Verizon Breaks with Industry, and to begins Pro-rating Termination Fee

> On Sun, 9 Jul 2006 21:52:41 -0400, BruceR wrote
> (in article <[email protected]>):
>
>> True, making it even more difficult to justify. However, even if you
>> do bring your own phone you're still entitled to a free or
>> subsidized one that you can sell on ebay. When I first went to TMo
>> with my own v600 a few years ago, they gave me a v300 free with a 1
>> year contract. I promptly sold it on ebay for $225 which would more
>> than cover the ETF if I decided to bail early.
>
> Who buys these phones? If they are entitled to a subsidized one when
> *they* sign up?

Well, it could be someone who's in the middle of a contract and wants a
better phone than the one they got when they signed up or maybe their
phone is broken or lost and an ebay purchase is cheaper than the
carrier's non-subsidized price. I, for one, always buy my phones from
Hong Kong where new, unlocked models are available up to a year earlier
than in the US with no carrier branding or disabilities.

---

› See More: Verizon Breaks with Industry, and to begins Pro-rating Termination Fee

SinghaLvr wrote:

> Called them about 10 times and stopped into 4 stores. If they do have one
> there isn't anyone in the company that knows how to enter it into the system.
> One person had mentioned that they used to have one ... but when they tried
> to place the order it was rejected. They explained it to me as this: You
> have to be at the end of a two year contract to get that option. (Which made
> absolutely no sense to me.)

Of course not, since you can continue at end-of-contract, be month to month
and not be paying more.


--
Steve Sobol, Professional Geek ** Java/VB/VC/PHP/Perl ** Linux/*BSD/Windows
Apple Valley, California PGP:0xE3AE35ED

It's all fun and games until someone starts a bonfire in the living room.

"Quick" <[email protected]> wrote in news:LFlsg.63452
[email protected]:

> Cyrus Afzali wrote:
>>
>> I don't know about Verizon, but T-Mobile and many other
>> cellular companies are more than happy to give you
>> service without a contract, once your initial agreement
>> is up.
>
> Uhhh, yes... but they were talking about initial service.
>
> -Quick
>
>
>

I dumped Verizon and took my V60i to Alltel. Alltel was more than happy
to sell me service without a contract...even dropping any initial fees at
all. I walked into the Alltel main store, they took the Verizon crapware
off the V60i and installed their PRL. They gave me a temp phone number
to use until the number portability transfer was completed. (Before we
took Verizon off the phone, we forwarded my Verizon calls to the Alltel
temp number so my business kept getting phone calls.) I left Alltel's
store with a working Alltel phone, no fees or gimmicks and wasn't lied to
at all. The first bill I got was for $39.95 plus tax and the usual fees
for 700 minutes of service. 6 months later, I got a letter thanking me
for switching to Alltel with an extra 100 minutes per month for free.
800 minutes for $39, Unlimited N/W, Unlimited M/M any time, the usual
voicemail, 3-way, etc. toys.

The only thing that has changed, now, is they will no longer put the old
phones on their system due to the FCC's GPS mandate and other carriers
locking up the phones to try to prevent churning. Of course, not having
a STANDARD modulation scheme forced on ALL carriers like the more
sensible countries on the planet also prevents you from using one
carrier's phone you paid for on another carrier's system. We're just
lucky FCC didn't allow TV and Radio broadcasters to do that or you'd have
to have 8 TVs in your living room just to watch all the channels on
different scanning systems.

Initial service still doesn't require a contract, but you have to pay
full price for a new phone if you don't.....

It's the price Americans have to pay because the FCC doesn't do its job
REGULATING its licensees....stupid

On Mon, 10 Jul 2006 09:47:34 -0400, Larry <[email protected]> wrote in
<[email protected]>:

>It's the price Americans have to pay because the FCC doesn't do its job
>REGULATING its licensees....stupid

What's stupid is government regulation. The market does a much better
job. Government intervention is simply interference that causes
distortions that usually hurt, not help, consumers. Consumers in the
USA have all benefitted immensely from deregulation.

--
Best regards, SEE THE FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS AT
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>

In alt.cellular.sprintpcs John Navas <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> What's stupid is government regulation. The market does a much better
> job. Government intervention is simply interference that causes
> distortions that usually hurt, not help, consumers. Consumers in the
> USA have all benefitted immensely from deregulation.
>

True ... but only after regulation had a standardizing effect. And by the
way, you still can't choose your power company ... but at least they were all
held to the same 60Hz/120V standard for household delivery.

