Evil, evil, evil... there is just no other word for it

[GreyGeek]

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Mobile-and-...tition-680412/

And, I suspect, they have already greased the political wheels that will muzzle the FCC. Notice that the Internet is part of "their" network. If the have their tollbooth at the end of your driveway they control your ability to drive on the public roads that you've paid for, so they "own" the roads.

Verizon and the group of cable companies from which it is planning to buy a chunk of AWS spectrum don't want you to know about a new Joint Operating Entity (JOE) that would control all aspects of how you get access to the Internet, what you can do online and how much it's going to cost.

Cloaked in a layer of secrecy behind a wall of redacted documents, filings to the Federal Communications Commission that can't be read and responses that are deliberately concealed, Verizon and its cable partners have agreed to stop competing directly with each other, to stop offering services that the others offer and to jointly develop technology that would control what you can do on their networks.

[NickStone]

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Mobile-and-...tition-680412/

And, I suspect, they have already greased the political wheels that will muzzle the FCC. Notice that the Internet is part of "their" network. If the have their tollbooth at the end of your driveway they control your ability to drive on the public roads that you've paid for, so they "own" the roads.

I maybe asking some stupid question here, but if Verizon do what they are claiming to do and prevent their users from doing certain things online, can you not cancel your account with them and go with someone else?

Surely all they can do is prevent their own customers from doing certain things online, they do not own the internet.

[GreyGeek]

.....can you not cancel your account with them and go with someone else?

That depends on where you live. And, abiding by the law shouldn't depend on "competition".

Surely all they can do is prevent their own customers from doing certain things online, they do not own the internet.

They "own" the Internet IF they own the tollbooth you must pay to access the Internet. If your only choice is cable company A and Verizon, and those two have colluded to fix prices and tier access where do you go?

That they would even attempt "JOE", let alone already have begun to adjust their "policies" to fit it, says volumes about their opinion of the strength of the FCC, and the honesty of Congress.

[woodsmoke]

In many, many, many towns and cities, there is only one internet provider. Ipso Posto Facto tollboothio.

The day of the mailed cd .iso may not so forgone as people thought.

The honesty of the Seanate controlled by the party that has bleated for decades that they are for.....the little folks. ptah!

woodsmoke

[NickStone]

... If your only choice is cable company A and Verizon, and those two have colluded to fix prices and tier access where do you go?

I'm glad I live in the UK as we do have a choice of ISP's to sign up to connect to the net.

... honesty of Congress.

Congress is full of politicians and politicians the world over are only in it for what they can get out of it. "How do you tell if a politician is lying? You can see their lips moving.

[Goeroeboeroe]

Maybe, if there's enough uproar about this, it can turn out good. Here our secretary of economic affairs was planning to allow companies to ask more money if you wanted to use certain services. In practice this would have been similar to censoring a lot of services/sites. There was so much resistance against this plan we now have, as second country in the world, a law that absolutely forbids any kind of filtering. (Except when a judge requires it or something like that.)

[GreyGeek]

I decided to price out the cost of converting my and my wife's cellphone plans to smartphones with all the goodies. I currently pay less than $80 for two cell phones with 2000 minutes. My wife averages around 1,600 minutes and I average less than 200 minutes a month. We've never gone over 2,000 minutes and we never pay attention to how much we use.

I selected two Motorola Droids that were free upgrades. A "Family" plan with two numbers, 15 Gb/month of data @ for $100, unlimited texting, GPS, and some other features. Our monthly bill would have totaled to $259. I cleared the cart and canceled the upgrade. I checked Sprint, and it came in at $189, but its coverage isn't as good as Verizon's. Oh, I forget, these charges are BEFORE taxes and surcharges!

Last year a person from France posted their Internet connection costs. For $30/month they got a cell phone with unlimited 24/7/365 calling anywhere in France and cheap rates in Europe, a 40Mb/s Internet connection, and 200 channels of TV on a fiber optic connection.

I think that contrast illustrates perfectly what happens when regulatory agencies abandon their mandate to protect citizens and protect corporations instead, and it illustrates the corruption and greed that collusion creates.

[SteveRiley]

I selected two Motorola Droids that were free upgrades. A "Family" plan with two numbers, 15 Gb/month of data @ for $100, unlimited texting, GPS, and some other features. Our monthly bill would have totaled to $259. I cleared the cart and canceled the upgrade. I checked Sprint, and it came in at $189, but its coverage isn't as good as Verizon's.

What would T-Mobile have cost you? We have family-plan unlimited/unlimited/unlimited on four lines and pay $250/month, but this is a grandfathered (and continually tweaked) plan they let me stay on because we've been a customer for over a decade.

[oshunluvr]

My T-mobile plan here is good if you buy your own phones. I paid full retail for two HTC Sensations ( $998 ) but my plan is $99 a month for unlimited talk/text and data for those two phones. 4G data is limited to 5GB a month but we never come near that. The phones are wifi enabled so when at home or near an open wifi connection, all my data and calls are routed through the internet so no data/minutes used. We added 2 of my sons at $15 each and their only restriction is 500 talk minutes which is not a problem (they are men after all )

With taxes and stuff it works out to $175 a month but Verizon was costing me almost double that for less service. I figured the cost of the phones evens out after about 10 months and I'm save $150 a month after that.

I love my Android "toy" but I actually am looking forward to the day that I no longer need a cell phone. Does that ever happen anymore? Maybe I'll just move to France...

SIDEBAR: We also converted to Ooma for phone service this year. Friggin' awesome and cheap as heck...

[GreyGeek]

What would T-Mobile have cost you? We have family-plan unlimited/unlimited/unlimited on four lines and pay $250/month, but this is a grandfathered (and continually tweaked) plan they let me stay on because we've been a customer for over a decade.

T-Mobile does not currently provide service in the 68521 area. However, we are continuously expanding service, so please check back again.

I went ahead a spec'd a family plan with two phones. I was well on my way to somewhere between $190-250 when I had to enter my zip to get a price quote for a second line.

What I think I am going to do is add Google Voice to my wife's Acer One and teach her how to use it, then put some money into her account so she can us the 2 cents a minute to call anywhere in the USA. Our current phone service will charge us 25 cents per text msg received and 20 cents more to respond. It would charge us 40 cents/min to make calls over our allotted minutes. 1,600 minutes of calls at 2 cents/min is only $32. My 200 minutes would cost $4, making a total of $36. That is less than half of what our cellphone contract costs us per month. Skype and Google offer phone numbers even if you don't have a land line or cellular phone service. The big problem would be making or receiving calls will in the car or away from home or a free wifi. Phone dongles would fix that problem but then you'd be back into the unarmed robbery of high priced phone services.

[rms]

Our current phone service will charge us 25 cents per text msg received and 20 cents more to respond.

You are charged when receiving a txt msg Good grief.

[charles052]

I use Straight Talk. We pay a little under $70 including tax for 2000 minutes and 2000 texts on 2 cheap phones we got for free. The service is great where I live so I have no problem making all the calls I need. The only problem I had was when I was a truck driver for a short period of time and found out that Straight talk service for CDMA phones (which is what I have) is non-existent in most of Kentucky, a good portion of Tennessee, and parts of Oklahoma. I'm pretty sure that their GSM phones are alright though.

With Straight talk, if you have an unlocked GMS phone, you can simply put a smart card in to use Straight talk services on it.

[woodsmoke]

I pay 131 USD for unlimited voice, text, data, you name it, to Verizon.

However, I actually USE the text and data multiple times per day.

woodsmoke