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On the Set up accounts screen, choose which accounts you want to set up. Tap Skip if you do not want to set up accounts.

yes it will, since it supports LTE WORLDWIDE and has a SIM SLOT
at least for data

No it wont. CDMA means its locked to the Verizon network. You cannot take the phone to another network EVER. You cannot take a phone from outside the Verizon network and bring it in unless Verizon authorizes the phone and they do not do that. They use to, years ago, but not any longer. So if you buy a Verizon phone you can only use it if they have service where you're at. There's not even a point to having a simcard in the phone other than swapping it for another Verizon sim.

You can take your verizon phone and get an international plan. It's expensive, and you can only use it in areas where Verizon has deals with the local cellular companies (they do seem to have quite a few https://scache.vzw.com/dam/bus...) but their international rates border on insane. Roaming texts are 50cents PER RECIPIENT (meaning a text to 3 people would be $150) Data is $25/100mb. The voice rates vary. You'd be far better off getting a phone that was actually able to work on other networks and swapping sim cards.

I went to the Verizon Wireless privacy link and both lines (my wife's and mine) were already opted out. It is very possible that I has previously heard of this and changed my settings, though it was not done recently.

I tried to go to the " autoads" page, but I found that to opt out, I had to enable both javascript (no surprise) and cookies. Also, the opt out is shown as a beta tool, so even if I allow cookies and javascript, who knows if it will actually do anything. Hmmm.

Exactly. To horn-toot a little, this was our (refactored) entry into responsive development - https://insidersguide.vzw.com/ Almost all of the content on desktop is there on mobile, maybe shuffled around a little to fit with the client's "needs." We designed it from a three-tiered set of "desktop," "tablet," and "mobile," with a focus on collapsing things to the right place and not doing adaptive except where it made sense (on a real mobile device? we're not going to load in all of the code for the home page grid). It was tedious and time-consuming, but in the end we've learned a lot and we're making new sites using that knowledge that are lean and responsive.

It has already been pointed out in numerous articles that the Samsung Galaxy and the iPad are not even the same shape. Apple doctored the images in their filing to make them look the same. How could you miss this? Practically every major newspaper has had an article on it!

A slightly different aspect ratio. And only *SOME* of the images have incorrect ratios.

But it's not the *exact* ratio that makes the Tab look like an iPad. It's the black bezel, rounded rectangle with a metallic border. Look at this picture: Galaxy Tab. It's extremely similar to an iPad.

LOL what? do you EVEN know what your talking about? First of all any change to your t.o.s. and they need to notify you. Second the current t.o.s SAYS NOTHING ABOUT a 5 gig limit... See below, regarding extraordinary usage:

" To help achieve this, if you use an extraordinary amount of data and fall within the top 5% of Verizon Wireless data users we may reduce your data throughput speeds periodically for the remainder of your then current and immediately following billing cycle to ensure high quality network performance for other users at locations and times of peak demand. "

http://support.vzw.com/terms/products/vz_email.html

The only reason I'm wary of just calling Verizon and talking to customer care is that there are a number of anecdotes floating around about how customer care people are mostly clueless about international issues or (worse) will tell you what you want to hear, rather than the real truth, and then can't help you when you get the $1k bill a month later.

The only bit I can find on Verizon's site is $30 for 75 megabytes. It's not quite highway robbery, but it's a pretty bum deal. I'd be really hesitant to agree to take any deal they offered me verbally, over the phone, without any printed guarantee anywhere.

Remember, you can add more APs for wifi, but not for phones.

Not true. Residential users can use broadband backhaul for relatively cheap (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Femtocell)

• Verizon
• AT&T
• Sprint

Bigger users can get bigger equipment. Last year, my office installed entire cell stations for major providers in our main equipment rooms and wired them with low-loss coax to little dome antennas scattered around the buildings. Helps coverage immensely :)

From Verizon's official forum: http://community.vzw.com/t5/PDA-Smartphone-Devices/UNLIMITED-DATA-PLAN/ta-p/346642

Question:
I have the unlimited data plan. Can someone on my family plan use this on their phone?

