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Verizon To Offer iPhone Users Unlimited Data
Hugh Pickens writes "The WSJ reports that Verizon Wireless, the country's largest wireless carrier, is confident enough in its network that it will offer unlimited data-use plans when it starts selling the iPhone around the end of this month, a person familiar with the matter says. Such plans would provide a key means of distinguishing its service from rival AT&T Inc., which limits how much Internet data its customers may use each month. Verizon has a lot at stake as it starts to carry the iPhone, which it is expected to announce Tuesday at an event in New York City. Verizon, more than any other US carrier, has built its reputation on its network quality, and any stumble in handling iPhone traffic will call into question Verizon's major selling point. On the other hand, if it does handle the iPhone well, then AT&T will have a harder time arguing it didn't mismanage its own network. Anthony J. Melone, Verizon's chief technology officer, says the company has invested heavily in its 3G network to handle surging smartphone traffic, including nine million Android subscribers, up from none a year earlier.'"
Perhaps that means they will compete for business and we consumers will win?
I know, fat chance but we can still wish.. right?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Maybe it's time for me to actually get a new phone. This bag's pretty heavy.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
...or "unlimited" (subject to "fair use")?
It's a fun rumor, but I'm not sure I believe it.
Verizon certainly does not want a bunch of data-sucking iPhones on their network unless they can make money off of them. So, yes, I could believe that Verizon my offer an unlimited plan for $20 more than what their 2MB/month plan costs. But I tend to doubt they're going to be offering unlimited for the same cost as AT&T 2MB/month plan.
I call bullshit. We should all know the marketing definition of "unlimited" by now.
vos nescitis quicquam, nec cogitatis quia expedit nobis ut unus moriatur homo pro populo et non tota gens pereat.
Verizon is going to announce a new Windows phone tomorrow, the Kin(g) of Kins.
- by someone close to the matter
I'm not qualified to have much of an opinion about these things, but I will be watching with the utmost curiosity where AT&T will wind up now that they have lost their exclusivity with the Apple crowd. Any predictions out there? Methinks it looks bad for AT&T...
And that is why you still will have a crippled smartphone. I'd prefer a 20gb plan and then be able to use it for what i want. What is worse is that people in other countries is still under those stupid limitations like you can't download podcasts or other data over 3G if the filesize are greater than 25 megabytes and Apple does not always allow apps to stream video over wifi.
2GB is actually a huge limit, when you consider that often at home or work phone users are on WiFi anyway. I use my phone all the time and usually hover around the 200 MB limit every month.
Although Verizon's "unlimited" plan might be a nice marketing feature, will it cost more? And will it really be "unlimited", because you know some guy is going to try and push the limit and it seems likely there's really a limit, just not one they advertise...
What would be way more interesting would be making tethering free - AT&T charges $20/month for it (though you can turn it on for just a day here and there and pay a pro-rated rate).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The event is allegedly tomorrow so why can't we wait until tomorrow when it's no longer speculation and actually an established fact?
If I make a blog post claiming that Verizon will offer free blow jobs for new iPhone buyers can I be featured on Slashdot as well?
Every other time it's been clear it's a rumor. This time it's obvious it's no rumor, there are leaks from techs testing and the news is all over the place. It's like saying that there's not going to be an eclipse just because there wasn't one all last year. New data is at hand...
But the really funny thing about your post is, you make it in the same year Duke Nukem Forever is actually set to release for real...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
People frequently drop their iPhone in a mug of beer (HOW?!), or jump in the pool, or some other stupid way of destroying it, then put their SIM card in a basic phone. Then they have a store or customer support remove their unlimited data because oh it's soooo expensive, then expect to get it put back on well after it was announced that the only way to get it back was to never voluntarily remove it. If you already have a smartphone or iPhone unlimited data feature, you are more than welcome to keep it if you upgrade or simply swap phones to another smartphone or iPhone.
If it was removed because someone at Walmart bungled an upgrade or something similar, it can be restored, just don't wait six months to call in about it.
Now, maybe Verizon doesn't know, but some of the heavy abusers of cellular data with iPhones use upwards of 40-50 GB per month. You're not going to use that much data browsing the web, but with a jailbroken iPhone, you can get a 7 to 14 megabit connection shared with a whole network of computers for all of $30 per month... and that is spelled out as abuse of the service in the ToS, which is written in very basic English.
I assume that unlimited data will be revoked again once LTE rolls out, or it will be exclusive to the first iteration of CDMA iPhone.
FYI, the only data services available for the original iPhone are all unlimited data, with varying amounts of SMS message allotments. Wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more.
The article is either crap, paid for by Verizon, or both. AT&T does offer an unlimited data plan for the iphone--that's the plan I have. What AT&T does NOT offer is unlimited data with tethering, where you use your iphone as a data modem for your laptop. The tethering plan is limited to 2 gig a month. If Verizon were to offer tethering with unlimited data that would be ballsy. Yet the word "tether" or "modem" does not even appear in the article.
Remain calm! All is well!
real Unlimited or Unlimited with a big slow down at 5gb?
The ultimate goal of "competition" is to achieve monopoly status, by eliminating competitors. That is what "competition" means.
Once you eliminate your competitors, you can do whatever you want to the market.
Why would you want consumers to suffer through competition?
Assuming we're not talking about assasination, the way to "eliminate competitors" in a free market is to have a better product. If your product is so good that no one else can compete, then who cares? If you start trying to abuse your monopoly position, new competition will come.
Of course, there's always the modern definition of "competition", which means only compete with a couple other companies, and use your influence in the government to make competition either illegal (cell phone carriers with government issued monopolies, computer hardware companies with patents) or impossible (Walmart and Conagra with subsidies). I don't see how more government control would help that.
