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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 ----
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.
iPhone has been "Coming to Verizon" for almost 3 years now. Always according to a "person close to the matter".
Maybe they'll bundle it with Duke Nukem.
I think it's rather like predicting earthquakes. If each week a different person says there's going to be a big one, statistically speaking, eventually one of them will be right. :-)
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
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
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!
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.
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!
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.
Government regulations do not have that effect. Not even close. Quite the opposite, really.
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.
But paying #3.99 for just a few seconds of a song as a ringtone when you can get the whole thing as "music" for 99 cents is a stupid concept too. But guess what... ...a good percentage (perhaps the majority) of our consumer culture is based on selling stupid concepts to stupid people.
This space available.
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.