Answer:
Unfortunately, you need to purchase separate data plans for each phone. The plan costs $29.99.

It would appear that AT&T has a data option that Verizon does not.

http://support.vzw.com/faqs/iphone/iphone_faq.html#item12

5. Do I need to sign up for a 2 year agreement? When purchasing iPhone at the 2 year promotional price a new agreement is required. However, you will also have the option to purchase iPhone at full retail price, which will not require you to sign a long-term agreement.

It appears that I am full of shit. The cap is 5GB/month and the overage charge is $0.25 a MB. I'd scan a copy of my bill, but it's not worth it for an internet fight.

This forum post corroborates my claims :"My bill indicates my plan is unlimited ... 5 GB limit?". Several other threads on the VZW board read similarly.

I've been attempting to get at the text of my actual contract, but it appears impossible to do from the website and I can't find the paper copy I was given.

The Verizon plan is summarized here.
"Verizon will be offering unlimited data for a flat $30 fee." but the small print in your contract will limit your "unlimited" data to 5GB/month, which is less than 7MB/hr. Stream audio, watch many movies, tether other devices? In other words, do what you should be able to do with an iPhone? How many days will it take you to go over 5GB? And, if you go over that "unlimitied" limit your connection will be throttled for a MONTH following the day you go over. All this for only $30/mo ABOVE your regular phone bill?

France has a Fiber Optic net. For $30/m you can buy a 40MB/s Internet connection, with unlimited 3G cellphone calling to any other phone in the country, and 200 channels of TV. No cap, no throttles.

When I heard about Verizon and iPhone I was seriously considering upgrading my account. After researching it I decided I will stay with my present plan and Internet service.

Don't be insulting. Your "unlimited plan" has strings and strings ("I just wish unlimited data assigned to my account really meant unlimited data!!") and I doubt that you paid $23/m for it.

Verizon is " TESTING unlimited data plans. I currently pay Verizon $72/mo for two cell phones, no texting, no Internet, 1600 minutes. To use the "unlimited" plan for two phones would cost me $160/mo, assuming they aren't lying about being "unlimited" and they throttle my speed when I hit a GB limit.

Right now, following the new FCC "neutrality" policy becoming law, using a cell phone to access the Internet does not look attractive unless you make in excess of $150K/year so you can afford it.

GSM systems use a rudimentary TDMA system which assigns each user a timeslot on a given frequency. The handset and base station both transmit/receive at the assigned interval to exchange the voice data. There isn't much security to speak of, since the basic encryption used in GSM was broken years ago. 3G GSM systems are probably still secure, as they don't use a TDMA based system. 3G GSM uses a Wideband-CDMA based system which provides greater security of the data being transferred at the physical interface layer.

Using a CDMA system, which many Americans and the rest of the world see as inferior technology, effectively eliminates the ability for a third party to eavesdrop on a wireless call. In a CDMA system, all data is distributed over the same frequency range, with an ever-changing pseudorandom code assigned to it, using spread spectrum technology. The ability to "guess" the code for any given call (out of I belive over a trillion unique codes) is nearly impossible.

While this doesn't mean that governments, spy agencies, etc. cannot still listen to your phone conversation, it means Joe Blackhat in his garage across the alley isn't listening to your phone conversation. If I were using a mobile phone for anything remotely private, which I sure as hell don't, I would have to forego using the global standard system in favor of one that uses a more secure air interface (CDMA or 3G GSM). If there are any non-telco geeks that want to know more, read section 5 of the whitepaper linked below, it has some good information on how this all works and how this system works to keep your conversations private, at least from two-bit hackers.

