Verizon Wireless has announced some new data-only plans that “are designed to meet the needs of customers who primarily rely on messaging to communicate with others.”
Now replace “customers” with “Verizon” and “communicate with others” to “make an ass-load of money.”
Far be it for me to tell you how to spend your hard-earned cash, but $35 per month for Mobile Web access and data usage, plus 40 cents per minute for each call you make is no way to live. That’s just for regular handsets, too. If you’ve got a device that actually uses data in a constructive way, like a BlackBerry or a PDA/Smartphone, it’ll cost you $54.99 per month and then 25 cents per minute for voice calls. Outrageous.
Now I know that Sprint and Verizon aren’t the same thing, but let’s assume for a minute that the two companies use very similar technology (which they do) and I’ll tell you a tale about how when I used to be a Sprint customer (last month) I paid $44.99 for unlimited data and 200 anytime minutes on a Smartphone, plus free evenings (starting at 7PM) and weekends. The voice part was $29.99 and the data part was $14.99. To be fair, I did have to pay for text messaging, which is included in Verizon’s thing, but I still came out at under $50 per month for fast EVDO data + voice.