomad.
Also, make sure you click on the next video, which is on your screen now, which shows my
review of the Hymer Aktiv Campervan that I've been living in for six months.
Click that video now and hit that 'subscribe' button if you wanna see more videos on van
life in North America and how to be a digital nomad.
Alright guys, see you in the next video.