http://b2b.vzw.com/assets/files/SecurityWP.pdf

It's not a driver problem, it's a software problem. If you don't want to use VZAccess you don't have to, you just don't get any support. Anyways if you understand the engineering fundamentals and the technical specifics read this: http://community.vzw.com/t5/4G-Discussion/4G-LTE-Data-stick-Mac-Linux-Windows-other-authentication/td-p/347794 The LTE UML290 card supports standard GSM 3G/4G/LTE stack and works just fine with Apple's generic dialer or the Windows connection thing in Win7 or Linux. The VZAccess support is for the plebs and not developers... You have to run it ONCE in VZAccess though on Windows atm (coming soon for Mac) for authentication and the SIM card programming...

It would be interesting if the cell phone manufacturers offered a swappable, standardized radio module that would pop in and out like the battery.

It would be much more interesting, and much less expensive, pose no unresolved technical challenges, if the shared-majority wireless operators in the US (Sprint, Verizon), would just use an existing swappable, standardised user identity module, like R-UIM cards. However, they are too concerned with fighting each other to realise that their technology has already lost, due to not being viable in other countries (where R-UIM is a requirement, but all decent phones are made for Sprint and Verizon, almost exclusively without R-UIM support). Not separating the number from the phone makes it too much of a hassle for users to switch phones, sell used phones, travel without roaming etc. (and of course, switching networks, which is what they are actually after, but damaging the whole CDMA market in the process), which are all trivially possible with GSM.

Maybe they could allow roaming to more than just a handful of international CDMA operators. For example, there are multiple CDMA operators in many African countries, (including some that have tens of thousands of US citizens working in them), but not one is supported for roaming by Verizon or Sprint. Verizon seems to have more limited roaming than the cheapest crappiest GSM operators, and Sprint mostly provides roaming via GSM operators (so, if you travel, you already need a dual-tech phone, or two phones, why not just use GSM all the time?).

Huawei (who makes a lot of CDMA-based gear, both telco-side and handsets, mostly for China Telecom I guess) has a nice article covering the issues with CDMA roaming. Most of them are due to "American mindset" that is inherent in CDMA and CDMA deployments. Of course, Huawei is punting their solutions to these problems, but waiting for all CDMA operators to refresh their kit will make you old.

Also, maybe if CDMA operators had consistent international dialing/number representation formats (like the +XX convention used by all GSM operators), users would figure out how to actually make international calls via CDMA. But, who needs numbers that don't start with a "1" anyway ...

That way you could buy an expensive smartphone, and leverage that investment by just picking up a new radio module to move to a new network.

At the moment, 52% of US subscribers can't even move between operators that use the *same* baseband modules (vs less than 15% worldwide). Maybe you should try and solve that problem first.

What Verizon calls "large scale" is just the Houston area initially, with other major metropolitan areas and large airports following. You didn't really thought it will be a rapid rollout throughout most of the land area of the US, right? (BTW, Sweden and Norway have significantly lower population density)

... And every home user doesn't need a public IP. And every desktop in your enterprise doesn't need a public IP. Q1 2010, Verizon reported 3.6 million FiOS Internet customers. Comcast reports 14.4 million high speed (not dialup) Internet customers. The majority of those customers don't need public IP's, nor do they even know what to do with them.

    I believe the routers that they're already transiting to reach the Internet at large is also capable of NAT. Assuming full utilization of their address space, that's greater than a single /8. More than likely they are operating at 50% to 80% of their address space.

    There are lots of ways to manage IPv4. The drive to IPv6 isn't a drive. It's a haphazard stumble towards a new standard. The problem is, it isn't a standard. Most providers haven't purchased their IPv6 blocks. Even if I, Joe Provider, bought myself a nice fat IPv6 block, my upstream providers aren't routing IPv6 yet. Common web sites are not advertising their IPv6 address, because it will cause non-IPv6 users to hang until the invalid address times out. google.com does not have an AAAA record. ipv6.l.google.com does. slashdot.org doesn't have an AAAA record, nor do they appear to have any subdomains for it. Why? Probably because their upstream provider doesn't support it yet.

