Verizon offers "all you can eat" rate plans from $100 up
Verizon is the next to follow suit with unlimited any-time voice offerings. This could be the beginning of what will ultimately result in wireless communications being a commodity.
Verizon Wireless has started a new rate plan campaign consisting of unlimited voice offerings and starting as low as $99.99. This is after Sprint, and a handful of other small carriers or MVNOs, pioneered with their own offerings. The entry level package allows unlimited any-time voice, and the old pay-per-text. The next step up offers unlimited SMS in addition to voice for $119.99. For $20 more you can add unlimited VZnav, VCast, and email.
What we are seeing is the beginning of a major transition for telecommunication. Over the next several years, experts suggest that there will be a separation of service providers, and content providers. Though service providers all agree that being merely a “dumb pipe” is not financially advantageous, they also agree that they must find new ways to profit from will then be commodities.
What this means to me is that we will be paying service providers for the data pipe out to our homes and to mobile devices. These infrastructures continue to cost money to keep up, but the content over those pipes is what will become a commodity. You will no longer pay a premium for “voice” or for “internet”. I’m sure content providers will find ways to profit, but it is up in the air as to whether that may be ad revenue or subscription based.
As I said before, the infrastructure used to connect your device to the rest of the world still costs money to implement and maintain. Whether it is wireless or landline, it is expensive. What is not expensive (compared to that infrastructure), is the equipment needed to provide things such as voice or location based services or search engines. Especially with vendors converging on distributed architecture, which is the vendors’ version of “open-access”.
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