--
Thomas T. Veldhouse
Key Fingerprint: 2DB9 813F F510 82C2 E1AE 34D0 D69D 1EDC D5EC AED1

John Navas <[email protected]> wrote in
news:[email protected]:

> What's stupid is government regulation. The market does a much better
> job. Government intervention is simply interference that causes
> distortions that usually hurt, not help, consumers. Consumers in the
> USA have all benefitted immensely from deregulation.
>
>

Nope, I disagree. Government regulation is what forced all TV stations
to use the SAME TV standard so ONE, more simple receiver could receive
ALL the channels, unlike Europe's plethora of SECAM, PAL, etc., instead
of just the one the TV station they were designed for. Be thankful the
FCC forced them to use ONE standard.

As for cellular phones, the deregulation has caused harm to all consumers
because they all went off in their own, proprietary directions, totally
at odds with what was good for the consumer. It was done for the same
reason the TV stations would have all used proprietary systems so you
could only watch THEIR channel, not their competitors. Your Verizon
phone doesn't work on ATT. Your ATT phone doesn't work on T-
mobile.....for a reason, to try to make it inconvenient at best,
incomprehensible at worst, to move from system to system after the
companies had to compete with each other over AMPS customers, the last
ones that had a real choice as their FCC-mandated AMPS standardized
phones would work on ANY system on ANY carrier they chose.

Europe learned their lesson. Your GSM phone from Germany works fine in
Austria and Italy with its changable SIM card, the only proprietary part
of the phone.

FCC should have treated digital exactly as they did IMTS and
AMPS....study the options, choose a standard for the WHOLE COUNTRY, then
FORCED the licensees to conform to the standard.....just like every other
service they regulate.

Of course, deregulation of CONTENT in broadcasting is why radio and
television no longer have programming on them and have become that
goddamned 200 channel billboard in your living room full of unregulated
spam.....right?

I, for one, would love to see FCC go back to FORCING them to provide 40
minutes of PROGRAMMING per hour the NAB used to take credit for until
they could position the lawyers in FCC chairs to bribe....getting rid of
those damned engineers that used to run the FCC with good sense thinking
about the listeners, the citizens paying their salaries.

Pity....

"Thomas T. Veldhouse" <[email protected]> wrote in
news:[email protected]:

> but at least they were all
> held to the same 60Hz/120V standard for household delivery.
>
>

Another great example of government FORCED standardization that
benefitted the consumer because when you moved from Texas to Florida you
didn't have to dump all your 115V 60Hz appliances in Texas and buy all
new 100V 25Hz appliances in Florida.

Our friends from England lurking can explain to you what happens when
many different electrical systems, totally incompatible with each other,
are allowed to "do their own thing" in the UK over the years.....

Some parts of some cities in the USA went through growing pains because
of one Thomas Edison installing low voltage DC power systems in them.
Unable to transmit his DC power to the country, it was decided, with
stiff resistance from Edison's General Electric and campaigns to try to
scare the public by electrocuting cats in Central Park with AC power,
that 115VAC at 60 Hz would be the STANDARD when Nikola Tesla, a genius
far smarter than Edison, with George Westinghouses financial support,
showed how AC power was far more practical.....

Ironically, the Edison exhibit at the Smithsonian in Washington is
illuminated with Tesla's flourescent lighting on Tesla's multiphase AC
power system, after you walk in from the parking lot, illuminated by
Tesla's mercury and sodium vapor arc lighting.....in spite of the
Smithsonian's stiff refusal to even admit Tesla existed and refusing a
nice Tesla bust of the genius from some elementary school kids. If I
were in power, Smithsonian would be completely powered by Edison electric
and be, mostly, in the DARK...(c;

On Mon, 10 Jul 2006 10:18:32 -0500, "Thomas T. Veldhouse"
<[email protected]> wrote in
<[email protected]>:

>In alt.cellular.sprintpcs John Navas <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>> What's stupid is government regulation. The market does a much better
>> job. Government intervention is simply interference that causes
>> distortions that usually hurt, not help, consumers. Consumers in the
>> USA have all benefitted immensely from deregulation.
>
>True ... but only after regulation had a standardizing effect. And by the
>way, you still can't choose your power company ... but at least they were all
>held to the same 60Hz/120V standard for household delivery.