    The Internet works, because all parties from Point A to Point B agree on how the network is suppose to work. They've invested countless billions of dollars in their hardware. Sure, there's been a lot of IPv6 capable hardware out there for a while, but that doesn't mean that any of them have done anything at all with it. There's been some spot testing, but nothing wide spread, like on the entire Internet.

    So what's the answer? Optimize utilization of the IPv4 space, and maybe we'll get another 10 years or so out of it. And this time do a serious migration towards IPv6. Or hey, we can all scream "the sky is falling, adopt IPv6 today!" and just look stupid when yet another "IPv4 is exhausted" deadline comes and goes without the entire world collapsing into a panic.

I know people gripe about every large company, but Verizon has provided very good service to us. Regarding this issue, we received 2 unsolicited premium SMS messages for $10 each. We called them, and Verizon refunded the charges and suggested blocking premium SMS (which we did).

It was a little while ago, as a said, but I seem to remember learning that there was a legal issue involved -- either a lawsuit or FCC investigation. Also, Verizon has a FAQ that explains premium SMS well:
http://support.vzw.com/faqs/Premium_TXT_and_MMS/faq_premium_txt_and_mms.html

and nobody else uses CDMA (except S. Korea).

Yeah. What was I thinking?

Sprint-Nextel International Phones

Verizon International Phones

Visual voicemail?

I know for a fact that the Blackberry Storms (1 and 2) have this feature available on the Verizon network. As far as I'm aware other Verizon phones support this feature as well.

http://support.vzw.com/clc/features/calling_features/visual_voice_mail.html

Well not so much games. 3G was never supposed to indicate speed.

0G - Radio phones (walkie talkies, CB, and the like)
1G - Analog cellular phones
2G - Digital cellular phones (where data was added onto the 'talk' stream)
3G - Digital cellular phones with data desigend to be accomodated

Sprint, Verizon have ~1.4 Mbps system, and have the best coverage
ATT has ~3.5 Mbps "3G" And have OK coverage
T-Moblie has not specified their speed but probably have 7.2 Mbps, but have limited urban area coverage

And EDGE which ATT considers 2.5G is actually in the 3G specification. They advertize this so people don't expect 'fast' data access with 2G, and to get people to upgrade to 3G.


Sources:
http://aboutus.vzw.com/bestnetwork/network_facts.html
http://www.wireless.att.com/learn/why/technology/3g-umts.jsp
http://nextelonline.nextel.com/en/stores/popups/4G_coverage_popup.shtml
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-Mobile_USA#3G_upgrade

What you are saying is good if it wasn't false.

No Contract Required -- New Month-To-Month Agreement Gives Verizon Wireless Customers Even More Freedom

Verizon Wireless' new Month-to-Month agreement gives customers the freedom to purchase new devices at full-retail price, or use their own CDMA devices without the commitment of a one- or two-year contract. Additionally customers can terminate their agreement at the end of any month without paying an Early Termination Fee.

No, you don't get a plan discount, but I don't believe that the plan pricing has to do with the ETF or the subsidy anyway.

This crap has been circling the web and it's not completely accurate. With the $30 and $45 data plans for smartphones, you get unlimited data for the phone itself. If you want to tether, it's an additional $30 for the $30 plan or $15 for the $45 plan and will allow you 5GB of tethered data and unlimited on the phone. In any case, if you want to tether and be within their TOS, you need to pay $60. It's still possible to tether without the extra cost and their software, it's just not within their TOS

The difference between the $30 and $45 data plan isn't documented well and leads to a lot of confusion. I fault VZW for not getting this strait. All the $45 gets you is access their WirelessSync service and supposedly allow you to do Exchange ActiveSync within the TOS. The $30 plan CAN DO Exchange ActiveSync, but it's supposedly not ok within their poorly documented TOS and every VZW employee will tell you that you need the $45 plan if you're going to do Exchange ActiveSync.

