Slashdot Mirror
Verizon Plans $20 Upgrade Fee Even If You Pay Full Price For a Phone (macrumors.com)
An anonymous reader writes: According to a memo leaked by MacRumors, Verizon is planning to introduce a new $20 upgrade fee starting next week. The new $20 flat rate charge will begin next Monday, April 4, and will be applied to smartphones purchased on a Device Payment financing plan, or at full retail price. The premium will also apply to those who take advantage of Apple's new iPhone Upgrade Program. Verizon cites "increasing support costs associated with customers switching their devices" as a reason for the new fees. The new fee is in addition to the existing $40 upgrade fee for customers renewing a two-year contract with a new device.
Verizon's "baby come back" letters are pathetic.
dumb phone for the win
Seriously, with added fees like this, it's as if they're trying to get people to leave their service and forcing them into T-Mobile's very very welcoming arms.
The Amarri pray for god, the Caldari pray for profit. the Gallente pray for peace, but the Minmatar pray their ships hol
because we CAN!
Even on 04/01....
In the UK, upgrade fees are unheard of. You're being ripped off.
I've always just bought my phone on my own because I have an inexpensive plan and put the SIM the new phone. Turn the new phone on and it just works. When I've needed a new SIM because the size changed I've just gotten a new one for the new phone and changed the SIM for my phone number on the website.
Look after getting several HUNDRED BILLION DOLLARS I don't understand how you can expect the BABY(Think of the children) BELLS to have implemented DSL to all of the country I mean they have only had since the mid/late 90's to do it and it's HAAARRRED MOOOMMMMMYYYY!, so all of you, should stand up for these defenders of freedom and against the big bad socialist bacauase REASONS!!!!!
I am glad you told me all about your family situation and your opinion about the need for SD cards. The discussion about upgrade fees was definitely helped by this invaluable information.
"Verizon cites "increasing support costs associated with customers switching their devices" as a reason for the new fees. "
The reality is "we want to continue increasing our profits, and nickel and diming our customers with added junk fees is the way to do it."
I don't get how this would work. This $20 fee would be triggered every time I take my SIM and insert in a new phone? So when my phone battery is dead and I pop my SIM onto my wife's phone just for a quick call I'll be charged $20?
What's the difference between Larry Ellison and G-d? G-d doesn't think he's Larry Ellison.
I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.
Can someone please explain this for us dumb foreigners? I never could make any sense of the US telephone system.
Its crazy with being charged for *incoming* calls, and roaming charges when you have not even left the country.
Why would the network care if you change handsets? Can't you just buy a new phone from the local tech-shop and swap the SIM over?
I'm seeing in "You may like to read:" a story "10 Confirmed Dead In Shooting at Oregon's Umpqua Community College".
And find myself wondering, is that ten or two? All part of the light-hearted fun of April Fools.
When a person upgrades their device they pay the costs associated with that upgrade, so how does that cost the service provider anything, exactly?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
as far as switching carriers is concerned, thats not my decision, its a family plan and my mother-in-law is in charge.
Way to take your adult life into your own hands.
Many companies have "customer retention specialists" who will waive fees if you threaten to bail to a competitor AND you are a "valuable enough" customer to make it worth their while.
In many companies, almost all customers are "valuable enough," so unless you've made a nuisance out of yourself so much that you are a "net loss" for them, they'll probably work with you.
On the other hand, if this company's attitude makes you want to quit just on principle, then by all means quit. If enough people do, it will send a message.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
But still no swappable battery (as far as I've heard).
I don't mind not being able to swap batteries with my note5 since getting samsung's fast charge battery pack.
I wish I had the mod points or the time to write an epistle about how right this is. Since the 90's the telecom industry as a whole has received approximately 42 trazillion dollars in tax breaks and outright gubment kickbacks to "improve infrastructure", which, of course, they scrupulously (as a consortium) haven't done. Instead, they've used that money to buy each other, and more lobbyists to collect yet more "incentives". Meanwhile, customers are saddled with more fees, bandwidth caps and piss-poor service in general.
My ${DEITY}, Mexico (FUCKING MEXICO (not being racist or anything, just sayin')) has better phone service than we do.
Of course they do.. what's the alternative? These companies build wireless networks able to span across one of the largest countries in the world with demands from customers to have 4G when an LTE tower has an effective range of about 8 miles of line of sight or 1.6 miles of rough terrain. There are individual farms in the US that could require 20 or more high powered LTE towers for coverage.
It's not like Europe where there are 2-10 mobile service providers within a country and as soon as you cross to another country, you roam onto another network cleanly. Creating an LTE network in Europe costs nothing and the population density is much higher so the costs are covered more quickly. Also the governments understand the absolute critical importance of a functioning LTE network and fund their build out in to rural areas.
The US is too busy deciding between Trump and Clinton... It's like "Would you prefer to be shot in the left temple or the right temple?"... Either way, NATO will be going to war large scale within 3.5 years.
How to convince people to switch carriers.
guaranteed to make people walk.
Not sure why you have such positive view on mobile networks in Europe..