AT&T claims they are still better because on their network you can make calls and use the browser at the same time. AT&T claims that you can not do this with CDMA LTE technology like Sprint and Verizon use. This is a bold face lie. I have a Sprint carried Samsung Epic 4g phone and routinely use the web browser while on calls. Since Sprint and Verizon use mostly identical technology, I cannot believe AT&T's claims that Verizon's phone wont be able to do what Sprint phones already can do... AT&T's statements are merely FUD, I know a lot of people already lined up to leave AT&T once the IPhone is available on another carrier, and AT&T knows and is scared of this too.
[James Earl Jones] We said it was unlimited. I find your lack of faith is disturbing. [/James Earl Jones]
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
How long do you think it will it be before people who have purchased the "unlimited" plan and taken it seriously will receive notices from Verizon saying that their account has been cancelled or disabled due to "excessive" use? And the representatives explaining that they just mean "no stated limit," and that they never dreamed that people would actually download _that_ much, and it is with the saddest and greatest reluctance they have been unwillingly forced to take measures against a few, a very very few evildoers in order to insure the optimum user experience for the vast majority of good Verizon customers, and anyway they never really said it was unlimited because if you scroll 61% of the way down the 150-page online terms and conditions they reserve the right to curtail the usage by any individual in the interests of the greater good of the Verizon network as a whole?
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Verizon certainly does not want a bunch of data-sucking iPhones on their network unless they can make money off of them. So, yes, I could believe that Verizon my offer an unlimited plan for $20 more than what their 2MB/month plan costs. But I tend to doubt they're going to be offering unlimited for the same cost as AT&T 2MB/month plan.
AT&T's plans are 200MB/month and 2GB/month, there is no 2MB/month plan, which would be silly. AT&T's 2GB/month plan is $5/month less than their unlimited plan (which you can't get new, but some people still have.) Since Verizon currently has an unlimited smartphone data plan, and its the same $30/month that AT&T's is -- $5 more than AT&T's 2GB/month plan and $15 more than AT&T's 200MB/month plan -- I'd expect that if they offer the iPhone and keep the unlimited plan available the price will stay right there at $30/month.
The ultimate goal of "competition" is to achieve monopoly status, by eliminating competitors. That is what "competition" means.
If you're a jock, that's what it means. In the context of economics, that's not what it means. At least, not what it's supposed to mean.
real Unlimited or Unlimited with a big slow down at 5gb?
Unlimited with a big slowdown at 5GB for $5 more than AT&T's 2GB plan would still be worth it.
Unfortunately for limited resources like radio frequencies or wires underground or hung above a road, there's not any alternatives to "regulated monopolies" except for government constructed and maintained shared infrastructure which brings about its own set of problems (worse or better?)....
There's not a perfect solution yet... maybe someday something like subspace communications, UWB or the (impossible) quantum entanglement communication will allow a true competitive environment for communication.
Electricity, gas lines, sewer, and water all have the same limitations. (Unless you can construct an off-the-grid building).
Assuming we're not talking about assasination, the way to "eliminate competitors" in a free market is to have a better product.
I don't see how more government control would help that.
That is what government regulation is for. It is to ensure that the best product wins under its own merits and that all costs are taken into account.
I'm ready for a new iphone, but you wont sell me one at a discount because you want to make me wait another year.
Guess what, If you want to keep me, in 1 year when I am off contract, You had better offer me a 32Gig iphone 4 for free or discount the service by $40.00 a month or I'm switching to Verizon.
If you guys are going to be 3rd rate service, then I pay far less.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Yes!
What? No! Abused monopoly/oligopoly positions allow the incumbent to exclude new competitors! As an example:
Oligopoly, almost as bad as monopoly... The abuses these companies clearly perpetrate should, by your own argument, lead to new competitors. Oh, whoops, contradiction!
Ummm... by preventing monopoly abuses? Instead of kowtowing to business interests *cough* *cough* < insert opponents political party name >
I don't think WalMart receives subsidies.
Government regulations do not have that effect. Not even close. Quite the opposite, really.
Are you being sarcastic? They get millions of dollars of tax free status for up to 10 years while their competitors still pay regular taxes.
In many cases as soon as the tax free status clears and they have to pay taxes,they close.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
The ultimate goal of "competition" is to achieve monopoly status, by eliminating competitors. That is what "competition" means.
Once you eliminate your competitors, you can do whatever you want to the market.
Not at all. My company created a product platform. The first thing we did was establish an industry standards body and release the platform to its members. In this way we created our own competition.
Of course, we determined that customers are more likely to adopt a platform if they don't consider it "vendor lock in". And while we don't eliminate competitors, we certainly strive to dominate them. There's nothing wrong with being a big fish in a small pond we dug and filled and stocked ourselves. But you most certainly can buy into and use the platform without paying us a cent.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
Government regulations do not have that effect. Not even close. Quite the opposite, really.
Worked pretty well when they broke up Ma Bell.
While there technically is a limit on how much wire you can run into my home, we are not even at 0.001 percent of that, so limited resources is not even in the discussion concerning that.
It depends on how you define "subsidies." I've read in any number of indignant Slashdot posts that Wal-Mart operates by monopolizing the retail job market in small towns, paying their employees so little that they are more-or-less forced to apply for public assistance to feed their families.
That would be a "subsidy" in my book, because such abusive business practices wouldn't be possible if Wal-Mart couldn't count on the presence of a massive welfare state.
Who knows where the truth actually lies, though.
Grandfathered unlimited data, jail broken iPhone4 running Mywi, don't think I don't think I am going to jump just yet.
I do not play in the middle of the road
Except that is what it means economically. You cant expect the leaders of a company to sit their and work towards no ultimate goal. Humans in any endeavor do not like to feel they are running in a hamster wheel and there is no way to win. They will find a way to win and then abuse that position to its fullest because greed is good to them.
That is why the free market does not work. Or at least does not work in a way that is beneficial to the many and if it does not benefit the people, there is no reason for it to exist in that way.
Because less government really helped out back when Robber Barons and coal towns existed.
That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
If your product is so good that no one else can compete, then who cares?