If you do use a lot of data on your phone, VZW can cancel your data account according to their TOS. I've used >5GB/month without a peep from VZW and any additional charge on my bill. It has been said in HoFo, if the data usage is extreme by VZW opionion, they could consider that your must be doing something that's violating the TOS. If VZW was smart, they wouldn't do much canceling since they're launching a bunch of Android phones and saying streaming YouTube and music is ok, which obviously will soak up a lot of bandwidth.

I suggest that Pickens and the article author do some fact checking before publishing assumptions and hearsay.

Up here in Canada, we had two CDMA wireless providers (Telus and Bell) and both of them are switching over to a 3G GSM standard called HSPA starting next month (November) and plan on offering the iPhone on their new network.

HSPA is based on the same principles as CDMA (whereas GSM is a TDMA system). The CDMA technology is fine.

CDMA devices also typically do not work outside of North America.

And Asia, but fair enough.

Yes, there are a lot of reasons to hate CDMA technology.

If so, you haven't mentioned any of them.

People don't like having the provider "brand" shoved down their throats and being forced to pay 3 bucks a ringtone.

Of course not, and that's one thing that sucks about Verizon and the Canadian CDMA providers. (Although I was a Verizon customer for years and never paid for any of my custom ringtones. All you need is a data cable and some free software.)

But that's a complaint about the carriers' policies, not the technology.

Yes, and if you check out the plans the offer, Verizon charges 60 USD per month for 5GB of data. I think you proved my point that Verizon only offers "unlimited" data on phones which are locked down and limited in their functionality.

Nope - look at the business plans. Unlimited data plans start at $50/mo.

Look at AT&T's coverage in low density areas and say that again with a straight face. Also, according to Verizon's website, nearly every square inch of Finland has voice coverage. I don't buy that theory.

I know you're joking, but: I have a nifty little pouch that I can put my phone into, which does a lovely job of blocking signals.

I use this specifically to avoid tracking (my company phone has Big Brother built into it), and have verified that it does serve this purpose.

... but no one as far as I know is making anything that interfaces the mobile provider to your normal telephones/copper, maybe this needs to be looked at ?

I guess you have never heard of the Verizon Hub?

"Migo is made to use Verizon's optional Chaperon service that..."

They retired the migo a few years ago. The "Chaperone Child" feature however is still very much alive and I'll wager on a lot more phones than you realize. Just go to vzw.com/phones and choose "More options" from the lower left corner. Then choose "Chaperone Child"

I would go so far as to wager that more than half the people who bought vzw phones in the last two years have a "Chaperone Child" phone.

From what I can find, that device has 196 MB RAM and 1 GB of onboard storage (this is in addition to the 128 MB of flash for the OS and the microSD slot).

This is different than having 1 GB of byte-addressable DRAM.

But it's very possible that the person is using a USB HSDPA adapter which may need proprietary windows-only software to connect to the network.

Though I'm sure the troll was just trying to be funny in saying that the computer needed a verizon CD and MS Word(uh, OO.o anybody?) to do schoolwork.

Really? I used to do this from time to time and never had a problem. See this page on their site.

Will this apply to AIM sent text messages as well (if not, expect these people to automate it that way)? To send a text message from AIM, just open an IM to +11235551212 (+1, then the phone number without dashes). Or messages sent from Verizon's website?

http://support.vzw.com/terms/txt_messaging.html

On another note - I have an unlimited text plan for my family. My cost per text averages .25 cents.

maybe a verizon broadband access card? they sell it in usb format too... 5GB monthly cap is kinda small though so it might not suit your needs.

