Getting Some Value Out Of Airfone
Bundling of various communication products is an unstoppable trend. Every analyst has poked fun at the lousy airfone services that are in domestic flights. They were priced so far out of reach, and never saw any profitable adoption rates. When digital cellphones came along, everyone was now more willing to hold their calls until they landed, and airfone use dropped further. Finally, Verizon has found a way to extract a little value from this (old GTE) dog. Verizon Wireless and Verizon Airfone, two separate divisions, have agreed to offer a discount on airfone use by VZW subscribers. Verizon Wireless users will be able to sign up for an airfone subscription for $10/mo. which drops usage rates down to $0.10/min., or they can simply pay 69 cents/min. Either option is much more reasonable than the current rates: $3.99 for call setup plus $3.99/min. The deal bundling airfone usage with wireless usage certainly allows Verizon to increase the value their PCS service offers frequent travelers. This will probably win them additional business (at the cost of discounting basically unused airfone capacity.)
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