Exactly! Because as we all know there is only one set of requirements a person can have, there is only one right way to do things, only one kind of taste or preference, and one size fits all.
Fox News gets the best ratings, by far. Therefore it's clearly the best, most accurate news source and nobody has a need for anything else!
This space available.
I am altering the data-cap. Pray I don't alter it any further.
A subsidy is when the government supplements a business' income. I don't think failing to withdraw their income counts. Regardless, small businesses often pay no taxes, so it's hardly relevant to the argument. And I've never heard of a Walmart closing down, except to build a bigger one nearby.
I love seeing all of the posts making "unlimited" sound like it's a fairy tale. Verizon has NEVER limited my data usage since being forced to remove the "unlimited" marketing if it was actually limited. NEVER. I have had months where I use a gigabyte or two, and I have had months where I used in excess of 6gb (I think I've gone as high as 9gb when an app on my phone freaked out and went in a download loop for an entire night). This is all without tethering. I've never been throttled. I've never been cut off. I've never been charged extra. Hell, I've never been bothered with warnings or other notices. Thanks to court rulings, if the provider says it's unlimited, it really is.
Again, with Verizon, I have NEVER been cut off, charged extra, nor throttled when exceeding the limits claimed by naysayers.
If you must know, most of my data usage is streaming music. Slacker Radio is probably my most used Android app, and I have used the high bandwidth streams ever since it was added as an option.
HOWEVER, there are data caps on tethering and laptop connect plans. These plans have not said "unlimited" for some time now. In fact, as I've repeatedly noted in the past, the 5gb cap is in bold faced text on the website.
Wal mart pays the same as other retailers. You are misinformed. They do help their employees collect government services, but it's not Walmart that put those people in that position. Obviously they'd go out of business if they offered an adequate wage, since everyone else would have such a huge price advantage over them. Most of the anti-walmart stuff you read is FUD, targated at them because they're the biggest retailer. And despite what everyone says, they got that way by having honest business practices (by working to prevent conflicts of interest with their buying staff, and by preventing unionization, which tends to drive down entry level wages for no good reason).
Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
the way to "eliminate competitors" in a free market is to have a better product.
That's only one of many ways to beat competitors and not necessarily the most effective one. It's not hard to come up with examples of inferior products that ended up dominating the market. In fact if you look at many disruptive technologies they are often inferior in many ways to the technologies they replace. Price, availability, service, control of a scarce resource such as a raw material or distribution channel, artificial monopolies in the form of patents, better sales people, better personal networks, trade barriers, market entry costs, economies of scale, marketing, and image are just a few of the tools that come into play. The notion of the better mousetrap always winning is pure, unadulterated fiction.
If your product is so good that no one else can compete, then who cares?
That's a nice fantasy but vanishingly uncommon in real life.
If you start trying to abuse your monopoly position, new competition will come.
Not necessarily. You might get slapped down by the government but it's quite possible to establish a monopoly that cannot be dislodged by conventional market forces. DeBeers at one time owned the vast majority of the diamond mines in the world as well as had control of the primary distribution channel. They had a de-facto monopoly on diamond supply which could not be dislodged because there was little product available from anyone else. It would be hard to argue that they didn't abuse their position but the only thing that could really dislodge them was the discovery of new sources of diamonds.
That is what government regulation is for. It is to ensure that the best product wins under its own merits and that all costs are taken into account.
Government regulations do not have that effect. Not even close. Quite the opposite, really.
They do when they are designed well. Granted it doesn't happen enough, partly because well designed regulations are actually really hard to pull off, but that doesn't mean it doesn't happen. It's not hard to find government regulations that do indeed increase competition and make commerce more competitive and consumer friendly. Unfortunately it's just as easy to find regulations that do exactly the opposite.
Since your statement "the way to eliminate competitors in a free market is to have a better product" is false.
You are under the false impression that the free market results in better products.
Looking at this from Verizon's POV, sometimes it's OK to come in second place. Think about it...AT&T comes out with the iPhone first. From what we can tell, their network wasn't fully ready and AT&T paid for it hard. Lots of bad publicity from people getting poor connections and data limits. Meanwhile, Verizon's had plenty of time to beef up their network. Realistically, Apple couldn't stay tied to AT&T forever. Bad for business. Eventually the (somewhat) limited market saturates and you sell very few "new" iPhones. Verizon runs #2 in the market. Makes for the most likely expansion place for Apple. Verizon sits back waiting for the opportunity and keeps tweaking its' network. Apple comes a-knockin' and Verizon can point a say "Look at our network. We're ready for you and your customers!" My money is on Verizon having a pretty smooth roll-out. Not to say there won't be glitches, but I bet they come out smelling better than AT&T did at roll-out.
Ok, we've established that government intervention can empower competition. Now we are just haggling over the best way to do it.
I see. You are saying they have the potential to do good. I am saying they currently do a lot more bad than good.
If you start trying to abuse your monopoly position, new competition will come.
Sure, new competition will come...if the barrier to entry is not too high.
Also, the company with the monopoly product may simply lower prices -- temporarily -- to kill the new would-be competitor. Once the competitor is dead, prices can safely be raised again.
A lot of people and companies will be smart enough to have figured this out, and won't bother trying to compete against monopoly products, because it's too risky.
The best solution to a monopoly is to not allow the monopoly to happen in the first place. If it does, either break up the company, or use regulation to fix the situation, or both. Those are the only truly pragmatic and effective solutions.
Not that I expect the "free markets solve everything" types to ever believe that...(not that I'm accusing you of being one of those types).
Ma Bell looks pretty broken up to me these days... Here in the US, corporate regs are fucking laughable. Wake me up when we see corporations dissolved for breaking a regulation, other than just sold to some other holding company in a shell game.
mod up funny
I was seriously considering getting the latest droid phone which has 2x 1Ghz processors and I heard Verizon's signal carries through thick walls and has overall better response and throughput than AT&T.