AT&T is indeed sold in GiB/MiB:"1,024 kilobytes (KB) = 1 megabyte (MB)" from http://www.wireless.att.com/businesscenter/popup/dataconnect-comp-table.jsp#laptopconnect

Sprint: yes, from http://nextelonline.nextel.com/en/legal/legal_terms_privacy_popup.shtml

Verizon: yes, from http://b2b.vzw.com/broadband/bba_terms.html

So, yes, they are all sold in binary units, and the SI prefixes are incorrectly used here.

MediaFlo, the company doing this or AT&T, has been doing this for Verizon since March last year. See here: http://news.vzw.com/news/2007/03/pr2007-03-27a.html I read somewhere that it uses TV spectrum, channel 55 if I remember correctly.

Examples of prohibited usage include: (i) server devices or host computer applications, including continuous Web camera posts or broadcasts, automatic data feeds, automated machine-to-machine connections, or peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing applications that are broadcast to multiple servers or recipients such that they could enable âoebotsâ or similar routines (as set forth in more detail in (iii) below) or otherwise denigrate network capacity or functionality; (ii) as a substitute or backup for private lines or dedicated data connections; (iii) âoeauto-responders,â âoecancel-bots,â or similar automated or manual routines that generate amounts of net traffic that could disrupt net user groups or e-mail use by others; (iv) generating âoespamâ or unsolicited commercial or bulk e-mail (or activities that facilitate the dissemination of such e-mail); (v) any activity that adversely affects the ability of other users or systems to use either Verizon Wirelessâ(TM) services or the Internet-based resources of others, including the generation or dissemination of viruses, malware, or âoedenial of serviceâ attacks; (vi) accessing, or attempting to access without authority, the information, accounts or devices of others, or to penetrate, or attempt to penetrate, Verizon Wirelessâ(TM) or another entityâ(TM)s network or systems; or (vii) running software or other devices that maintain continuous active Internet connections when a computerâ(TM)s connection would otherwise be idle, or âoekeep aliveâ functions, unless they adhere to Verizon Wirelessâ(TM) requirements for such usage, which may be changed from time to time. By way of example only, you may not use a Data Plan or Feature for web broadcasting, or for the operation of servers, telemetry devices and/or Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition devices.

If your usage on a Data Plan or Feature that does not include a specific monthly Megabyte allowance or that is not billed on a pay-as-you-use basis exceeds 5 Gigabytes per account line during any billing period, we reserve the right to reduce throughput speed to a maximum of approximately 200 Kilobits per second for up to thirty days.

... which is how radar detector detectors worked. :)

    I haven't used a radar detector in a long time, because in my area they were using switched radar units. I had a better chance of visually spotting a speed trap than detecting it first. One thing I had observed though was, some of my radar detectors would have false alarms because of other radar detectors. Some of my friends and I had tested it, where we'd turn our units on and off to see who's would set off false alarms based on who's units. We concluded that yes, some units would make other units beep that there was a radar source present.

    The same applied to some home alarms, and automatic doors. I had more false alarms than real detection, which was another good reason to stop using them.

    Building a GPS receiver detector would be a bit trickier, because the designs are so varied. I would think the best way to detect one would be a wide radio spectrum analyzer, and a very careful examination of the object you think may have a tracker on it. I believe you'd be looking for the same or similar frequency as the GPS signal is, and you'd always have some signal from the satellites. A very directional antenna may help.

    It was my understanding that every cell phone sold in the last few years had GPS capability for e911 service, although they may disable the GPS service for any user interfaces.

    I found this page which says Verizon Wireless has GPS service in all wireless voice devices, to assist 911 operators in finding a victim. I know this isn't exactly true though. My stepson had a medical emergency about a year ago in the car (see my journal). I called 911 from my Verizon Wireless phone. I knew what road I was on, but since I was in the middle of my trip, I wasn't absolutely sure what the last exit I passed was. I gave the road, direction of travel, side of the road I stopped on, and a close reference to the nearby exits. I gave it to them within a couple miles. I was on the side of an interstate, with clear view of the sky in all directions, and there hadn't been any clouds in the sky all day. You can't ask for better reception for GPS.