Of course, the situation differs a bit per country but in mine (densely populated netherlands) not all providers have optimal coverage, and when crossing borders roaming does exist - at excessive charges up to several pennies a MB and euro's per minute called - in contrast to relative cheap national calling&net.
G4 has largely been rolled out by 2 1/2 provider, but personally i find the reliability far from 100% - as in - my G3 only phone seems to have better internet. High speed is of no use if connection fails at every other corner.
The only thing that 'works' is competition, with t-mobile the underdog here but still with a strong yet not perfect infrastructure. However, as consumer i'd rather had they would share their networks so our phones always gets signal from the best tower - instead of fighting for a signal in a electromagnetic battlefield, my phone ending up getting hot and blasting way more watts of power than would be needed.
A glitch a day keeps the bugs away.
Also the governments understand the absolute critical importance of a functioning LTE network and fund their build out in to rural areas.
So what you're saying is you sit back and gently let you get screwed from both ends at the same time?
This is part of the point. If the government deems functional LTE to be a priority for the rural population and they are funding it, why do you then except an additional bullshit fee from the private vendor.
So with all your riches and technological know-how you can't even get a mobile network to cover your country cheaply, e.g. by making a tower reach further?
Heck, even sparsely-populated countries like Sweden and Finland have nationwide coverage for decades already and always had better prices.
It sounds like Verizon figures people just compare the base rates, and is taking a page from the airlines and is trying to get revenue from anything you do.
Rent Seeking
1.5Mbps [...] means getting blurry 480p videos with Binge On enabled.
Back when the warez scene was using MPEG-4 Part 2* as a video codec, it was common to squeeze a movie into a 700 MB AVI file to fit onto a single CD-R. A 93 minute movie would have allowed 1 Mbps for video and audio combined. And nowadays, it's more common to use the more sophisticated MPEG-4 Part 10 (aka H.264) video codec. Did the blur somehow get worse, or did user expectations get better? Or is this blur caused by some sort of peaking behavior, in which a scene release at 1 Mbps ABR can have short bursts of 2 Mbps or more balanced by sub-0.6 Mbps stretches with less action, while a 1.5 Mbps Binge On stream is capped at that rate?
* Commonly called DivX or Xvid after its popular encoder implementations.
Then you switch away from Verizon.
To whom? Just as all four U.S. carriers raised their SMS rates in lockstep a few years back, they can all raise their data rates to unapproved domains in lockstep.
Heck, even sparsely-populated countries like Sweden and Finland have nationwide coverage for decades already and always had better prices.
The issue isn't population density as much as size. Sweden may not be as densely populated but it is a small country, so it doesn't take as many towers, and resultant costs, to provide coverage. Increase that by a 10 or 20 or so times an date cost doesn't justify the added subscriber base.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Population density of the USA (including Alaska!!) is almost twice that of Sweden: 35 vs 21 people per km2. It should be easier (more economical) to cover the USA - especially if you would exclude Alaska which is mostly completely uninhabited anyway - than it is to cover Sweden.Finland is even worse, just 18 people per km2. Yet even there you have nationwide coverage.
The typical subscriber base of a US based carrier is a lot greater than that of a Swedish carrier, compensating for the larger area to cover. After all it's subscribers that bring in the money. The US has more potential subscribers per area, less carriers (less competition) and far higher fees for mobile phones - yet they can not even build out a nationwide coverage??
Why do people put up with all these BS fees the Verizon charges? I use the same network through an MVNO for a flat $30/month including all taxes and fees. I've had no issues and get more LTE data than I ever use. I bought the SIM for a subsidized $0.01 shipped and there was no activation fee. In fact, my first month was 1/2 price.
Yes, there are a few missing features. I don't get VoLTE, WiFi calling, or visual voicemail. LTE speeds are also throttled but I honestly can't tell the difference with normal usage. I certainly don't think these things are worth the extra $$$ a contract would entail.
It has everything to do with population density!
The calculation is simple, how many users (=paying subscribers) per tower.
For a comparable population density that's the same calculation for small and large countries.
Btw, Sweden is slightly larger than California and nearly 2/3 of Texas, Sweden's population is nearly 10 million.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
It has everything to do with population density! The calculation is simple, how many users (=paying subscribers) per tower. For a comparable population density that's the same calculation for small and large countries. Btw, Sweden is slightly larger than California and nearly 2/3 of Texas, Sweden's population is nearly 10 million.
The problem is that population is not evenly distributed across the US; so you have some vey dense areas and large swatches of sparsely populated ones; so if you look at average population density you get a distorted view. That is why I said it isn't a function of density per se but rather population distribution. In Sweden, for example, population distribution is somewhat split 50/50 between the south and east, which is dense, an north and west which is much more sparse. If you look at a coverage map, it pretty much aligns with the population density, as does California's. However, the US has a much larger, in absolute size, of sparsely populated areas than does say, Sweden or even Europe; which results in less coverage in some areas simply due to the cost of providing coverage exceeds the return.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Population density of the USA (including Alaska!!) is almost twice that of Sweden: 35 vs 21 people per km2. It should be easier (more economical) to cover the USA - especially if you would exclude Alaska which is mostly completely uninhabited anyway - than it is to cover Sweden.Finland is even worse, just 18 people per km2. Yet even there you have nationwide coverage.