But now I have to worry that I would have the same problem that I get with my iphone. You have 3000 people in a single cell region or two and at lunch time some of them want to waste time looking up videos. Then I want just want to read the news I have to turn off my phone then turn it back on to get a connection. Oh sure, the phone lies and SAYS it's connected, but when it comes back on it takes 2 - 3 minutes before it establishes a signal with the mothership again.
Meh, I'll stick with my el-cheapo Samsung Intercept on Virgin Mobile for the contract-free rate of $25 a month with unlimited data, text, email etc... the iPhone is great (I love my iPod Touch) but I can't bring myself to pay 3 times as much a month for it. I imagine many smartphone users aren't even aware of Virgin or think (perhaps rightly so) that the network (Sprint) is inferior. I admit it certainly doesn't compete with AT&T or Verizon here in the Boston area but I don't need to watch movies on my phone - and did I mention it's only 25$ a month for (300min) voice and unlimited data?
If your product is so good that no one else can compete, then who cares?
Exactly! Because as we all know there is only one set of requirements a person can have, there is only one right way to do things, only one kind of taste or preference, and one size fits all.
Uh.. what does this have to do with what I said?
Fox News gets the best ratings, by far. Therefore it's clearly the best, most accurate news source and nobody has a need for anything else!
Of course. Fox News is the only possible reason someone would want a smaller government.
Assuming we're not talking about assasination, the way to "eliminate competitors" in a free market is to have a better product.
Or a better salesman.
Not that I expect the "free markets solve everything" types to ever believe that...(not that I'm accusing you of being one of those types).
I'm not convinced it'll solve everything, it just seems like all of the monopolies people complain about were obviously created by the government.
The main thing I'm not sure about is monopolies on a limit resource. In some cases, I don't see it as a big deal (oil is limited, so oil companies inflating prices just encourages research into alternatives), but there are cases where there really are no alternatives.
The barrier of entry issue comes up with things like internet access, but what seems to happen in a lot of cases is that the government pays some company a pile of money to provide mediocre service, and no one can compete because the upfront costs (which the monopoly didn't have to pay) are prohibitive.
Government regulations do not have that effect. Not even close. Quite the opposite, really.
Copyrights and patents are fine examples of government regulation that encourages innovation.
Randish burps...
I apologize if this was already mentioned, but last time I checked (May 2010), Verizon's unlimited plan isn't truly unlimited. After 5GB of data usage, there is a $50 charge per extra GB. When I figured this out in May, I was quite unhappy that Verizon calls it an "Unlimited" data plan.
than bad.
That is because it is government that is the source of all innovation.
Without government regulation, society would end up being like Somalia.
The more government control we have, the richer people become through better products in the marketplace.
We need to be encouraging more government regulation, not less.
Copyrights and patents are fine examples of government regulation that encourages innovation.
Only moments later, mozumber was introduced to slashdot. The results were not good.
... and then they built the supercollider.
It is true that government itself can become a problem (see software patents), but you can't use a slippery slope argument to prevent all government involvement.
Oh btw, I do disagree that government is currently doing more bad than good. I think the greatest threat to our current economy is the unchecked cancerous growth of the financial sector. It is taking an ever increasing percentage of GDP and giving back nothing extra but instability.
Capitalism is a great engine for finding an optimal solution to the problem of supply and demand. However it is not guaranteed to correctly frame the problem of supply and demand. The current focus on short term profits, and the ability of middle men to make money on volume not outcomes is perverting the system. Government is needed to ensure the risks to the overall financial system are taken into account and that failure becomes an option for the high risk takers.
Which was necessary to address the harm done by previous government regulations (the ones that gave Ma Bell her monopoly.)
such as "If you start to abuse your monopoly position, new competition will come".
No.
Monopoly positions do not remove themselves through new competition.
They achieved their monopoly position through competition already, so any new competitor will be eliminated as well.
You have a far too simplistic view of economics. Very much a childish idealism, very dreamy, very sweet, very innocent.
I am entertained by it, which is why I am trolling you.
I can hear it now. Android is kicking so much iPhone ass, that Verizon clamoring for the iPhone just proves just how dead iPhone is!
*yawn*
Sorry fanboys. Unless you're getting a cut for every phone sold, marketshare doesn't to you. You're just that guy with a Zune tattoo.
Wow, you are not being sarcastic. Small businesses with brick & mortar sites and employees pay significant taxes. You are mistaken. Walmart drives these small businesses out of business in part because they go in with a 3% to 6% advantage right off the bat.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
... because it doesn't have heavy users. Wait until the iPhone is introduced and watch the fallout. There is no way any carrier can handle thousands of iPhone users within a small range.
I don't know the particulars, but my guess is that the monopoly was given in order to secure investment in order to build out the infrastructure.
That is btw another good example of where government is needed. It is necessary to manage situations where the overhead of duplicated effort is prohibitively expensive. Without the duplication of effort there is no choice. Without choice, market forces can not work. For utilities it is simply not practical to have multiple lines wired to every house. Therefore we have managed monopolies instead.
Oh and one more thing. I hope you are not trying to imply that government is always the problem, because I can easily list cases where not enough government oversite was the issue. Lets go with Enron and Bernie Madoff of the top of my head as prime examples.
To me it looks like the government is enabling the financial sector by basically guaranteeing their loans. They'd all be out of business right now were it not for that. I consider the financial sector to be like an unofficial (quasi-official?) branch of the government.
The ultimate goal of "competition" is to achieve monopoly status
The ultimate goal of "competition" is to make as much money as possible. That may be through attempting to achieve a monopoly, or it may not. Also, depending on the competitor, the goal of competition in the market may include a: scratching a particular curiosity, b: not being left out of a burgeoning market in case it suddenly seems like the hot place to be, c: proving to daddums that you can make money too, d: all or any of the above.
