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Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Wow (Score:5, Funny)
The flaw of DROID is locked to Verizon.
The flaw of the iPhone is locked to AT&T (but at least you can jail break it).
I guess I am sticking with my SonyEricsson w810i until the phone providers adopt the buisness model in Europe...which might be right about the time they are tossing snowballs in hell...or DukeNukem Forever is released.
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Re:Wow (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:Wow (Score:4, Informative)
I don't recall if AT&T uses the same frequencies as Europe
Nope. AT&T uses 850Mhz & 1900Mhz for 3G, Europe uses 2100Mhz. T-Mobile uses 1700Mhz (which nobody else uses) and 2100Mhz for 3G. Unfortunately, they use 1700Mhz for the uplink and 2100Mhz for downlink, making their network incompatible with Europe and Asia.
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Re:Wow (Score:4, Informative)
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Droid vs. Android (Score:4, Informative)
No, you're confusing Droid with Android. Droid is a specific Android-based phone made by Motorola and currently only available through Verizon. Droid is also, by most measures, significantly better than any other Android-based phone.
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Re:Wow (Score:5, Informative)
AT&T is no different when it comes to nickel-and-diming their customers to death.
- I have unlimited messaging on my family plan. It allows me to send unlimited SMS and MMS messages.
- I quite often accidentally push the dedicated "MediaNET" button on the phone. This opens a browser, and I am charged $0.01 per KB (rounded up, of course).
- You can have them block the browser, but blocking the browser blocks picture messages (both sending and receiving).
So either I put up with paying an extra buck or so every month (across five phones) or I shut off MMS entirely.
There's other games that cell carriers like to play, too:
AT&T loves charging you "upgrade" fees when you upgrade your phone (quite separate from getting charged for the phone itself). They claim it's so they can update their system - which is of course a gargantuan lie. I sat on the phone for twenty minutes coaxing the CSR into refunding it for me, last time they did it. The same goes for "activation" fees. I signed a two-year contract with an early cancellation fee; there's no reason to charge me on top of that. (I got that fee refunded as well.)
Seriously, people - call your cell service provider next time you upgrade your phone. Insist that they refund the "upgrade" fee, and if they need a reason tell them they're obviously charging you for nothing (since you could have merely obtained your phone some other way and they'd never know). A two-year contract is enough to satisfy their "well we subsidized the phone" fake concerns. AT&T will cave to your demand - if enough of us do it, maybe they'll stop charging it altogether. I can only assume Verizon and Sprint will follow suit given enough customer pressure.
I don't even want to start ranting about SMS messaging rates without a plan. $0.20 for a 160-byte text message that (quite literally) costs them nothing? That's where to look if you want to show nickel-and-diming...
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That's why they are doing it I assume. Someone could technically buy a Droid or other smart phone on contract for ~$350, break the contract and come out less than buying the phone outright. ($175 + $350 $600) so you'd be dumb to outright by it when you can get $75 (plus the $100 MIR) by buying a contract and canceling it.
Re:Wow (Score:4, Interesting)
My 11 month old daughter is able to figure out how to unlock my phone. It's random chance that they figure it out, but once they do, they're pretty good and remembering it and duplicating the results.
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RUN AWAY FROM VERIZON WIRELESS! (Score:5, Funny)
Please, for the love of God and all that is decent in this world, steer clear of Verizon Wireless!!!
I am a Verizon Wireless customer. They make "horrible customer service" sound like something to aspire to.
They haven't been able to get my bill "right" for months. Every single month there are random charges tacked on, that they cannot explain when I call. Until recently, they've cancelled these charges with good apology. But now?
I have two phones suspended because they are lost. Originally, I was told I could suspend them indefinitely. Then I was told that I could only suspend them month-by-month. Then I was was told I could suspend them three months at a time. Now, they're telling me that I can only suspend 6 months per year. None of which was mentioned when I asked up front, and none of which is ever consistently said after the fact.
So I decided to buy out the contract. Get this: Not only are they're charging me for two months' service for two phones I don't even have, they're charging me for an entire two months of service for both of those two phones AFTER the contract has been cancelled by being bought out!
If you are ever, EVER tempted to go Verizon, RUN LIKE HELL OUT OF THERE. They make a pack of lying vultures being eaten by a horde of hungry lawyers seem friendly!