The typical subscriber base of a US based carrier is a lot greater than that of a Swedish carrier, compensating for the larger area to cover. After all it's subscribers that bring in the money. The US has more potential subscribers per area, less carriers (less competition) and far higher fees for mobile phones - yet they can not even build out a nationwide coverage??
You can't just look at density, you must also look at how the population is distributed. While the overall density is greater, there are far larger tracts of sparsely populated areas, so many more towers would be needed than in say Sweden to provide similar coverage. That makes it much more expensive since you need many more towers to reach a very small slice of the US population. If you look at Sweden's cell of coverage map, it appears the very sparse regions in the north west have poor coverage, a situation that mirror the US in that low population density areas are not a priority when building out networks. Considering the US probably has good coverage for over 95% of the population the nationwide network is good enough of for most users and building it out to cover the small percent left its simply not cost effective.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Does anyone even use SMS anymore?
You can't (or can't in my country) sign up for Yahoo! or Gmail without it, as the providers want to ensure that each account is associated with a real person who is less likely to abuse the service by sending automated spam. In addition, numerous providers are moving toward two-factor authentication by receiving SMS. Twitter, for example, produces an error message to the effect "Carrier is not supported" if I try to add a landline instead of a mobile phone.
Indeed, that's why the calculation of paying subscribers per tower.
But I can tell you in Sweden they'll have the more densely populated areas subsidise the sparsely populated areas, very similar to the law the US had re. fixed line telephony.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
Indeed, that's why the calculation of paying subscribers per tower. But I can tell you in Sweden they'll have the more densely populated areas subsidise the sparsely populated areas, very similar to the law the US had re. fixed line telephony.
Th eUS created rural telephone and electric services, some of which exit today in areas that are no longer rural; it's a shame they didn't look to do cell phone and broadband similarly.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Oh great, another repeat of the bullshit population density argument.
1) The US, like anywhere else, does not have a uniform population distribution.
2) The thing about areas with low population density is that most people *are somewhere else*.
While low population density may be a rational excuse for not covering every square inch of Montana, it doesn't explain why New Jersey should be expected to have bad coverage.
New Jersey has 90% of the population of Sweden in 5% of the area. Why can't New Jersey have as good coverage as Sweden?
New Jersey has 90% of the population of Sweden in 5% of the area. Why can't New Jersey have as good coverage as Sweden?
Toxic waste dumps.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Let's try this again:
People who want crap video should have had to opt-in instead of making everyone opt-out.
Defaults ought to meet the preferences of the majority. I imagine that more people want to save money by accepting "crap" video that's still superior to DivX-era torrents than have a philosophical objection to defaulting to said "crap" video.
Everyone else is telling their stories, so.
I had a 3G-class MiFi card from VZW. They were rolling their network from 3G->LTE in the area where I work, and the card went from “perfect coverage” to “maybe" to "don’t even bother" in the space of about a month. I’d bought the card less than two years ago at this point.
About this time, I got a, “You’re eligible for an upgrade,” email from Verizon, so figured I’d go to the store near by one lunch break. Picked out a new LTE card, which would have cost me $99 to get a working device again. During check-out, sales drone told me my existing 3GB/month plan (more than enough for my needs at the time) was discontinued, and I’d have to pay an extra $20/month for a 5GB plan I didn’t need or want. No way to grandfather existing plan. They justified the mandatory increase because, “it was faster.” Accurate, but considering I was satisfied with 3G speeds and wouldn’t have upgraded absent them forcing the issue, not a reasonable excuse to increase my rate by 40%. Still, I needed tetherable data, so I grudgingly continued with the process only to then be told the upgrade email was “sent in error” and I would actually have to pay full price for the card.
So $99 + $20/month increase turned into $300 + $20/month increase just to continue using a service that Verizon unilaterally broke by changing their network within the reasonable lifetime of a device they sold me. Amortizing the full price card over two years, that was a $32/month increase which basically doubled what I was paying before taxes. That’s not considering that I was essentially double-paying for the card considering they were still charging me the same monthly price as if I’d taken a new device under contract while still charging me full non-contract price for the device itself.
At that point, I told them to cancel the sale. I took my existing card, snapped it in half, and dropped it on the counter saying I’d like to cancel my service now, please. Oddly enough, they didn’t try to run retention games on me after that, and just canceled no questions... Sometimes being considered the crazy customer gets stuff done.
I walked next door to AT&T to enable tethering on my iPhone instead. I lost my grandfathered AT&T unlimited data in the process alas, but saved about $20/month all told versus what I’d originally been paying Verizon, nevermind their double cost forced upgrade price.
It *was* nice having devices from two carriers in case of coverage issues with one, but haven’t missed Verizon’s BS over the last four years without them.
All the important parts are covered...mainly the turnpike.
The rest of NJ can rot in their dumps.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
It would be rather odd for NATO to attack itself, but I suppose it could happen. 90% or so of NATO's might is the US.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
I switched to Google Fi a couple weeks ago, unfortunately, I still have to wait out the VZ contract to avoid massive penalty fees.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?