    We waited 15 minutes, with no callback and no emergency vehicles showing up. I gave up, decided he was stable enough to transport, strapped him back in the car, and drove as fast as I could for help. There was one of the radar speed signs on the side of the road, which flashed 99 as I passed it. I was going for help, and would have been satisfied to get pulled over.

    I found a deputy with a DUI pulled over, and he helped us. He called for an ambulance, and apparently emergency ops didn't know where we were. No one had been dispatched.

Verizon already has a separate wireless video network using Qualcomm's MediaFLO in the 716-722 MHz range. It's been deployed for several months in some parts of the US; there's a map buried in the Flash crap here.

Close, but not entirely true. Verzion has agreed to use the GSM LTE standard for it's 4G implementations, not 3G, so it doesn't appear they would be running to cross license anything. They are still committed to CDMA EV-DO for 3G. http://news.vzw.com/news/2007/11/pr2007-11-29.html

From http://aboutus.vzw.com/bestnetwork/network_facts.html:

So, let's see, it sounds like for...
...central offices? Yup, batteries already there.
...remote switches? Yup, they've got batteries and generators.
...cell sites? Yup, they've got batteries, and some have generators as well.

"they refused to help me acquire a new phone when I lost mine" ... unlike every other business which is happy to replace your lost items. I can't tell you how many times Dell has cheerfully replaced my lost laptops and Sears gave me a new pair of Dockers after I spilled paint on mine. Not.

As for Verizon Wireless, you can buy any cdma phone and connect it to your account for free via their website. I've done it. They say up front that if you want a deal on a phone, you get it with a new activation or contract extension.

I did, quite obviously, mean that GPS is not a standard feature in cellphones.

And you are, quite obviously, wrong. One of Verizon's big pushes now is (and has been for quite a while now) navigation. You merely have to check their website to see the supported model list for their navigation service. Tower signals are by themselves insufficient for establishing the kind of accuracy you need for turn-by-turn navigation, so even the assisted GPS (A-GPS) cellphones listed there can receive GPS signals (which are in a different band than the CDMA signals). The LG phone I use has a GPS chip in it, and I suspect the whole LG line uses a similar system.

Note: Common sense is non-optional.

Note: Researching before making blanket statements is non-optional.

Perhaps, but you can buy the Blackberry 7130e for $99 - ok, $200 if you don't get an $80/month plan, but that's still slightly less expensive as the iPhone.

>Talking on a cell phone has become nearly impossible.

Which models have you tried? Verizon is very good about offering cell phones for the hearing impaired, and you can try nearly evey phone in their store before purchasing. I lost my hearing 7 years ago to illness (while active duty USAF, no less) and was left profoundly deaf. Left ear is completely gone, right ear works just enough for a high-powered hearing aid (100% deaf medically speaking). I use a digital Phonak, and previously an analog, with my cell phones. I've been using cell phones as my main landline for 6+ years. First a Kyrocera, then a Samsung, and now a Treo 700. Its not always the easiest thing to do, but 90% of the conversation goes fine. Mentally I can fill in the gaps or ask them to repeat if needed.

Keep trying the cell phones. It'll get easier over time. You'll learn how to hold it for the best sound, ect. Make sure you do your homework first too: Hearing Aid compatible phones .

Yes... I speak from first-hand experience with all this. I'm really, REALLY deaf.

Good work on reading the data plan information posted on the same page as their data plans.

Unlimited PDA/smartphone and BlackBerry® Plans: These VZEmail plans cannot be used: ...(2) for any applications that tether your device to laptops or personal computers other than for use of the Wireless Sync or the BlackBerry solution, unless you subscribe to BroadbandAccess Connect.

Or you know, if you actually searched for "tether" on their website. Which actually hilariously includes a footnote specifically saying they limit it to 5GB. Fine print my ass.