Verizon joins AT&T with the "charge customers twice" early upgrade plans

I was pretty excited to see the big boys, namely Verizon and AT&T, offer plans to compete with tiny T-Mobile. Sadly, it appears all these early upgrade, pay as you go plans really seem to do is double the cost of ownership. It really seems to change little except removing the 2-year contract.

A little more than a week after T-Mobile unveiled its Jump program and two days after AT&T debuted Jump, Verizon on Thursday announced Edge, its own no-contract plan that enables customer to upgrade to a new phone after only six months.

Cnet points out that after six months a customer would have only paid off a quarter of the price of the device. Another quarter is owed if the customer opts to upgrade after six months. Given the price, the more cost-effective option would be to upgrade after 12 monthly payments.

Not to mention the pricey monthly plans.

We think T-Mobile explained it best when they said "you're paying twice for that phone".