Settings standard is quite a bit different from market intervention, and
can be a valid exercise of government authority, but even there care
must be exercised to avoid choking off innovation and improvement, our
problematic power standard being a case in point (e.g., hum and noise,
lighting flicker, transmission power losses, ELF radiation, AC
synchronization and cascade failure issues, etc.). Edison may well have
been right, at least given more recent technology.

--
Best regards, SEE THE FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS AT
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>

On Mon, 10 Jul 2006 12:12:27 -0400, Larry <[email protected]> wrote in
<[email protected]>:

>"Thomas T. Veldhouse" <[email protected]> wrote in
>news:[email protected]:

>Some parts of some cities in the USA went through growing pains because
>of one Thomas Edison installing low voltage DC power systems in them.
>Unable to transmit his DC power to the country, it was decided, with
>stiff resistance from Edison's General Electric and campaigns to try to
>scare the public by electrocuting cats in Central Park with AC power,
>that 115VAC at 60 Hz would be the STANDARD when Nikola Tesla, a genius
>far smarter than Edison, with George Westinghouses financial support,
>showed how AC power was far more practical.....

HVDC is actually becoming the technology of choice for power
transmission. The advance of technology is proving Edison right. The
amount of power wasted in AC transmission is enormous, and the fragility
of the power grid is also due to AC. For information on HVDC, see
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HVDC>.

--
Best regards, SEE THE FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS AT
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>

On Mon, 10 Jul 2006 12:01:40 -0400, Larry <[email protected]> wrote in
<[email protected]>:

>John Navas <[email protected]> wrote in
>news:[email protected]:
>
>> What's stupid is government regulation. The market does a much better
>> job. Government intervention is simply interference that causes
>> distortions that usually hurt, not help, consumers. Consumers in the
>> USA have all benefitted immensely from deregulation.
>
>Nope, I disagree. Government regulation is what forced all TV stations
>to use the SAME TV standard so ONE, more simple receiver could receive
>ALL the channels, unlike Europe's plethora of SECAM, PAL, etc., instead
>of just the one the TV station they were designed for. Be thankful the
>FCC forced them to use ONE standard.

Why? We have an inferior analog TV standard, and are well behind other
countries in moving to more advanced digital standards. In general, the
market does a better job of setting standards than the government.

>As for cellular phones, the deregulation has caused harm to all consumers
>because they all went off in their own, proprietary directions, totally
>at odds with what was good for the consumer. It was done for the same
>reason the TV stations would have all used proprietary systems so you
>could only watch THEIR channel, not their competitors. Your Verizon
>phone doesn't work on ATT. Your ATT phone doesn't work on T-
>mobile.....for a reason, to try to make it inconvenient at best,
>incomprehensible at worst, to move from system to system after the
>companies had to compete with each other over AMPS customers, the last
>ones that had a real choice as their FCC-mandated AMPS standardized
>phones would work on ANY system on ANY carrier they chose.

My own opinion is just the opposite -- deregulation has given consumers
more choice, and contributed to the advance of technology, as reflected
in rapid improvements to GSM, CMDA, and UMTS. Had one standard been
mandated, we might well have been stuck with inferior technology.

>Europe learned their lesson. Your GSM phone from Germany works fine in
>Austria and Italy with its changable SIM card, the only proprietary part
>of the phone.

Yet Europe is still grappling with serious issues, witness the current
action to bring down high roaming fees, and is now benefitting from CDMA
technology that was developed in our more open market.

>FCC should have treated digital exactly as they did IMTS and
>AMPS....study the options, choose a standard for the WHOLE COUNTRY, then
>FORCED the licensees to conform to the standard.....just like every other
>service they regulate.

I strongly disagree. That would almost certainly have reduced
innovation and discouraged real competition. It's shortsighted and
counterproductive to limit competition to price alone.

>Of course, deregulation of CONTENT in broadcasting is why radio and
>television no longer have programming on them and have become that
>goddamned 200 channel billboard in your living room full of unregulated
>spam.....right?

Quality TV is actually alive and well, arguably better than at any time
in the past, largely as a result of deregulation. HBO is one of several
channels producing excellent programming that would never have made it
on the air under regulation.

