[Infowarrior] - Verizon's (looney) Moneymaking Plans

[Richard Forno]

Verizon Moneymaking Plans: Low Bandwidth Caps + New High Bandwidth Services = Profits?

from the or-pissed-off-customers dept

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110823/02050815630/verizon-moneymaking-plans-low-bandwidth-caps-new-high-bandwidth-services-profits.shtml

We've argued before that the rush by various mobile operators to push for (very low) bandwidth caps is going to backfire. They're trying to get more people using their services, while at the same time making it harder for them to actually make use of those services. Now users have to be a lot more aware of how much bandwidth something is using, which also creates serious mental transaction costs. Verizon recently put in place extremely low data caps (2 gigs?!?) with extremely high overage fees ($10 per gig?). And... just a few weeks later the company announces a (high bandwidth) video on demand offering and set it up so you can't use it over WiFi. In other words, the only way to use this high bandwidth offering is over the network with the low caps and the high overage fee. Have fun paying for those videos you watch. That's going to add up fast.