Verizon

I noted a bunch of Verizon's past activities in crippling features and smart and feature phones last month...

Verizon & Google Announce Um What Exactly? Verizon Wireless Proclaims Openness?

However, I was not aware of this so-called "phantom fee" that has apparently bitten many Verzion customers with Internet capable feature phones that do not have data plans...

DLSReports.com: Verizon's $1.99 Phantom Fee Returns

The New York Times (David Pogue): Verizon: How Much Do You Charge Now?

Pogue's report quotes a source as saying that 87 million Verizon customers accidentally hit a phone key that initiates unwanted Internet access that results in more than $300 million per month in data charge revenues at $1.99 per key press. Ack!

I compared (in an unscientific single trial test) the 3G speed of the Touch Pro2 on the T-Mobile 3G network and iPhone 3G on the AT&T 3G network last week. This week I'm adding the Droid on the Verizon 3G network. You can see the results below:

As you can see, the T-Mobile result was a bit faster than AT&T (9.5%). However, Verizon's 3G was an impressive 55% faster than AT&T's 3G downstream speed. Again, these results do not constitute a true test. But, they are impressive nontheless to me.

Verizon (and every other major U.S. wireless carrier) charge $60 per month for 3G wireless data connectivity with a data limit of 5GB. But, what if you don't need 3G access for your netbook all year 'round and don't want to pay $720 per year for the few times you need the service? Verizon now offers pre-paid 3G data offerings for people with occassional 3G access needs...

Reliability Meets Flexibility With Prepaid Plans For Verizon Wireless' Mobile Broadband Service

This pre-paid service comes at a high price when taking the limited data offered though. One day of service costs $15 and provides a mere 75MB of data. Don't even think about downloading a bunch of music or a single video file. A week's worth of access costs $30 and provides a mere 250MB of data (35MB per day!). And, a month of access costs $50 for a stingy 500MB of data (16.6MB per day!).

If you are in the U.S., it might be better to sign up your Starbucks card and get one 2 hour WiFi session per day in a Starbucks as you wander around during a vacation.

Via CNET: Verizon offers prepaid wireless service for laptop users

I noted yesterday that Gearlog reported Verizon would provide 3G tethering service for the Motorola Droid for an additional $15 per month starting sometime next year...

BlackBerry-ies Do It, Windows Mobile-s Do It, Why Can't iPhones & Droids Do It? 3G Tethering

Well, NetworkWorld says that is off the mark by quite a bit...

Verizon confirms Droid tethering option, hefty price tag

Try $30 per month. This is, however, still half the price of the $60 per month charged for dedicated 3G modems for netbooks and notebooks. And, it is in line with the rumored price that AT&T will charge iPhone owners for 3G tehtering.

BlackBerry-ies do it. Windows Mobile-s do it. Even educated feature phones do it. Why can't iPhones and Droids to it too? (with apologies to Cole Porter) What is "it"? It is 3G tethering - the ability to use your phone's 3G wireless data facility with another device like a netbook or notebook. In all fairness, iPhones and Android based phones can tether. But, in the U.S. AT&T won't turn that feature on for the iPhone and it looks like Verizon is delyaing making this feature available for the Motorola Droid until next year...

Verizon Wireless: Tethering Coming for Droid (Gearlog)

Gearlog notes that you can probably expect to pay an extra $15 per month for the Droid tethering service. But, this is a good deal compared to the $60 per month you would pay for a dedicated USB 3G device or MiFi router.

As Gearlog also notes, all of these 3G plans top out at 5GB of data per month. So, don't go and download HD video on a daily basis over 3G. You might get a big surprise when you get your first bill.

I noted yesterday that...

Based on Engadget Review, Droid Has More Cons Than Pros for Me so Far

It was actually a relatively close call with the pluses and minuses adding up to a -0.5 based on the lack of multi-touch. But, if you have an email system based on Microsoft Exchange Server (as millions of people do), this news from InfoWorld may be the straw that broke the camel's back (it is for me)...

Want a Droid for work e-mail? It'll cost you extra

It reports that Verizon Wireless will charge $15 per month to allow a Motorola Droid to use Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync to access Exchange Server based email (and presumably calendar and contacts sync too). If you depend on Exchange Server based mail, this is a -10 point all by itself since other phones and carriers (AT&T + iPhone, T-Mobile + HTC Touch Pro2) simply allows this pairing to work (and quite well, thank you).