The ______ Agenda
No, small businesses almost always pay out everything to the owner as a wage rather than posting a profit. That way it is all taxed as income. They also function as a nifty tax shelter because the owner can deduct a lot of personal expenses as business expenses (vehicles, meals, equipment, stuff like that). If you own your own small business, you are in a much better situation than Wal-Mart as far as taxes are concerned.
Their entire advertising campaign could be: we are not AT&T. They would still get more iPhone users in 1 year than AT&T managed in ~3 years.
my guess is that the monopoly was given in order to secure investment in order to build out the infrastructure.
My guess is that the monopoly privilege was bought and paid for by the investors in AT&T, and the congress couldn't care less as long as they got their bribe money.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Well of course the government is enabling the financial sector, but they kind of have to now. The problem was not breaking up the "Too big to fail" before they failed. If you are on a sinking ship with nowhere else to go, you'll give anything to keep it afloat even if it is junk.
Btw, you just can't blame the government. It's the citizens too. Remember all the outrage over bailing out the bank. You'd think that they'd want to at least break them up now, or get tighter controls since we foot the bill for the banks screwups.
But NO!!!! Now all you here from that crowd is "We don't want government telling business what to do". If I didn't know better, I'd say it was just all manufactured outrage to get pro-business Republicans elected. But hey, I'm just not that cynical. Oh wait.. I'm:)
Deducting the taxes isn't the same thing as not paying them in the first place.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Probably part of that too.
However you just can't get around the fact that it is not economical to run multiple phone, gas, power, sewer and cable lines to every house. Even if you could, would you want the streets dug up or blocked every time a new company wanted to compete?
It really only makes sense as a managed monopoly. Pure capitalism isn't the best fit for everything. Use the right tool for the right job.
It's not about the physical limit on how much wire you can fit in a given space. It's about the limit on how much wire people want running into their homes and along public streets. A dozen phone companies running parallel sets of wires is inefficient, inconvenient, unattractive and possibly unsafe.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
The obvious solution would be to separate the phone wire business from the phone service business. The phone wires might even be handled by the government (like the streets are). The phone service providers would then simply rent the phone wires. If you change the phone service provider, the new phone service provider can rent the very same wire (because the wire provider doesn't care from whom he gets the money, just that it's paid).
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
There are many kinds of pandora beads
such as glass pandora beads, turquoise pandora beads,agate pandora beads,rhinestone pandora beads.
The hole of the pandora beads are 4mm or lager than 4mm which will fit
pandora bracelet.
Government regulations do not have that effect. Not even close. Quite the opposite, really.
Well, what it is for and what it actually achieves are two different concepts.
For example, copyright is for protecting the creators. What is achieves is mostly the protection of the media companies.
The stock exchange is for allowing investors to participate in company profit through dividends. What it achieves is investors winning (or losing) mostly through speculation.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Most of the anti-walmart stuff you read is FUD, targated at them because they're the biggest retailer. And despite what everyone says, they got that way by having honest business practices
Forget random FUD for and against them and just look at what the courts have said. They've paid out hundreds of millions of dollars in class-action suits after it was found that the forced employees to work off the clock (see, for instance, http://www.usatoday.com/money/companies/management/2005-11-02-walmart-employees_x.htm "Wal-Mart, which earned $10 billion last year, agreed to pay $50 million in 2000 to settle a class-action lawsuit alleging that 69,000 former and current Wal-Mart employees in Colorado had been forced to work off the clock").
They've paid out millions of dollars in dozen of lawsuits over unfair practices with respect to hiring of disabled employees; they've been raided at least 3 different times for having scores of illegal immigrants working in their stores, and not just on an ad-hoc basis--the 2003 raid was of stores in over 20 different states with hundreds of workers involved (see http://money.cnn.com/2003/10/23/news/companies/walmart_worker_arrests/ which notes that "federal law enforcement officials said information from an undercover investigation revealed that some Wal-Mart executives and some store managers knew of the immigration violations.").
They're currently facing the biggest gender discrimination suit in US history--see http://money.cnn.com/2010/12/06/news/companies/Wal-mart-lawsuit-to-Supreme-Court/index.htm
So, yeah, "honest business practices".
rage, rage against the dying of the light
And I've never heard of a Walmart closing down, except when their employees use legal means to better their lives.
FTFY!
four months into the two-year contracts, they pull that unlimited rug out from under and substitute a paper placemat with puzzles on the back.
Apple has been pissing off customers and potential customers (Me) for too damn long with an expensive phone with ONE carrier. The time they spent forcing people into a mold, one carrier to rule them all demonstrated to me that customer satisfaction is the LAST thing on Apple's mind. Seems its been years that the customers have been begging and screaming for alternative carriers to a deaf ear that leaks little hints that a new carrier was coming. I won't believe it till I SEE it. The apple store, is hell for an iPhone developer who might need to do custom programs for small groups. Oh the guidelines on program design are fine, but there is ABSOLUTELY no place for the situation where someone needs me to develop an iPhone app for just their company where the company might not want the app available on the apple store. Lots and LOTS of work was lost to me because of that. Oh there's workarounds like buying the $299 Enterprise developer deal, where those small groups can run your app as a beta tester - How droll!! Now that similar restrictions are being considered for the next OS X code named Lion, I am even more loathe to trust or believe. Oh don't get me wrong. I love the Mac, I love the quiet of the Mac compared to my PC that sounds like a JET ENGINE tethered to the desk. After getting spoiled by the Mac, I hardly turn on my PC because the fan noise just jangles my nerves. I think the iPhone looks SLICK! I just feel like purchasing an iPhone is putting myself up for disappointment and frustration and putting myself under the yoke of the deaf ear of Apple is just a bit premature. Maybe in a year IF users of the iPhone are happy, then maybe, but not now.
www.Migrainesoft.com - Computer giving you a headache? We can fix that!
Is this the same Verizon that a month or so back we had an article where they were ending their unlimited data plans in the next 6 months.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Oh btw, I do disagree that government is currently doing more bad than good. I think the greatest threat to our current economy is the unchecked cancerous growth of the financial sector. It is taking an ever increasing percentage of GDP and giving back nothing extra but instability.