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Positive comments for VZW (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:RUN AWAY FROM VERIZON WIRELESS! (Score:4, Insightful)
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Verizon is doubling the phone-subsidy to $350... (Score:5, Insightful)
And yet people make fun of me for using a TracFone, for about only $9 per month.
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Re:Verizon is doubling the phone-subsidy to $350.. (Score:5, Informative)
Tracfone has a brand, Straight Talk [straighttalk.com] (I have no affiliation and that's not a referral link), with phones available at WalMart with unlimited voice and text plus 30 MB data for $45/30 days. Prepaid being only for low-usage folks is a bygone idea.
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Re:Verizon is doubling the phone-subsidy to $350.. (Score:5, Informative)
Also, unlike most other services, with TracFone you don't own your number.
Google Voice to the rescue.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm on T-mobile prepaid and i __love__ it. Yeah, i don't talk much. Verizon doesn't have any kind of cost effective service for customers like me. They
Re:Verizon is doubling the phone-subsidy to $350.. (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Verizon is doubling the phone-subsidy to $350.. (Score:4, Informative)
Also, unlike most other services, with TracFone you don't own your number. You decide to switch carriers and your phone number goes with it. Personally keeping my number is worth quite a bit more than $350. To each his own though.
According to TracFone's FAQ. They will allow you to transfer your number out of TracFone, but your personal information on the TracFone account must match the information on the new carrier's account. Source [tracfone.com]
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Termination Fees (Score:4, Insightful)
I understand, on principle why they charge early termination fees. $350 for a smartphone seems extreme, but taking the new Droid for example, the phone costs $550 without a plan and the customer gets it for $200 which is right in line. What doesn't make sense is the fact that if I cancel my contract 1 year and 11 months in, I'm expected to pay the whole termination fee, despite the fact that Verizon has already made back $335 of it. That's just abussive. Termination fees should be proportional to the amount of the contract you are terminating and capped at the amount of subsidization on the phone.
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Re:Termination Fees (Score:5, Informative)
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Verizon: "there's a scam for that". (Score:5, Funny)
Don't want to use the data service? There's a scam for that. Want to upgrade your phone? There's a scam for that. No matter what you want to do, we'll get your money. Because there's a scam for that.
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Re:Verizon: "there's a scam for that". (Score:5, Funny)
Charging for incoming text messages: Scam
Charging for data service without a verification nag: Scam
Seeing an iphone/droid user wander into oncoming traffic: Priceless!
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Where does it say "we'll charge you $1.99 every time you hit the wrong key when you flip the phone open" on the contract?
They doubled it because... (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:They doubled it because... (Score:4, Insightful)
The cure for that is to STOP GIVING AWAY FREE SPARE BLACKBERRIES, not FUCK ALL YOUR USERS.
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The new termination fee is high, but justifiable (Score:5, Insightful)
Using the DROID as an example:
The DROID with no contract is $560.
Math with the current termination fee:
$200 for the phone +
$175 to immediately break your contract =
$375 (You save $185 over the no-contract price)
Math with the new termination fee:
$200 for the phone +
$350 to immediately break your contract =
$550 (You save $10 over the no-contract price)
Either way you save more than simply buying the phone without a contract. The new fee is high, but I can understand their reasoning.
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Re:The new termination fee is high, but justifiabl (Score:4, Insightful)
Ha! Ha! Ha! I really screwed Verizon over!!
Hey, wait...
Point is, no matter how much Verizon sells a phone for, that phone can only do one of two things: be used to make Verizon money, or go in the trash. Is it justifiable for a CARRIER-LOCKED PHONE to be contractually *fully* subsidized by the purchaser? If this was AT&T, T-Mobile, etc. I could see the point - I take my phone and run, screwing the company out of money. But with Verizon's phones, regardless of how long I am with them - the phone will keep making them money!
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ORLY? (Score:3, Interesting)
If I buy a smartphone from Verizon and sign a 2-year contract, I'm prepared to keep the phone and service for two years. That's the game and they're setting the rules - if I want to phone and service jump, sure I could prefer not to pay but I can't really find a fault in them wanting me to. Who is this hurting? If you move to a location where you don't get service, they already let you cancel without penalty. How many people actually end up paying the ETF?
