Verizon gets new premium calling plans, mobile email
By Brian White 
posted Jul 4th 2007 6:35PM
posted Jul 4th 2007 6:35PM
Verizon Wireless is rolling out some new additions to its lineup of America's Choice calling plans. Dubbed "Premium" plans, the new offerings start at 450 minutes for a smidge under $80 per month and range up to 6,000 minutes for about $240 per month. What does that 'premium' price get you? Try this: unlimited messages and VCAST's VPak, Verizon's GPS Navigator and unlimited mobile email thrown in for good measure. In other words, just about the full suite of Verizon's handset-based offerings outside the smartphone arena. At the same time, Verizon announced its 'Mobile Email' product that connects to Yahoo! Mail, AOL Mail, AIM Mail, Windows Live Hotmail and others right on that mobile screen. Apparently, Verizon figured out that 2007 would be the appropriate time to launch mobile email access. Excellent, guys.Read - new Verizon Plans
Read - mobile Email launch
Speaking of Verizon, didn't HTC Kid say they were launching the Treo 755 today? Where is it, HTC Kid, WHERE IS IT?
feeble attempt to try and match the iphone plan with a less capable more expensive one
AT&T is the sux0rs you n00b. verizon pwns FTW!!!11
Right, clearly I should get an iPhone if I want a less expensive cell phone. Cough.
Verizon's coverage is worth the dough to many folks, including me. AT&T coverage in my area, which is near a major city, is pretty bad. Therefore, it isn't even a consideration for me.
Anyhow - it's good to see Verizon at least getting the clue that non-smartphone customers also want internet functionality and the like. They've still got a ways to go. I'm looking at you, high-end-dataplan-that-caps-at-5-gigs-and-doesn't-support-anything-that-streams-in-the-TOS.
i forgot to mention i don't have an iphone
wow, no gmail? have they really not had mobile email before? the newest version for AT&T has like 10-12 isp's
Gmail is easily accessed through the mobile web 2.0 however, which in an EV-DO area I can access my gmail from main screen in under 15 seconds (I have settings set to remember password).
Actually, the VZW e-mail client will support any IMAP or POP3 email... I forgot about that.
Maybe one day their crappy phone lineup will improve. Enjoy this with one of those two year old PDA devices they offer.
They spend so much time dumbing down and crippling down their phones, they can't launch them. They keep making all these press releases about their email and music and the stores being open a little later, but they can't even get out the phones that are supposed to be out for people to use them on--like the Samsung 760 or the HTC 6800 Sprint already launched. This is after Seidenberg bragged about the 20 phones they were going to release to respond to the iphone--is this after they sell 10 million iphones with 2 year AT&T contracts?
With their network, they'd be impossible to beat if they could ever get their act together on devices, instead they may be getting worse. If the other guys could ever catch up on the networks, they'd really be in a pinch. Come on Verizon.
Yea, this is such a less capable plan than those awesome 200 messages a month plan.
you do know there are plans with 1500 and unlimited msgs right? not to mention those plans include visual voicemail...where's verizon's stance on that? next decade?
I was commenting on the earlier post about the "feeble attempt to try and match the iphone plan with a less capable more expensive one" I make no comment on at&t's other mobile plans.
i dont get it, helio offers their all-in-one plan for 65 bucks. you get everything. html browser, email clients, java applets, gps, instant messaging, SMS MMS, 450 anytime minutes, unlimited night and weekend and mobile to mobile. device selection is restricted to 3, but then again its not like verizons selection is any better.
Wait!? Verizon makes you guys pay extra for email on your cell phone?!?
Yep, just like everyone else ;-)
It's so annoying when people say that Verizon doesn't have any cool phones. Open your eyes - is all I can see.
Go compare the Env, 8700, 8550, 8600, u740, Razr MAXX, and many others to some of the other companies. Alltel, Sprint.. they have a bunch of shit phones too. The Fusic - wtf?
And as far as the crippling - that shit only matters to a small handful, maybe 1% of the market. For everyone else, a phone like the ENV or 8700 has more than most people ever use.