I would argue that the unchecked cancerous growth of the financial sector that you speak of is *caused* by government regulation. They take things that should be illegal, and instead legalize and regulate them. One example is the legalized fraud of fractional reserve banking: allowing banks to lend out money that they don't have based on a signed promissory note and a small percentage of reserve in their vault.
Assuming we're not talking about assasination, the way to "eliminate competitors" in a free market is to have a better product. If your product is so good that no one else can compete, then who cares? If you start trying to abuse your monopoly position, new competition will come.
This totally ignores history. Microsoft for example managed to eliminate consumer choice through anti-competitive means. Even today, they still have the "applications barrier to entry" that Judge Jackson attempted to remedy.
Here's some highlights from the Microsoft trial:
... the Court concludes that Microsoft maintained its monopoly power by
anticompetitive means and attempted to monopolize the Web browser market,
both in violation of 2. Microsoft also violated 1 of the Sherman Act by
unlawfully tying its Web browser to its operating system.
- from "CONCLUSIONS OF LAW" from UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff, v.
MICROSOFT CORPORATION, Defendant. Civil Action No. 98-1232 (TPJ)
Microsoft has responded to competitive challenges, not by persuading
customers to select Microsoft products based on price and quality, but by
curtailing customer choice or eliminating consumer influence altogether.
- from "BRIEF AMICUS CURIAE OF THE SOFTWARE AND INFORMATION INDUSTRY
ASSOCIATION, IN SUPPORT OF THE UNITED STATES" UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff, v. MICROSOFT CORPORATION, Defendant.
Civil Action No. 98-1232 (TPJ)
Compaq wanted to use OS/2 but opted not to out of fear of retaliation from
Microsoft. Hewlett-Packard made a similar decision about OS/2 for the same
reason
- Garry Norris, IBM, about securing the Windows licensing
agreements from Microsoft in a DOJ vs. MS deposition.
A "tethering fee" is, to put it bluntly, a stupid concept
I agree totally, IF you got more bandwidth I'd be OK with it but you do not.
So that was why I brought it up, because Verizon could win a lot of fans by not adding additional fees for tethering - even if the data plan cost a bit more!
The only saving grace is that with the pro-rating turning on tethering for a day is cheaper than any paid WiFi anywhere.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If new data tells us there's going to be an eclipse this year, somebody's been fucking up big time for a few hundred years.
a) I didn't specify a year, I was talking generally about the concept of an eclipse
b) There was a solar eclipse just a few days ago - in THIS year. Google for "Solar Eclipse ISS".
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly
A "Natural Monopoly" is a market in which the costs of getting started are so high that no one can hope to compete with the incumbent power. In a situation where no competitors can realistically enter, the incumbent power naturally has monopoly power to do what they wish.
Free markets are good because of competitive pressure. But a free market can gravitate towards monopolies where no competitive pressure exists. In such cases, regulation is needed as a last resort to kick-start a competitive process.
"Such a process happened in the water industry in nineteenth century Britain. Up until the mid-nineteenth century, Parliament discouraged municipal involvement in water supply; in 1851, private companies had 60% of the market. Competition amongst the companies in larger industrial towns lowered profit margins, as companies were less able to charge a sufficient price for installation of networks in new areas. In areas with direct competition (with two sets of mains), usually at the edge of companies' territories, profit margins were lowest of all. Such situations resulted in higher costs and lower efficiency, as two networks, neither used to capacity, were used. With a limited number of households that could afford their services, expansion of networks slowed, and many companies were barely profitable. With a lack of water and sanitation claiming thousands of lives in periodic epidemics, municipalisation proceeded rapidly after 1860, and municipalities were able to raise finance for investment, which private companies often could not. A few well-run private companies that worked together with local towns and cities (gaining legal monopolies and thereby the financial security to invest as required) did survive, providing around 20% of the population with water even today. The rest of the water industry in England and Wales was reprivatised in the form of 10 regional monopolies in 1989."
I guess that's why the USPS is so successful.
If you aren't suspicious of your government's actions, you aren't doing your job as a responsible citizen.
Make no mistake, Bernie Madoff is enabled by the government.
If you aren't suspicious of your government's actions, you aren't doing your job as a responsible citizen.
Do you realize how much you pay in personal income taxes vs. corporate income taxes?
If you aren't suspicious of your government's actions, you aren't doing your job as a responsible citizen.
Not true. People don't care how many wires are running for the most part. If you ask people how many wires are on the poles that run down their street, they will either say none, because they are underground, or they won't know. At some point, you could get too many wires, be we are so far away from more wires being a problem that it is silly to even talk about it.
And here is the proof :)
Having the government run the wires would be a disaster, as there would be no incentive for them to upgrade, or repair low quality lines. The obvious solution is for the government to own the poles and rent the ability to run cables on those poles. In increasingly common case of the wire being run underground, the government should have a pipe system, and rent space there. Government agencies have a good deal of experience running pipe system, and tend to do it well. A system similar to the sewer system would give them enough physical space to rent out to dozens of providers.
It isn't the running of wires, or the wire itself that makes running new data wares to homes expensive. It is the digging up of streets, and the cost buying the right aways in places where the governments have mandated monopolies.
Last mile data to the home is not a natural monopoly. It is an artificial monopoly mandated by local governments.
What you state as the purpose of the stock exchange is NOT the purpose of the stock exchange, no matter how much you'd like it to be.
The purpose of the stock exchange is to have a place where individuals can engage in speculatory trading of company shares they hold. That IS the reason stock exchanges came into existence.
Your little idealistic notion of allowing investors to participate in company profit through dividends... that's revisionist history.
