A reader wanted to know if home Wifi was tied to their cellular plan. “Just a quick question about phones. If you use wifi in your home and have Verizon as your carrier, is it still possible to go over your usage? Is there a way to make sure your phone is not using the usage part from Verizon. Hope this makes sense. It is for our Daughter. She says when she uses the Wifi she is not using anything else so should not go over but has. So just curious.”


I suspect your daughter is exactly right. When you log onto home WiFi with your phone, you aren’t using up any of your cellular plan minutes. Unless you are using your smartphone as a mobile hotspot. I’m guessing you have a home plan with Verizon and also a separate plan for your phone.

If your daughter is making phone calls over the 3G or 4G connection, that is coming out of whatever carrier her phone is signed up with. But if she’s an adult with her own phone, it wouldn’t come out of yours. If she uses the WiFi connection to use messaging apps, surf the net, or watch a movie, it would not be subtracted from your mobile data plan.


Home Internet does usually have a data cap, but it’s hard to go over unless you’re downloading massive amounts of data. One person engaging in normal Internet activity isn’t really going to make that much of a difference to the total.

And don’t worry, there’s no way that your router is going to somehow get confused and charge your phone plan for using it.

Verizon offers several tools for monitoring your usage of mobile data plans and talk or text menus. You can click here to learn all about them.

~ Cynthia