Verizon Wireless Tries To Make Yakking-While-Flying More Reasonable

from the just-barely... dept

No, you still can't use your mobile phone on an airplane, but Verizon Wireless, who is mostly owned by the same company that runs the Airfone service on airplanes that no one uses ($4/minute? No thanks) has finally realized that maybe they should make the prices a little more reasonable. While this is likely to upset those who prefer their planes to be phone-free, Verizon Wireless is trying to bundle cheaper Airfone calls with Verizon Wireless service. Of course, it's not quite the wonderful deal they make it out to be unless you both fly a lot and talk a lot. To get the really cheap prices, you have to pay a $10/month subscription fee, which is only going to make sense for someone who is likely to fly at least once a month. Then calls are only $0.10/minute -- and calls to your cell phone can be forwarded to the seatback phone in front of you (a feature that's been offered for a while). However, for regular Verizon Wireless customers, they can use the seatback phones for $0.70/minute. It beats $4/minute with a $4 "ripoff setup fee," but it's probably still a bit on the pricey side. Of course, with more airlines starting to offer internet service in the sky, it seems like the simple way around this is to use a VoIP service. As has been noted in the past, it's pretty difficult to block voice communications if you're allowing data. Update: Um. Wait a second. On second thought, Derek points out that he posted the exact same news over a year ago. So, anyone know why Verizon Wireless is announcing the same exact thing twice?