Slashdot Mirror
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")?
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...
If Verizon can offer an unlimited (or, you know, unlimited until you read the fine print) data plan that's sturdy and reliable and fast, it will be an enormous windfall for them. Verizon is not only huge, but generally accepted as providing better service, especially in the northeast. Verizon wants money and to be bigger than AT&T - offering unlimited data gets more people to switch to or pick up Verizon service with an iPhone. If they aren't priced very competitive with AT&T, they'll minimize that enormous surge, which they don't want. Make less per person, get more people - totally worth it.
The true winners are, of course, Apple. Either way, millions of people will be buying iPhones for the first and probably not the last time. Toss in the iPad 2 and Lion to round out the corners and 2011 is looking up for Apple. Competition amongst telecoms is better for consumers, but it's better for producers as well.
I live in constant fear of the Coming of the Red Spiders.
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
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.
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.
No mention of cost yet, but they have already been carrying the heavy load of Android phones for some time. They use just as much data (if not more) than an iPhone.
Quote Verizon CEO:
"Whether they are iPhones or Droids, they are smartphones," Verizon Chief Executive Ivan G. Seidenberg said in a mid-November interview. "Regardless of the mix, we are prepared to carry more data."
I would wager it will be around 30 bucks, just like AT&T's unlimited plan was before they stopped selling it (although many are grandfathered into the unlimited).
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
I've got an unlimited data plan through Verizon for my Blackberry.
Yes, it's expensive -- good thing my employer pays for it.
What I'm skeptical of is not that they'll offer an unlimited data plan, but of what kind of throttling they do.
I've noticed that I'm SEVERELY throttled when I do a big download.
Simple web surfing? No problem. Email? Not bad. Last month I downloaded a 17 Mb file and it took 2 hours... in the middle of the night when network usage HAD to be low. Maybe I just had a really bad connection.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
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 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 no longer offers the unlimited data plan. Were you to sign up as a new AT&T customer today, you would not be able to choose the unlimited plan.
Online Starcraft RPG? At
Dietary fiber is like asynchronous IO-- Non-blocking!
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!
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.
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.
Sprint's network, at least around here, is pretty good. Certainly better than AT&T's. That's based on coverage for me (on Virgin Mobile) compared to my wife (on an iPhone) next to me.
I guess I'm one of the people that would like an iPhone but won't give AT&T my money due to their warrantless wiretapping crimes. Alas it doesn't make economic sense for me to get a Verizon phone until my wife is off contract and is willing to switch, since two separate phone plans cost a lot more than a family plan.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
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.
The only true statement in your post was about the Epic doing voice and data at the same time, all other statements are false.
Verizon and Sprint both use CDMA for their 3G networks.
CDMA != LTE, totally different network architecture.
Sprint uses WiMax for it's "4G" network, again different from CDMA and LTE.
Sprint doesn't allow 3G + voice.
CDMA as currently implemented by Verizon cannot support voice and data at the same time.
Verizon will supposedly launch an updated CDMA2000 network 1st half 2011 that will support the new spec and allow voice and data.
I'm betting they will be adding a small amount of crapware, but part of the reason they didn't get the iPhone 3 years ago was because Jobs wouldn't let them cripple it or control it.
Jobs hasn't gotten any more accommodating over the years so I'm guessing VZW is taking the phone pretty much as dictated.
That doesn't mean it will be as fast or as friendly as the GSM models, because CDMA does calls OR data, and unless you are on wifi concurrently, you will have to wait till your call is done to check your facebook status or send that email.
Nor do I expect a lot of iphone users to immediately jump ship. Oh, they talk big in their hatred of AT&T, but when it comes to paying off that existing AT&T phone while starting a contract with VZW for the new phone the economics of the situation will quell their bravado.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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:)
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