Also, I don't know about the data bit either. My old k1m/krzr went to the "mobile web" or get it now if I hit the down arrow. That brought up a launch screen where I could check account settings (for free), purchase a day's worth of mobile browsing, or sign up for mobile web and have it as a recurring payment. I've never been charged for any sort of access for pulling anything down.
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Sprint (Score:4, Interesting)
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Cheaper than keeping it... (Score:3, Interesting)
Paying $230 to break a 2-year contract after one year is far cheaper than keeping the phone for another year at $120+ per month...just sayin'.
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Re:new york times (Score:4, Insightful)
This would make me not get Verizon, if I didn't already have it without the hike tho...
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Re:new york times (Score:5, Informative)
The last time I was on Verizon I went to get a new phone after having one for 3 years. They told me I wasn't eligible for a new phone, because my wife got one the year before. We had a shared family plan.
I found it in writing where it stipulated where we were both eligible for new phones every two years. They insisted that if I didn't get mine at the same time she got hers, then I missed my window. I was livid. I kept going back to the Verizon store (and waiting 30 minutes to talk to a person each time) and trying to talk to different people.
Eventually I said, I'll just pay my $150 cancellation fee, which is cheaper than paying full retail on a phone, since they wouldn't give me a new phone after two years.
They then said, I'd have to pay $350. They consider family plans two seperate lines. I'd pay $175 each. Funny how it is two lines for cancellation purposes, but one plan as far as getting new phones. The weird part is that I was convinced my cancellation fee was $150 when I signed the contract.
They explained that all prices and fees can be changed at any time during the contract, and that raised my cancellation fee over the life of the contract. I was pretty livid. I ended up waiting a few months and then jumping to AT&T. Now I have a phone that doesn't get signal in half the town, but I never want to go back to Verizon's service again.
Everytime a Verizon rep talks to me and tries to get me to switch, they insist they'd never pull a stunt where they wouldn't give me a phone, and yet in talking to two store managers, and calling the 1-800 number, that is exactly what they did to me.
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Re:new york times (Score:5, Insightful)
First rule of Verizon: the people in the stores know nothing and are not backed up by the home office.
This means the people in the stores will tell you things that are completely wrong. This can result in your being charged extra for things because the people in the stores have no ability to enforce their promises. The 800 number is the only "customer service" that exists for Verizon. Even at a "store manager" level, they have no power, no training and no ability to get anything done. This pretty much means they are there to dial the phone and put the customer on the phone with the 800 number customer service people.
The stores seem to exist to provide an image of local, in person support when none really exists. I have dealt with some good stores and some bad stores, but over all it doesn't make any difference - because the manager can promise you something or interpret some vague statement for you and then you get a bill that says exactly the opposite. Calling the 800 number gets responses like "they shouldn't have told you that" and worse.
End result is very simple. Verizon stores are perhaps a place to pick up a phone. They cannot do anything more than that for you. Expect nothing and you will not be disappointed.
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Re:new york times (Score:5, Insightful)
I was on Verizon for several years. After a phone went bad (dropped in a stream), I went back to get a new one and they required me to change my cell plan to a new plan where nights and weekends moved an hour later. Well, that was somewhat annoying having it move to 8:00 because most of the people I call are two time zones over. Unfortunately, that phone was an utter piece of excrement and after a few months, it started dropping calls very frequently. I called Verizon to complain, and they said there was a tower down that might be affecting things. A few months later, I moved to a different area where there was no such problem and still dropped calls. After a few months of this, I decided to get another new phone that actually worked.
Now they wanted me to move my nights and weekends to 9:00 P.M. I basically said "No way in hell. Can I get a phone without changing contracts if I pay full price?" They said no, and their only suggestion was to buy a phone on eBay. I looked at my options, priced out what I would get from other carriers, and switched to AT&T the next day. I even kept my old phone number. Even though AT&T's nights and weekends started at 9:00 just like Verizon's, I got so many more minutes than with my Verizon plan that it more than covered the difference. And when Cingular took them over and I changed to a plan with roll-over minutes, the difference became even more dramatic. Now, I'm on an iPhone plan. Every so often, I think about the friends and family who are still stuck on that nickel-and-dime-you-to-death Verizon network, and I feel sorry for them. AT&T sucks, too, of course, but not like Verizon does. It's good to see this news and know that they still haven't changed.
