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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.'"
A "tethering fee" is, to put it bluntly, a stupid concept - if you've been sold a certain allocation of monthly data transfer, you have every right to use that allocation, by phone or by laptop. If your contract states you can use 2GB (or if it states "unlimited", for that matter), but they only wrote the contract in that way because they hoped that the limitations of a handheld device would prevent you from actually using your full entitlement, then they have nobody to blame but themselves if people do start causing problems by having the gall to use up the data they paid for.