I honestly have no idea as I've never used verizon as a carrier. Most of my knowledge lies with GSM phones as I have used a local carrier unicel, in the past and am on tmobile now. It may be worth it to you to find out what bands your cdma phone supports as it may be as fast as your home internet connection depending on where you live. Seems like you've got it mostly figured out, now you really have to decide on whether you want to give them an extra 15 bucks or not. I can say that it's liberating to be able to check email or post to a blog from anywhere. Your phone probably does alot of that for you now. Good luck, and I hope I helped.