Back in 2011, Verizon started throttling 3G data speeds for the 5% of its smartphone customers who used the most data every month, even if those customers had so-called “unlimited” data plans. The company then killed off unlimited data in 2012, but existing plans were conditionally grandfathered in. In what appears to be an attempt to weed out the few remaining unlimited plans, Big V will soon start throttling 4G LTE data speeds for that top 5% of users. [More]
verizon wireless
Being In New Verizon Wireless Rewards Program Means Giving It Your Phone’s Location, Web Browsing Info
By 7.21.14
There’s no such thing as a free lunch, so it comes as no surprise that companies want a little something in return when they reward customers for staying loyal. Thus, the tradeoff at the center of Verizon Wireless’ new Verizon Smart Rewards system: Customers opt in to the company’s location-tracking/marketing program, Verizon Selects, and then earn points toward discounts on “brand-name” merchandise and deals at local restaurants, stores and offers on travel. [More]
Ex-Verizon Worker Accused Of Sending Lewd Texts To Teenage Customers
By 7.8.14
Getting an unwanted creepy, lewd or otherwise gross text is never a fun experience, but when you’re receiving that message from someone who shouldn’t have your number, things get even creepier. At least six female teenaged Verizon customers have recently come forward to accuse a now ex-worker of sending lewd texts and “disgusting” photos. [More]
Verizon Wireless Confirms Many Customers Are Having Problems Accessing Its Online Portal
By 6.27.14
After customers started reporting a barrage of problems accessing Verizon Wireless’ online system — including account services like bill payments — mainly, that it’s been unavailable for as long as 24 hours, the company confirmed this afternoon that there are major problems. [More]
Verizon Realizes 2 Years And 12 Months Are Not The Same Thing
By 6.26.14
Months after Chromebook Pixel owners began complaining that they had been shortchanged on the free Verizon Wireless data that was supposed to be included in the purchase price of their laptops, and days after national news reports called out Big V for its failure to understand how calendars and contracts work, the company has finally admitted that it screwed up and will be doing something vaguely nice to make up for it. [More]
Google Makes Up For Verizon’s Bad Math, Offers $150 To Screwed-Over Chromebook Owners
By 6.25.14
Earlier this week, the mathletes at Verizon were caught once again making up their own rules about the meaning of the quantity “2 years.” People who had bought Chromebook Pixel laptops under the illusion that the promised two years of free 100MB/month of wireless data were suddenly finding out that Verizon was only giving them one year. So far, Verizon hasn’t explained its idiocy, leaving the Chromebook’s maker, Google, to do damage control. [More]
T-Mobile To Finally Transition Entire 2G Edge Network To LTE; Issues Cease-And-Desist To Verizon
By 3.13.14
T-Mobile may offer competitive pricing and be an important disruptive factor in a wireless market otherwise dominated by two much larger players, but the company’s network doesn’t yet provide the level of LTE coverage offered by AT&T and Verizon. But T-Mobile is now promising to rid itself of its sludge-like 2G Edge network in favor of LTE by mid-2015. [More]
Verizon CFO: Getting Rid Of Phone Subsidies Is A Mistake
By 3.10.14
While T-Mobile and AT&T have, to different degrees, begun to acknowledge that a growing number of consumers want pricing transparency and affordable ways to buy phones that could be taken from one carrier’s network to another, Verizon remains set in its old-school ways. [More]
Verizon Raises Some Data Caps, Finally Gives $10/Month Discount For Early Upgrade Program
By 2.13.14
T-Mobile gave up on phone subsidies altogether last spring, and in December AT&T finally dipped its toe into those waters by offering discounts to people who own their phones or are part of its AT&T Next early upgrade program. Verizon, the wireless industry’s most expensive carrier, had refused to budge, but today showed the first signs that it might be open to change. [More]
Verizon Received More Than 320,000 Law Enforcement Requests In 2013
By 1.22.14
Verizon has finally gotten around to publishing a transparency report detailing the various requests for customer information made by local, state, and federal authorities during the last year. Over the course of the year, the company says it received more then 320,000 such requests including more than 1,000 queries related to national security issues. [More]
T-Mobile Increases Coverage With $3.3B Purchase Of Verizon Wireless Spectrum
By 1.6.14
Is T-Mobile coming to a cornfield near you? The little mobile company that could will likely increase its coverage outside densely populated cities this year, all thanks to a tidy bit of wireless spectrum it just bought off Verizon. [More]
Don’t Hold Your Breath Waiting For Verizon FiOS To Come To Your Town, Says CEO
By 12.11.13
Back in 2012, Verizon Wireless announced a marketing deal with several of the country’s largest cable operators that would let these companies sell cable/Internet/wireless bundles. We warned at the time that this would give Verizon even more reason to halt expansion of its costly FiOS network, as the company stood to make more money from the wireless business than it would from the TV/Internet service. Now Verizon’s CEO has confirmed that the company has no plans to expand FiOS beyond the existing markets. [More]
Verizon LTE Phones & Time Warner Cable Set-Top Boxes Are Not Playing Nicely With Each Other
By 12.6.13
Some Time Warner Cable customers in Raleigh, NC, who also have Verizon Wireless phone service have noticed that whenever they get an e-mail, text, or otherwise use their phone, the TV signal can go squirrely on them. This is apparently what can happen when a cable company broadcasts channels on the same broadband spectrum used by wireless service. [More]
Verizon Hit By Too Much LTE Demand, Pushing Some Customers Down To 3G
By 11.13.13
You know those Verizon ads where the company brags about its flippin’ awesome 4G and LTE coverage maps? Those may look pretty on an art museum wall, but the nation’s largest wireless provider admits that it may not currently have enough LTE bandwidth to go around in some markets, meaning some users are being thrown back in time to 2009, forced to use the Verizon 3G network. [More]
Verizon Tests Same-Day Delivery Of Phones For People Too Busy To Go To The Store
By 10.16.13
Are you a Verizon Wireless customer who wants a new phone but A) doesn’t feel like waiting for delivery and B) doesn’t feel like going to the store to buy one in person? If you also happen to live here in Philadelphia, you might be in luck. [More]
When Verizon Unlimited Data Glitch Didn’t Glitch, They Help Me Out Anyway
By 10.4.13
We were happy to hear that Verizon Wireless decided to let customers who were able to upgrade their phones at a subsidized price while keeping their unlimited data plans keep those data plans. What happened, though, if someone thought that they were able to exploit that glitch and Verizon downgraded their data plan anyway? [More]
Verizon Wireless To Honor Unintentional Upgrades For Unlimited Data Customers
By 10.1.13
There are still some Verizon Wireless customers holding on to the unlimited data plans the company killed off in 2012. Over the weekend, VZW accidentally allowed some of these customers to upgrade to new phones without requiring that they switch to a new, shared data plan. In a move that makes the company look slightly less evil, it has decided to honor these upgrades without forcing the subscribers to change plans. [More]
Verizon Doesn’t Know The Difference Between “Can’t” And “Won’t”
By 9.19.13
I can jump off my third-floor balcony, but I won’t because it would just make an absolute mess. The fact that I won’t do it doesn’t negate my ability to do it. This is a distinction that apparently eludes the folks at Verizon Wireless. [More]
