Feeling the heat? Verizon expands 55+ plan for seniors to more states

Following T-Mobile’s lead on the topic, Verizon in February launched a plan for customers in Florida who are 55 years old and over that provides a single line of unlimited service for $60 per month or two lines for $80 per month. Now, the carrier is expanding that offering to two more states, Illinois or Missouri.

The move, first noted by Wave7 Research and subsequently confirmed by Verizon, appears to indicate that the operator is working to provide a competitive response to the likes of T-Mobile and Sprint.

Introduced last year, T-Mobile continues to offer customers 55 and older two lines of unlimited service for $70 per month.

Sprint in May launched its competitive response to T-Mobile’s plan by offering customers 55 and older two lines of unlimited service for $70 per month.

The actions essentially represent an effort by wireless operators to delve into demographics where they may not have much traction—or to respond to those tactics. T-Mobile executives have said that the operator’s 55+ plan is helping the carrier carve out more customers in a demographic traditionally dominated by Verizon.

And that effort appears to be working: T-Mobile reported branded postpaid phone net customer additions of 686,000 during the second quarter, and said it now expects to gain branded postpaid net customer additions of between 3 million and 3.6 million during 2018—figures up from the 2.6 million to 3.3 million guidance that the company released earlier this year.

T-Mobile, Sprint and Verizon have all also launched unlimited plans specifically targeted at members of the U.S. military.

Interestingly, Verizon also today announced a new promotion that provides its unlimited customers with six months of the Apple Music streaming service – a move by the carrier to sweeten its unlimited offering.

The action promptly drew derision from Sprint’s Marcelo Claure, who pointed out the carrier continues to offer ongoing subscriptions to the Tidal streaming music service as well as the Hulu streaming video service to its own unlimited customers.