As for me, I can't wait for LTE rollouts to become widespread. At that point, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon will all be using compatible networks and people will be able to switch without changing phones. Then, these companies will have to start actually competing with each other instead of paying lip service to competing. You'll also see massive screaming to put an end to early termination fees if you provide your own equipment. Life will be better. Here's hoping, anyway. The only question is how long it will take before Sprint joins in and makes us a single-standard country as we should be....
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Re:new york times (Score:4, Informative)
So this change is a change to the contract. If they change your contract, you can get out of it for free.
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Re:new york times (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Seems reasonable... (Score:4, Informative)
Problem is, you hit the web button by mistake, kill it before the browser is even open on your phone, but still get charged $2. 0.02 KB (according to the article) goes across the wire, but you're charged for 1024.
And, they place the "Bill me $2" button on an arrow key. Or, on or near some other commonly-hit button.
I hate cellphone companies for reasons just like this, so I got a terrorist cellphone (OK, a Tracfone) for just that reason. But, they too have an all-too-large "Bill me .3 minutes" next to your arrow and "OK" keys.
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Re:Seems reasonable... (Score:4, Informative)
OK, this might be mean of me to say, but here in Oz I called my monopoly 3.5G telco (Telstra) and asked them to disable my phone's data service. I left SMS and MMS active, because they're not accident prone. It took 5 minutes which included hold time and a friendly chat with the operator.
The base model Chinese-made Telstra-branded rubbish phone has a custom firmware and the browser button cannot be re-programmed, but many of the other phones they offer like my Nokia E51 can be. The easy-to-accidently-press BigPond button now launches the camera app.
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And it is a trap... (Score:5, Informative)
What could be worse? They seem deliberately design the interface to trap users into triggering this extra usages. I have a Samsung SGH-T509 from T-mobile. Once you take a picture with this phone, it will display "Send to : My Album" with the right (yah, most people are right-handed too) button conveniently displaying "Yes". Every person that ever used my phone, including myself, would almost automatically click Yes; saving to the album sounds like the right thing to do after taking a picture. It turns out My Album is an online service, saving to there initiates a data transmission which is costly if you don't have a data plan. If you want to save locally, you need to click the left button (now labeled "Options",) scroll down to select and click"Send to", scroll down to and click "My photos". I figured this trick out after the first time I hit the Yes button, but still making mistakes from time to time. My wife never seems to remember this trick until it is too late.
You bet the marketing people figured out most people wouldn't want a data plan and need to trick you into sending data. trick or treat.
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Is this some kind of hit piece to try and convince people not to use Verizon instead of AT&T? If you use data, it seems reasonable to me to charge a fee even if you just made "a mistake". It's not like international roaming is any more lenient.
Except that it's far easier to do this even when you know the consequences. I have a Motorola Krave on Verizon for example (which BTW just might qualify as shittiest phone in existence) - the touch screen is INCREDIBLY fickle. When typing a text message even when I'm sitting there doing my best to hit 1 letter sometimes it'll register the one next to it - making me backspace 3-4 times to fix it (and it then occasionally not registering the backspace but instead a key next to THAT key - further frustrating
Re:Seems reasonable... (Score:5, Insightful)
If you use data, it seems reasonable to me to charge a fee even if you just made "a mistake".
Agreed...but the issue is not about paying for the 0.2kb HTTP request you just made, but rather paying for an entire MB worth of data. It's not like billing per kilobyte or even per BYTE is technically infeasible, so why can't you pay for a fractional MB if that's what you use? In fact, there is absolutely no justifiable technical reason for this -- it's pure asshat accounting. This is like plugging in a desk lamp into your wall outlet for 5 minutes and ComEd charging you for an entire kWh.
You know it's asshat-ish when even AT&T has a better policy.
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Re:Seems reasonable... (Score:5, Interesting)
Is this some kind of hit piece to try and convince people not to use Verizon instead of AT&T? If you use data, it seems reasonable to me to charge a fee even if you just made "a mistake". It's not like international roaming is any more lenient.
I don't have a problem actually paying for data use. If I fire up a web browser and surf around a bit, go ahead and bill me.
The problem I have is that on my phone the web browser is bound to the up direction on the circular directional wheel... With the OK button in the middle. I have frequently hit the up direction accidentally when I meant to press OK. And that launches the web browser. It doesn't ask for confirmation... Just pops up the web browser and immediately starts loading a page.
