Given my ongoing interest in potentially using Verizon for a wireless data provider, it was interesting to see Verizon’s announcement that they will now allow ‘month-to-month’ contracts. I called the media contact on the news release and verified that this does also apply to wireless data plans, which is my personal interest. I can’t seem to find that information yet on the Verizon Wireless web site, but perhaps these plans have not yet made their way to Keene, NH.
Now, being an advocate for a more “open” mobile Internet, I was pleased to see this:
Verizon Wireless’ new Month-to-Month agreement gives customers the freedom to purchase new devices at full-retail price, or use their own CDMA devices without the commitment of a one- or two-year contract. Additionally customers can terminate their agreement at the end of any month without paying an Early Termination Fee.
Not the “full-retail price”, naturally, but the ability to simply end the agreement at the end of the month and to use any CDMA device.
The caveat to the ability to “bring your own phone” is that while it is good to see from a “freedom/choice” point-of-view, the reality is that really the only CDMA carriers in North America are Sprint and Verizon so the odds are that you have bought your phone from one or the other. I suppose this does make it so that Sprint users can easily move over to Verizon’s network. Will this also encourage a market for third-party CDMA handsets? It will be interesting to see.
In the end, any steps that give consumers/users more choice of endpoints and the freedom to move carriers is, to me, a good thing and so it’s great to see this move by Verizon.
it is really not enough to just allow cancellation. my monthly charges should be significantly lower the carrier does not subsidize my phone. this is how it works in many European countries. you save 10 or 20 euros a month on your subscription if the carrier does not buy you a phone. but this was built on customer demand; this was not carriers action alone but the result of customers demanding the operators treat them fairer.
it is also very common at many small cell phone shops in europe for the store owners to essentially ‘buy-back’ your free phone. in other words give you a couple hundred euros cash if you do not care for a new subsidized handset. of course this is under the table to an extent and not endorsed by the operators. when i have asked cell phone shops here in the USA to do the same they reacted like i was totally crazy.
“Open access” combined with FCC termination of early termination fee abuse will lead to a much more cooperative VZW as I can jump ship when I please and use hardware that isn’t crippled by a cretin.
Hardware manufactures will be able to focus on quality in features without fear of being raped.
VZW will be forced to create a services API so open access phones, much like liberated phones now, will be able to receive message alerts (proprietary SMS now)