Go ahead, read up on the subject. It'll be enlightening for you. I'm sure you'll be interested in finding out exactly why wall street came to be. Or why the exchanges in the Netherlands came to be. Or why the London exchange came to be.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
No, a subsidy is when a government grants an economic advantage to a business. Given them a tax haven or holiday is indeed a subsidy.
What? We're talking about retail businesses, here. They pay property tax on their retail space, even the small ones. Even if they don't pay it directly, they pay it as part of their rent to their landlord.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Assuming we're not talking about assasination, the way to "eliminate competitors" in a free market is to have a better product.
How sweet. Meanwhile, back in the real world competitors are eliminated by buying them out, colluding with some to eliminate others, using predatory pricing, leveraging a dominant position in a different market, infriging on their copyrights or patents, misleading advertizing ...
How would less regulation help that?
What I want to know is: when are cell phone data plans going to be priced based on speed, and not byte quotas per month? Since that's the only real metric that matters.
Our home internet connections are priced by bandwidth. And bandwidth (not quota totals) are what really matter on the back-end, within the cell carrier's own infrastructure. So that's how it should be priced to the consumer.
Gone would be the days of worrying about going over some stupid "quota". You have your speed, and the data will indefinitely roll in at that speed.
Yes it is. It is exactly the same. You do not owe taxes on anything you deduct from your income.
When a corporation posts a profit, they pay taxes on that profit. Then if they pay it out as a dividend it is taxed again as income. The result is a much higher tax rate for corporate profits, as they are added on top of the income tax that will have to be paid no matter what. Small businesses avoid this tax, by paying any profit to the owner as a wage. Large businesses can't do that because they are publicly traded (and need to generate shareholder value).
Monopolies will naturally break down. Often by unforseen means. Microsoft is a shell of what it once was, because of Linux, and Linux would not be possible if there was competition in the OS market place.
Coopertition (cooperative competition) will always break the monopoly. The problem with that is that people have to set aside their base instincts and fear of the "other guy". Linux is the perfect example of this process, where big companies are in competition while cooperating on Linux Kernel. The result is that we have linux/android, linux/server, linux/desktop, linux/tablet all working together in competitive fashion to make better product than Microsoft can alone and by itself.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
But you literally said "The more government control we have, the richer people become through better products in the marketplace." Do you believe that there is no end to how much we should increase government control? If not, surely there is room to argue about where government control should end.
People don't care how many wires are running for the most part.
Not the number of wires per se, but they do care about secondary effects, like how often their streets are obstructed or their sidewalks dug up by yet another phone company installing yet another set of lines.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
How sweet. Meanwhile, back in the real world competitors are eliminated by buying them out, colluding with some to eliminate others, using predatory pricing, leveraging a dominant position in a different market, infriging on their copyrights or patents, misleading advertizing ...
How would less regulation help that?
Buying out all of your competitors is not a long-term strategy. It results in losing money. Predatory pricing is the same way. Dominance in one market may help to enter another, but it hardly guarantees a monopoly. Copyrights and patents are both government-created methods of forming a monopoly. Misleading advertising may be able to make a company dominant in a market, but won't destroy competition. See Coke/Pepsi (generic cola exists), Microsoft (OSX, BSDs, Linux, several Unixes), Apple (many many iPod competitors).
Collusion is an interesting case where I think an argument could be made for regulation. At the same time, collusion just puts many businesses in the same boat as one business trying to keep out competition. If a grocery store makes an agreement to only sell one brand of toothpaste, then they may make that toothpaste more popular, but they'll lose the business of people wanting a different brand.
That would only apply to underground cabling, as running wires on poles does not obstruct streets or dig up sidewalks. For underground data lines, the only reason to dig is because local governments don't plan ahead. A sewer pipe like system would allow new data lines to be pulled and remove the need to dig up streets and sidewalks. Of course, the claim that people are actually concerned about having the sidewalks dug up is BS. People only care when it is non-stop. Even with 20 providers, it wouldn't happen enough for people to notice an increase.
Oh and thanks for the patronizing. It really makes your argument more convincing.
This is historically how banks have done business. I'm not saying it isn't fraud, but you are basically wanting to outlaw banks (again, that's not necessarily a bad idea).
Indeed, I believe that modern banking is a fraud. I don't know how far back the current practice goes, but I don't think disallowing banks from lending money they don't have will necessarily outlaw banks altogether. There would still be a demand for their legitimate services.
I think growth would be much slower and more stable. I think it would eliminate the boom-and-bust business cycle, so it would be a good thing for the average person.
Not that I think this would ever happen...
Running wires on poles does obstruct traffic. Those wires don't string themselves; the phone/cable/power company pulls up in a big truck that takes up half the street to install them.
When there's a storm and the wind or the trees knock down the lines, the downed lines themselves pose a hazard and an inconvenience, and then the company comes back to fix them and takes up half the street again.
It's a mild inconvenience when there's only one company doing it. It'd be a much greater inconvenience with a dozen companies. If you don't think that happens enough for people to notice, well, I guess that says something about the part of the country you live in: not everyone is lucky enough to have such calm weather. My mom has to deal with downed lines at least once a year.
As for planning ahead by installing underground conduits, it would've been nice if local governments had foreseen the need for that 100 years ago when much of this infrastructure was being set up. Unfortunately, they didn't, and installing those conduits would be a massive expense (not to mention the inconvenience of tearing up every road to install them).
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
You are looking for problems that don't exist. We already have downed power lines. Yes, those are a hazard. Any weather that is bad enough to bring down a data line is going to be so much worse of a hazard than the data line itself, that it is irrelevent.
By your logic, we should already be requiring the cable and/or phone companies to be removing their lines. I have not heard of a single incident of that happening. Television is completely deliverable via wireless. There are two nationwide companies that offer TV service to virtually every home in the country, yet no one is calling for the removal of the cable lines. Why? Because it just isn't a hazard or inconvenience. Certainly not enough of one to even be on peoples radar.