So, that's it for me. The Motorola Droid from Verizon Wireless stands at -10.5. No Droid for me.

A story I've read several time but never verified is that Apple approached Verizon Wireless to carry the iPhone before it approached AT&T Wireless. Whether or not this is true, Verizon probably wishes they had a mindshare winner like the iPhone. So, it wasn't much of a surprise to see this press release...

Groundbreaking Agreement Between Verizon Wireless And Google To Leverage High-Speed Network And Open Android Platform For Wireless Innovation

What did surprise me, however, was how little it actually said. No actual handsets or manufacturers were mentioned. And, there no launch date or even a year. The only substantive statement was the last sentence of the release: The agreement will come to fruition within the next few weeks as Verizon Wireless introduces Android-based handsets.

So, I read this Wall Street Journal blog item to see if it caught something I missed...

Google and Verizon Say Two Android Phones, With Google Voice, To Come This Year

The big item there was that Google Voice would be available on the Verizon network. But, this statement by Verizon Wireless CEO Lowell McAdam amused me: You either have an open device or not, and this will be open.

Hmm, I'll leave you to decide what this means by providing links to various past articles and blog items from various sources:

- DSLReports.com: Verizon Cripples Bluetooth on New Treo
- Engadget: Verizon's lame excuse for crippling the Bluetooth on the Motorola V710
- One Man Shouting: Motorola Q - Verizon Confirms Crippled Bluetooth
Pocket PC Thoughts: Verizon XV6700 Coming Soon, With Crippled WiFi?
Russell Beattie Notebook: Bluetooth Crippled in Verizon's New Motorola V710
- TechDirt: Verizon Still Crippling Bluetooth
- TechDirt: Turns Out Verizon Wireless' Open Pledge Has Meant Almost Nothing

YouTube video courtesy of NuanceMobileChannel

Voice dialing and, to a lesser extent, voice command are reasonably common in smartphones and even featurephones. Both of these features have been around for a while. However, it is only in the last few years that I've found them to work reasonably well. Voice dialing and voice command, while impressive, have restricted small vocabularies to deal with.

But, I've never seen actual speech-to-text dictation available as a commercial product for phone... until now... YOu can see Nuance's mobile speech product taking dictation for a text messages on a Sansumg Rogue on the Verizon Wireless network. Very impressive... Especially for a $99 phone (with a physical QWERTY keyboard!).

Nuance Mobile Devices (product page)

Reading through this New York Times article...

Customers Angered as iPhones Overload AT&T

...you can pick up the main points pretty easily:

- iPhone users use a lot more wireless data than users of other phone models
- AT&T's wireless network is unable to meet this demand
- Voice services are affected adversely too
- 34% of non-iPhone owners said they did not buy an iPhone because of AT&T's poor reputation
- Mobile data traffic is expected to double every year through 2013

I had an amusing but possibly reasonable idea after reading this: Losing exclusive rights to the iPhone in 2010 may be the best thing that ever happened to AT&T. If, for example, Verizon begins selling the iPhone on their network, AT&T's network load would drop tremendously as, possibly, millions of current iPhone using AT&T customers switch over to Verizon. AT&T's network should start feeling faster and more reliable when that happens. And, if Verizon has early growing pains as they absorb millions of new iPhone toting customers, AT&T may start looking good as their network finally matures after three years of dealing with iPhone users. Splitting iPhone customers between AT&T and Verizon would allow both firms' networks to grow at a slower pace than having all the wireless data hungry iPhone users on a single carrier. A Verizon iPhone might be the best thing that ever happend to AT&T :-)

Verizon is apparently joining AT&T and requiring smart or at least smart-ish phones (Enhanced Multimedia Phones) to have a data plan associated with (from the Boy Genius Report)...

Verizon "Enhanced Multimedia Phones" to require data plans, death of the Vpak, and more

Here's what I found most interesting about the requirements for defining an Enhanced Multimedia Phone though: The first two requirements are innocuous - 1. Premium HTML browser & 2. Rev A (3G data). The second pair of requirements are more interesting though: QWERTY keyboard and phones launched on or after September 8. Guess what is happening on September 9? Apple has scheduled a press gathering for that day. Most of us (me included) have long assumed it is its annual iPod refresh with an outside chance of a tablet form factor announcement. Now, I wonder if Apple will release a much requested phone with a physical QWERTY keyboard on Verizon's network? To be quite honest, I think this has even less of a chance than a tablet release. But, still...