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Verizon Droid Tethering Comes At a Hefty Price
Pickens writes "Tom Bradley reports in PC World that the new Motorola Droid smartphone will cost users $199.99 with a 2-year contract, with an additional $30 per month for the mandatory 'unlimited' data plan that has a monthly cap of 5Gb. Verizon will charge $50 for each additional gigabyte over the 5Gb limit on the unlimited data plan. Verizon has confirmed that tethering will cost another $30 per month for an additional unlimited data plan that is also limited to 5Gb. If you want tethering you will pay $60 above and beyond the monthly contract for service for an 'unlimited' 10Gb of data per month, and if you plan on connecting with an Microsoft Exchange email account you have to pay another $15 a month. 'Verizon seems to be doing everything it can to make the Droid as unappealing as possible by nickel and diming customers so that actually using it is not cost-effective,' writes Bradley. 'After all of the hype around Verizon's marketing efforts, and generally favorable reviews of the Motorola Droid, users that rush out to get the new device may be in for a shock.' Droid users will have to wait until sometime in 2010 for tethering. 'That service is on our schedule for next year,' says Verizon spokeswoman Brenda Raney. The delay is because 'the service has to be tested on the phone so until we know it works, we don't offer the service. It is not uncommon for us to introduce the phone and continue to test the service and offer it later.'"
If the plan is limited, it's not "unlimited", so please stop pretending. No, any cap is a cap is not no cap is not "unlimited". How many marketeers do you need to fire to stop believing otherwise, verizon?
they are free to kill their sales and nobody should be in urge to stop them
God's gift to chicks
So does that mean that you can only get a Droid telephone with a verizon account?
If so, there's your problem: your markets for mobile telecom are vendor-locked, and thus not very free. Say what you might about the EU, they really whipped the mobile telco's into submission and as such, we don't have a system where your phone is branded by the telco. Incidentally, Apple is trying to push such a model to Europe, but people here are not buying into it.
If not so, what's the big deal? Just buy the droid and don't choose Verizon as your provider.
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"The chances of a demonic possession spreading are remote -- relax."
couldn't some group of americans sue the shit out of dumbass companies who use misleading marketing - calling something with a cap "unlimited" should result in their whole marketing department fired and any manager who approved it receiving hefty financial fine.
Rich
That was tried in the UK with ADSL providers advertising "unlimited" broadband. They got around it by reclassifying exactly what is unlimited - it is now "unlimited access" so at any time 24/7/365.25 you can have access, but it isn't unlimited bandwidth.
Except that the website does not advertise "unlimited access". The text on the website reads, and I quote, "Unlimited Data for Mobile Web and Get it Now/Media Center".
It says quite clearly, "unlimited data". I know that Verizon [and the other telcos] will happily fight and say there's fine print somewhere that says otherwise, but please, there *HAS* to be some lawyer out there who's good enough to get a judge to realize that this is nothing but false advertising, and some pretty obvious bait-and-switch tactics.
Nothing to see here
Indeed - almost all of the cell providers should be fined for deceptive trade practices the way they sucker people into huge bills - all agreed to in fine print.
All of this would be fixed by a very simple law - anybody ought to be able to set a limit on their monthly bill. If I call up evilphoneco and tell them that my cell phone bill is capped at $90 per month, then I don't care WHAT services I consume - they can't charge me more than $90 per month. It is their job to keep me from using services I haven't paid for - not my job to avoid accidentally incurring them. And no incurring of debts either - if they deliver me $10k worth of services they can bill me $90 once and then we're even.
Oh, the second part of that law would be that everybody's cap starts out at whatever their basic monthly rate is. Unless somebody specifically requests a higher limit they couldn't be charged for any "optional" services.
And no giving people limited choices like $10/month or unlimited only. People should be able to name their own limits as arbitrarily as they'd like.
It seems like phone companies depend on people making $500 mistakes with their cell phones, and they almost count on people doing it. They get zero mercy when it happens. At best they might be offered an option for $10 per month to cap their bill. That should NOT be something that costs money.