Verizon Rolls Back WiFi Pay Phone Plans
This is becoming the season of the quiet WiFi rollback. We've been saying for a while that many of the promises companies were making on just how many hotspots they were going to roll out simply didn't make sense, and now more and more are quietly admitting that was true. The latest is Verizon, who is admitting that their initial plan to put up 1,000 WiFi hotspots at old pay phones may have been a little too ambitious. They do a nice spin job, though, saying that the decision to cut the number to 500 was after evaluating where people were likely to use it, and ditching other locations. Much more interesting, however, is that the article points out that the company is suddenly interested in what their buddies on the other half of the building are doing under the Verizon Wireless name with their EV-DO offering. It's like a lightbulb has gone off and Verizon is suddenly realizing that maybe they have some folks there who know a thing or two about wireless technologies...
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
