Early Verizon Edge Upgrades Become More Expensive?

Starting tomorrow, October 16th, Verizon's Edge program will have new terms and conditions making it more difficult to upgrade early, or at least more expensive. Payments for those of you joining the Edge program will now be spread out over 24 months instead of the current 20 month period. I suppose this is a good thing

for those of you wanting smaller phone payments, but on the other hand this makes your purchase seem more like a traditional 2 year service contract, although at least under these conditions you can always pay off your device at any point rather than face an early termination fee.  This isn't the only change being made though.  Now if you want to upgrade early, you must make payments for 18 months or pay off 75% of your phone as opposed to previously being allowed to upgrade after 12 months or a 60% payoff.  Not everything has changed potentially for the worse however, as Verizon's More Everything plans with Edge will now include a $15 per line discount for those with data plans ranging between 500 mb and 8 GB as opposed to just a $10 discount.