>I, for one, would love to see FCC go back to FORCING them to provide 40
>minutes of PROGRAMMING per hour the NAB used to take credit for until
>they could position the lawyers in FCC chairs to bribe....getting rid of
>those damned engineers that used to run the FCC with good sense thinking
>about the listeners, the citizens paying their salaries.

Again, I strongly disagree. That would take us back to the "vast
wasteland." No thanks.

--
Best regards, SEE THE FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS AT
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>

In alt.cellular.sprintpcs John Navas <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> HVDC is actually becoming the technology of choice for power
> transmission. The advance of technology is proving Edison right. The
> amount of power wasted in AC transmission is enormous, and the fragility
> of the power grid is also due to AC. For information on HVDC, see
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HVDC>.
>

Hmm ... I didn't see anything in that article [or any article] indicating that
DC [at high voltage] was becoming the transmission technology of choice. I
didn't see it. And unless they wan't to install expensive equipment and
convert infrastructure ... it will never be the technology of choice.
Clearly, it has its uses, the greatest of which [apparent to me] is the method
of moving power from wind farms, but even that is not a great issue.

Anyway, nice try John.

--
Thomas T. Veldhouse
Key Fingerprint: 2DB9 813F F510 82C2 E1AE 34D0 D69D 1EDC D5EC AED1

On Mon, 10 Jul 2006 11:38:38 -0500, "Thomas T. Veldhouse"
<[email protected]> wrote in
<[email protected]>:

>In alt.cellular.sprintpcs John Navas <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>> HVDC is actually becoming the technology of choice for power
>> transmission. The advance of technology is proving Edison right. The
>> amount of power wasted in AC transmission is enormous, and the fragility
>> of the power grid is also due to AC. For information on HVDC, see
>> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HVDC>.
>>
>
>Hmm ... I didn't see anything in that article [or any article] indicating that
>DC [at high voltage] was becoming the transmission technology of choice. I
>didn't see it. And unless they wan't to install expensive equipment and
>convert infrastructure ... it will never be the technology of choice.
>Clearly, it has its uses, the greatest of which [apparent to me] is the method
>of moving power from wind farms, but even that is not a great issue.
>
>Anyway, nice try John.

Read more carefully:
* Advantages of HVDC over AC transmission
* AC network interconnections
* Realized HVDC systems
* References (in particular the World Bank paper)

--
Best regards, SEE THE FAQ FOR CINGULAR WIRELESS AT
John Navas <http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cingular_Wireless_FAQ>

Larry wrote:
> "Thomas T. Veldhouse" <[email protected]> wrote in
> news:[email protected]:
>
>> but at least they were all
>> held to the same 60Hz/120V standard for household delivery.
>>
>>
>
> Another great example of government FORCED standardization that
> benefitted the consumer because when you moved from Texas to Florida
> you didn't have to dump all your 115V 60Hz appliances in Texas and
> buy all new 100V 25Hz appliances in Florida.
>
> Our friends from England lurking can explain to you what happens when
> many different electrical systems, totally incompatible with each
> other, are allowed to "do their own thing" in the UK over the
> years.....
>
> Some parts of some cities in the USA went through growing pains
> because of one Thomas Edison installing low voltage DC power systems
> in them.

Interestingly, Con-Edison in NYC was still supplying D/C service until
very recently (IIRC, primarily for elevators). As of just a few
years-ago, there were still thousands of subscribers. Keep in mind this
was short-range power-delivery.


> Unable to transmit his DC power to the country, it was
> decided, with stiff resistance from Edison's General Electric and
> campaigns to try to scare the public by electrocuting cats in Central
> Park with AC power

It is common knowledge that Edison, when asked to build the first
electric chair, deliberately chose A/C in order to make it appear that
it was deadly (as if D/C isn't--you can stop a heart with a 1.5v AAA
cell).

Regardless, when faced with the realities of power degradation over
long-distance D/C electricity at the time, A/C was the clear winner--no
matter how Edison tried to spin it (for that matter, Navis too).

'Course that doesn't mean Tesla didn't have a few "issues" of his own.
<g>


> that 115VAC at 60 Hz would be the STANDARD when
> Nikola Tesla, a genius far smarter than Edison,

I don't know about smarter, but according to many, Edison reneged on a
deal he had with Tesla. Another low-point for Edison.

