Will Verizon Kill 3G With Its Pricing?
from the you-betcha dept
Here's an article begging Verizon Wireless not to destroy their 3G rollout with horrible pricing. Verizon hasn't even admitted that they're rolling out any service, but the rumors say that they'll start some kind of rollout in the next few weeks. I already have a problem with them calling it "3G" (when it's really more like 2.5G). I also have a problem with them advertising speeds "up to" 144k, when you're likely to get nowhere near that (it's like saying my car can drive "up to" 160mph during rush hour). However, this article points out what might be the real killer of wireless data services: they're going to do a terrible job with pricing. The expectation of the writer is that they'll price per minute - which would destroy a lot of incentive to use it. Pricing per message doesn't sound very smart either. Pricing by bandwidth used makes him a little happier, until he hears numbers like $10/meg. Honestly, all of these plans suck. The only way people will really start to adopt wireless data services are (1) if they stop exaggerating how wonderful they're going to be and started really setting expectations and (2) if they went with some sort of flat-rate pricing plan. I understand the rationale behind metered pricing, but I think it's just going to turn off most users and slow down adoption drastically.
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Pricing
1048576/13312 = 78 mins of data
1048576/8192 = 128 mins
.15 a min * 78 = 11.70
.15 * 128 = 19.20
Data is data, sometimes its voice, sometimes it is not.
$10 is cheaper than "voice", but only at Sprint's 13K codex. Its a bargain at the rest of the industry.
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Pricing is everything
Voicestream has done the best job so far with pricing of thier packet data service, iStream. They have three plans with 1MB, 5MB, and 10MB of data respectively. The first plan is $2.99 per month (plus voice service) and is designed for use with a phone browser . The other two plans are are targetted at PDAs and laptops at 19.99 and 39.99. Granted at these prices this isn't going to replace your landline connection. But its inexpensive to get started and affordable for on the go use. While I would love to get unlimited GPRS or 1xRTT service for $25/m, its not going to happen for a long time.
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