That true. If you guys want to talk about crippling phones check out AT&T and the iphone.
1, NO 3G/High Speed Internet
2, NO GPS
3, NO MMS(did apple design this in 16th century?)
4, NO A2DP(NO Support for Stereo Bluetooth & they call it best ipod ever?)
5, Just Crappy Bluetooth(only good for Headsets, Can NOT transfer pics etc between PC & phone)
6, NO Video Recording
7, NO Custom Ringtones(can NOT use your own MP3s as Ringtones)
8, NO freedom to install/run 3rd party apps(Like I watch some LIVE TV, CNN-IBN, thru TCPMP on at&t 8525 OR NO internet radio thru GS Player. There literally hundreds stations available for FREE, so u don't have to buy itunes)
9, Guess you can NOT watch Xvid/DivX videos either
10, Can NOT copy/edit text or documents(as per engadget)
OK, in addition to all of the above there are some vulnerabilities reported by theRegister.co.uk
Ummm C@rL0$, not one of those things on your list has ANYTHING to do with at&t. that's all under apple's control. Wake up man....
XEVIOUS:
So, at&t had nothing to do with releasing the iPhone on their network? Come on. at&t could test it and choose whether or not to release a device on their network. They ABSOLUTELY had the final say in the product feature list.
Wake up man...
So Sprint is your standard, LOL? Yeah, I guess if we compare them to sprint, they stack up OK. Not even blow them out the water, but OK. If I want a WM6 smartphone, Sprint has already beaten Verizon to the punch with the 6800 Mogul by nearly a month and counting.
The featured phone in Verizon's WM segment was released OVER 2 years ago, the Samsung i730. Yeah, clearly they're on the device cutting edge.
AT&T has since added the Blackjack (a 3G phone model), the Blackberry Pearl and first with the Curve, first with the Blackberry 8800, were carrying the Nokia smartphones until recently, a wide Palm lineup, a new Symbian phone in the N75, and now the iphone. Plus, they're launching the HTC Kaiser in a matter of weeks and the Q9.
So sure, if you're going to compare them to Sprint, i.e. the worst, they stack up great, LOL. But as I said, if AT&T had their network quality, combined with their phone lineup, Verizon would really be in trouble.
And of course, that only matters to a small segment of the market, what's your point? We're visitors to engadgetmobile, most of us are in that 1%, and unless you work for Verizon Wireless, defending their phone lineup and innovation is a joke. Heck, even Seidenberg acknowledged this fact when he said that they would be launching 20 devices this year to respond to the iphone (if your lineup is so great, why is that necessary?). Of course, they're already bungling release dates and pushing release dates back a few weeks as they test, aka cripple, the phones (6800 and i760). Earlier reports that they might get the Touch or the Prada are probably a minimum of 6 months away if they even get them at all (2 phones widely available in Europe), if they are true at all.
Sorry, the 2 big guys in the US mobile industry are tragically flawed--AT&T on the network and Verizon on device innovation and openness of the network.
Crippled = phone has the features but someone (usually Verizon) takes them away. In this regard, the iPhone is not crippled. It may be missing some features but I would rather have the iPhone sooner than later and I would bet my iPhone that most of the issues mentioned will be addressed. Apple really does listen to customer feedback.
Umm.. WM is on the Moto Q from VZW. not sure if it's any different from the Blackjack thing AT&T has. VZW has the Blackberry 8830 Global Phone and the Blackberry 8703e. Also the Treo 700p is not so bad, and the Treo 700wx.. hmm.. Nothing earth-shattering, but not so bad...
Oh, and VZW doesn't block any features on their PDA's.
AT&T is the sux0rs you n00b. verizon pwns FTW!!!11
And I have to ask, which cell provider has the best phones? It ain't T-Mobile, and AT&T has the I-Phone and Blackjack but what else?
you can save some money with this plan like $10.
450 min. $39.99
5,000 text w/ unlimited m2m text $20.00 (SELECT plan has unlimited text)
Vcast VPak $15.00
VZ Navigator $9.99
Mobile Email $5.00
= $89.98
PREMIUM plan is $79.99