Clearly you have no idea what you are talking about when you start making claims about local governments needing have recognize the need for conduit 100 years ago. Most places with buried phone lines had it buried less than 100 years ago, and 100% of the places with buried TV cable has had it buried less than 100 years ago.
Given that you are just making things up (as I don't believe for a second that cable television has been available in your area for 100 years), you clearly understand that I am right, and just don't want to admit it.
Yes, but will Verizon offer the "Dropped Calls" feature I get with AT&T?
No, most mature businesses run under a 10% profit rate.
Walmart gets 6% more profit because they don't pay taxes that you do.
Your profit rate is 10%. Their profit rate is 16%.
Then they lower prices by 6%.
Your profit if you compete is 4%. If you don't compete you go out of business.
They make a healthy profit. You starve
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
You are looking for problems that don't exist.
No, I'm explaining why services such as power, phone, cable, water, sewer, and gas are commonly considered "natural monopolies".
That isn't something I or the other parent poster made up for this thread, it's a widely held belief, and this is the reasoning behind it: duplicating all that infrastructure leads to unnecessary costs and not only for the customers who use it. Would you like to try to understand that, or would you rather reject it and remain confused about why so many people disagree with you?
Any weather that is bad enough to bring down a data line is going to be so much worse of a hazard than the data line itself, that it is irrelevent.
[...]
Television is completely deliverable via wireless. There are two nationwide companies that offer TV service to virtually every home in the country [...]
Two things that trees commonly do are (1) knock over power lines when there's a storm and (2) obstruct the view of the sky. Perhaps you live in a part of the country where trees are uncommon, so you might just need to take my word for it, but there are plenty of areas where satellite TV is impractical and areas where downed lines are common.
By your logic, we should already be requiring the cable and/or phone companies to be removing their lines.
No, there are clear benefits to having at least some wires in place: cable and phone systems aren't just capable of reaching areas that satellite can't, they're also capable of delivering features that satellite can't (e.g. satellite internet can't compete with cable internet).
But there are also clear benefits to minimizing the number of such wires. It's easy to weigh the benefits of the first set of wires against the costs and conclude that having those wires is a good thing. It's much harder to come to the same conclusion about the tenth set of wires.
Given that you are just making things up (as I don't believe for a second that cable television has been available in your area for 100 years), you clearly understand that I am right, and just don't want to admit.
Given statements like this, you are clearly an arrogant ass.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
Government is the ultimate anti-consumer monopoly. There is zero competition for the government, and there is no incentive for it to improve because citizens are already required by law to pay for its services through taxes.
The courts are the largest source of FUD on the planet. In the US you can sue anyone for anything. Simply being sued does not in any way imply guilt and it is not even clear if discrimination lawsuits of this nature can even be granted class-action status.
Unpaid overtime is a bad practice, but it's common in a lot of industries. It is not clear that this is a problem specific to WalMart in any way. Nor is it clear that it is an ongoing problem. Moreover I did not claim that WalMart was perfect (such a claim would surely be wrong) but that their good business practices are what gives them an edge, not worker exploitation.
Also, I don't give a rats ass if they employ illegal immigrants. In my opinion there should be no such thing as an illegal immigrant, and it's a crime against humanity that our government has decided to attach that label to certain individuals occupying the united states (where we supposedly value individual freedom, btw). But do you honestly expect me to believe that most small businesses don't employ "illegals"? That is absurd.
Your argument is that:
1) "Unpaid overtime is a bad practice, but it's common in a lot of industries"
First, it's illegal. And second, "other people break the law" isn't an excuse. And third, whether it's common practice in some industries is unrelated to whether it's an honest business practice or not (which was the question at hand).
2) "Also, I don't give a rats ass if they employ illegal immigrants. In my opinion there should be no such thing as an illegal immigrant"
That's coherent, but also irrelevant as to whether they practiced honest business practices or not. Again "other people lie and cheat" isn't a defense against the assertion that you lie and cheat; it may impact how important we ultimately feel that honesty in business is, but it has nothing to do with whether Walmart practiced business honestly.
3) "Nor is it clear that it is an ongoing problem"
It's pretty clear to anyone who's bothered to spend a half hour researching it.
4) "The courts are the largest source of FUD on the planet"
I don't even know how to address this. Clearly the courts are not merely imperfect but often institutionally biased at best and arguably insane or malicious at worst. But if you actually believe they're "the largest source of FUD on the planet", I don't know what to tell you other than that a) you're incredibly naive; and b) I believe the burden of proof is clearly on you to back up this statement.
rage, rage against the dying of the light
I said that they had good business practices, not that they had no bad ones. I specifically mentioned two business practices that have been effective for them. I did not mean to imply that there weren't other good practices, but I certainly did not mean to imply that all their practices were good either.
The issue of whether or not other businesses follow the same practices is relevant, since we are comparing them to other businesses.
As for whether or not the courts generate the most FUD, I suppose it depends whether you are talking about volume (since the stuff lawyers write is quite wordy) or exposure (practically no one reads legal documents). Of course, I am making use of hyperbole. Courts are not a relevant source because they do not seek to evaluate the goodness of practices, but rather adherence to laws written by politicians or contracts written by lawyers. I don't believe being a politician or a lawyer makes one an expert on good business practices.
While I would say unpaid overtime is a bad practice, I also believe it has a negative overall effect on the company's bottom line (and that is why I consider it bad). The same goes for discrimination (and it is likely that the management feels the same way on that one). Hiring illegals is certainly not bad, by any reasonable standard.
Citing court cases is problematic also because Wal-Mart's status as the world's largest retailer makes them a lightning rod for litigation and FUD alike. Everyone want's a piece of the action.
In any case, I've worked for several large businesses including Wal-Mart, and I'd rate their management and work environment as the best (and the job as the second best in terms of how much I enjoyed being there). I have friends who worked there who feel the same way, and all the Wal-Mart employees I talk to seem pretty happy. You're not going to be able to convince me they're a bad place to work without more compelling evidence than a couple court cases.