Now, about that Death Ray...


--
Mike

In alt.cellular.sprintpcs John Navas <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Mon, 10 Jul 2006 11:38:38 -0500, "Thomas T. Veldhouse"
> <[email protected]> wrote in
> <[email protected]>:
>
>>In alt.cellular.sprintpcs John Navas <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>
>>> HVDC is actually becoming the technology of choice for power
>>> transmission. The advance of technology is proving Edison right. The
>>> amount of power wasted in AC transmission is enormous, and the fragility
>>> of the power grid is also due to AC. For information on HVDC, see
>>> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HVDC>.
>>>
>>
>>Hmm ... I didn't see anything in that article [or any article] indicating that
>>DC [at high voltage] was becoming the transmission technology of choice. I
>>didn't see it. And unless they wan't to install expensive equipment and
>>convert infrastructure ... it will never be the technology of choice.
>>Clearly, it has its uses, the greatest of which [apparent to me] is the method
>>of moving power from wind farms, but even that is not a great issue.
>>
>>Anyway, nice try John.
>
> Read more carefully:
> * Advantages of HVDC over AC transmission
> * AC network interconnections
> * Realized HVDC systems
> * References (in particular the World Bank paper)
>

I read it .. and nowhere did it say it is "becoming the technology of choice".

--
Thomas T. Veldhouse
Key Fingerprint: 2DB9 813F F510 82C2 E1AE 34D0 D69D 1EDC D5EC AED1

"Thomas T. Veldhouse" <[email protected]> wrote in
news:[email protected]:

> Hmm ... I didn't see anything in that article [or any article]
> indicating that DC [at high voltage] was becoming the transmission
> technology of choice. I didn't see it. And unless they wan't to
> install expensive equipment and convert infrastructure ... it will
> never be the technology of choice. Clearly, it has its uses, the
> greatest of which [apparent to me] is the method of moving power from
> wind farms, but even that is not a great issue.
>
> Anyway, nice try John.
>

Actually he is correct for very long hauls, but it has NOTHING to do with
Thomas Edison. What it does have to do with is the invention of the very
high voltage thyristors and recent development in switching technology.
Many systems are still online that date back into the early 1980's in
some very strange places, indeed.

In many places on the planet they are rectifying enormous AC voltages
into something from 500KV to 1MV, reducing the current losses Edison
could never achieve to an acceptable level. Transmission of enormous DC
voltages at very low currents over very long distances, which beats out a
comparable 3 or 6 phase AC system because at very long distances the
radiation of 60 Hz (or 50 Hz in other parts of the planet) along with AC
losses caused by shunt capacitance to the other conductors or the ground
under them is very high, much higher than the DC losses caused by series
resistance in low current DC. Up until recently, the conversion losses
were enormous, but switching technology has got that down to near
lossless states, making the DC conversion then AC conversion losses added
to the DC losses much less than a corresponding multiphase AC system
loses from its physics.

An interesting book was recently posted to alt.binaries.e-book.technical:
HVDC and FACTS Controllers - Apps of Static Converters in Power Systems -
V. Sood 92004) WW.pdf
My date says 4/28/2006 on the file date so look before that date on your
news server. Keep watch in electrical engineering book uploads to that
newsgroup for other books on this topic.

Me? I just want to hear it "hiss" and see it FAULT!

I have no idea where it came from but I suspect a mid-america power
company film. Someone sent me a video file that lasts about a minute,
somewhere in Colorado, I think. There is this massive 3-phase motorized
switch across a serious transcontinental AC transmission bus. The switch
puts these massive parallel inductors online to compensate, I suppose,
for the series inductance of miles of line. The movie opens with power
company guys in a pickup truck watching this switch from a few hundred
yards away. The switch opens and a fault across one phase's switch
insulator ionizes the air over that phase. An arc of amazing size rises
up from the fault, through the ionized air for, perhaps, 200-300 feet
above the switch conductors, getting larger and larger and noisier and
noisier as the arc gets longer and longer....megawatts of heat! Then,
instantaneously, it simply quenches out, having reached some length
limit. Even the power company guys are impressed enough to go whooping
about! All that's left is the smoke rising from where the ends of the
arc met the conductors.....a most amazing film, indeed....(c;