So those Usage Controls we'd
mentioned Verizon was getting ready to launch have finally gone live, and though it's happening a few weeks later than we thought it would, something tells us the target audience wasn't complaining during the brief delay. The idea, of course, is to help parents lock down the phones of their little ones with support for voice minute and messaging limits, voice and data schedules, whitelists and blacklists, and content filters -- none of which Junior is going to enjoy, we suspect. The service can be had for $4.99 per month on top of a postpaid plan. Separately, Chaperone 2.0 has launched for a more princely sum of $9.99 per month, enhancing the original Chaperone tracking service with the ability to track multiple devices simultaneously and -- get this -- a feature that lets parents plug their offspring's location right into their VZ Navigator-equipped device for turn-by-turn directions straight to the kid. Both features are available now.
Read - Chaperone
Read - Usage Controls
posted Aug 20th 2008 2:02PM
so is this like t-mobile allowances? T-mobiles service can be had for 2.99
Yes, it is similar to the T-Mo service.
sweet
Its only $2.00 not $2.99
A lot of parents I know would really prefer a content logging feature set.
There's a decent market for parent spyware of various sorts for home networks, that let parents secretly log kids' browsing history, incoming emails, etc -- so you know who you kid is talking to online, and about what. Most parents don't ready every word, but many do searches for red flags like "sex", "weed", and "gun" and their various slang equivalents.
Nefarious, maybe, but in an age when all kinds of sinister stuff gets planned on blogs and text message, it would be nice to have something similar for texting on kids' phones.
If you add this to your plan and you only have one phone on the plan, can you apply the usage controls to that phone? Although I'm not sure I want to pay $5/month just to block one number. Or will it say I need at least 2 phones on the plan or a phone that is being chaperoned?
Dam i should put this on my co-worker's phone. Not only does he always blow through his minutes and texts but he is constantly downlading stupid stuff and losing his phone...which i could plug the addy into VZ Nav and save his ass.
what good is chaperone is your kid takes out the battery and you cant locate your kid through the gps..
usage controls only control data not voice please get it right