Verizon Wireless Gives Contract the Heisman

....well, sort of.

I've been a fan of the contractless wireless plan ever since, well, ever since I left the carrier biz (hey, it's not an easy thing keeping everybody covered up in minutes when you have a family of seven - having choices would be nice).

And now Verizon Wireless gives customers the opportunity to sign up w/o a contract. Of course, there's a few requirements....bring in your own compatible phone or pay full price for a phone. But listen, I'll pay full price any day rather than be hog-tied to a two-year contract.

C'mon T-Mo...I like the "family allowances" thing you recently rolled out. But I'd love you a lot more if I had a G1 phone and no contract.

See the WSJ article HERE.

Alltel Targeted Sprint, AT&T, and T-Mobile

Although Verizon got the last word, Alltel's CEO, Scott Ford, reveals that Alltel "tried to buy Sprint three times, tried to buy AT&T Wireless [and] tried to buy T-Mobile." He added that "some of those times it went with partners, [while] some of those times it didn't." Essentially, Alltel was "doing everything it could to get to a national platform."

You can get all the sordid details at mocoNews.

Source: mocoNews via engadget

One Small Step for Verizon, One Giant Leap ...

...for open networks.

Verizon Wireless will open its network to outside mobile handsets, devices and applications by the end of 2008.

The company will publish technical standards for the development community by early next year, and any device that meets the minimum technical standard will be activated on the Verizon Wireless network, the company said.

Customers will be able to run any application they choose on approved devices.

3 cheers for Verizon.

Full story @ Network World.

What do Verizon and Sprint have in common? Interest in the Google Phone

Google Inc. is chewing the fat with Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel Corp., about selling handsets tailored to its new mobile-phone operating system.

It was just a matter of time, eh?



source: Wall Street Journal Online (Amol Sharma)

Verizon pulls the plug on Amp'd

If you are looking for a wireless job, don't waste any time looking at Amp'd Mobile.

FastCompany's John Rosenthal tells a compelling story about the company that burned through $360 million and found itself in bankruptcy (HERE).

Wonder if it had anything to do with the CEO's chopper service that flew him to work every morning from Orange County? Nah.

Verizon's low Churn

Excerpt from CNNMoney.com:

Verizon Wireless customers continue to be the most loyal in the wireless industry according to data released by the nation's largest carriers in the past three weeks. For the eleventh consecutive quarter, Verizon Wireless reported the lowest customer churn (turnover) rate in the second quarter of 2007.

Churn is the percentage of customers who leave their carrier and is an important measure of customer loyalty. Second quarter financial performance announcements -- the latest was released last week -- included the following customer churn rates:

    Carrier           Total Customers     Post Paid Customers
                 (Pre Paid and Post Pay)
Verizon Wireless            1.3%              0.85%
Carrier X                   1.6%              1.2%
Carrier Y                   N/A               2.0%
Carrier Z                   2.7%              1.8%

Hats off to the folks at Verizon Wireless (in fact, my former boss at
AT&T Wireless (Lee M.) is over there leading their Operations efforts
in Dallas/Fort Worth....nice job, Lee!)

Hearst Rolls Out Wireless Magazine Sites

AS ITS DIGITAL STRATEGY CONTINUES to evolve, Hearst Magazines Wednesday said it is making a big push in mobile, adding several new phone-friendly sites accessible through Verizon Wireless and other carriers.

New mobile sites for Seventeen, Cosmo Girl, and Cosmopolitan are now available in the magazines section of Verizon Wireless' Mobile Web 2.0 service. Sites for Esquire, Good Housekeeping, House Beautiful, Popular Mechanics, and Redbook are on the way, along with additional carrier deals.

As early as 2003, Hearst was exploring mobile sites accessible only to subscribers paying between $1.99 and $2.49 monthly for tidbits from Seventeen and Cosmopolitan, among other titles.

source: OnlineMediaDaily Gavin O'Malley