Obviously I hit another button to cancel the web browser and go back to what I'm doing... But Verizon rounds pretty much any data transfer up to the nearest MB. So I'm billed for at least 1 MB even though I only actually transferred a couple K of data.
This was enough of a nuisance, not just for me but also my wife and son, that I had to block data entirely on our account. It would be nice to have it available if I needed it, but that just isn't possible. It's entirely too easy to wind up with a pile of little charges.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
As for early termination fees increasing, that's what gets you nice phones for cheap. I don't really see a problem with these fees since they are making phones more affordable given that you would have a phone plan anyway.
The pisser is that I want to BUY the phone by itself...and then be able to go to whatever provider I wanted. "Cheap phones" be damned! They should be clear about how much the phone is subsidized...and for how long...and make that as an "adder" to the normal monthly charge. You can either BUY a Droid for $550 outright and have a $40/mo bill...or get it for "Free" and pay an addl $28/month for 24 months (threw in some interest to boot). If you cancel after 12 months, then you owe 12*28, or $336.
But that
Re:It's not just a "phone subsidy." (Score:5, Insightful)
You would be right if the contract actually worked both ways. If you have problem with your service, or a billing dispute, or any of a number of other problems, their answer is likely to be "Too bad."
The customer is left with two choices - a very costly and unlikely to succeed lawsuit, or to walk. Taking your business elsewhere is sometimes the only effective protest against a corporate bully.
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Re:It's not just a "phone subsidy." (Score:4, Funny)
Guy/Girl: "Hey Verizon, can you block my data service so I don't accidentally use it?"
Verizon: "Sure we can. (click)"
Guy/Girl: "Uh, Why is my bill showing charges for data, that I have disabled?"
Verizon: "Because silly.... we have to send you data to tell you that you can't use the data plan!"
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Re:It's not just a "phone subsidy." (Score:5, Insightful)
Haven't you noticed? Nowadays we don't vote with our wallets any more, we just dash to the lowest up front cost and then start bitching when we realize we can't act like children. Then we do it again with the next company, because we now "hate" the first.
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Re:It's not just a "phone subsidy." (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem for me isn't that they have ETF fees, in fact given most phones have a subsidy I under stand that. My problem is that you cannot sign a contract without an ETF even if you provide your own phone. On top of that if you buy a phone without a subsidy it's not like you can negotiate a service discount with Verizon. You pay the same amount in either case and that's not really fair.
If Verizon actually cared about the customer they would offer a choice of the following two plan options.
1. Subsidized phone, contract, and ETF. You pay for you phone over the life of your contract, basically you're leasing the phone.
2. Unsubsidized phone, no contract, no ETF, discounted plan rate. You buy the phone outright since you paid full price for it you should save the difference between the price you paid and the subsidized price over the same length of time as the contract from option 1.
In fact at one point I was going to sign up for a plan with Verizon and bring my own phone, but even if I didn't get a new phone from them to setup new service I had to agree to a 1 year contract which included an ETF. There was NO way to avoid the contract.
This entire subsidy and ETF thing on your phone reminds me of old MA Bell. Before the original AT&T got broken up due to being a monopoly it wasn't actually possible for you to buy a telephone. You HAD to lease the phone from the phone company, and the phone company owned your phone. You basically got whatever phone Ma Bell wanted you to have. Cellphone companies are in that position now. While they say you "buy" your phone, you're really leasing it with no option to truly own it. If these companies were forced to offer a choice of phones, and didn't have these crazy contracts to hide behind I'm sure the cost of cellphone handsets would drop along through real competition.
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Re:It's not just a "phone subsidy." (Score:5, Informative)
What you are saying is good if it wasn't false.
No Contract Required -- New Month-To-Month Agreement Gives Verizon Wireless Customers Even More Freedom [vzw.com]
No, you don't get a plan discount, but I don't believe that the plan pricing has to do with the ETF or the subsidy anyway.
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Re:Manage these features online. (Score:5, Funny)
As much as I can bash Verizon for their gestapo-like moves in other areas, at least they've given us the tools to completely disable features like these through account management online.
Cool. I never really understood what "Stockholm Syndrome" meant until now.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Hopefully this is a joke. A free market is a nice idea, as is using a competing service, but what do you do when there are only 4 or 5 players in the market, and they all charge an early termination fee? It's collusion.