[Discuss] Verizon and their mandatory data plan, redux

[Jerry Natowitz]

Looked into other carriers.  Problem is, one of our phone is about 15 
months into a 24 month contract.  Would cost about $100 to cancel.  Then 
there would be costs of new phones if we didn't stay on CDMA, and the 
fees for setting up new accounts, and then finally the monthly fees.

We might have been able to save a few dollars, but the hassle factor 
didn't make it worth it.  That, and T-Mobile, the logical choice, has 
really bad service in South Brookline.  What really clinched the deal 
was finding that we can get a 22% discount on the $79.99 portion of our
monthly bill because of my employer.

That said, I did find something interesting: smartphones released before 
November 14th, 2008 can be activated without a data plan 
http://www.plazor.com/howto/how-to-activate-smartphone-on-verizon-without-data-plan/

Unfortunately my daughter didn't want any of them.  So I bought a new 
Verizon Palm Pre 2 on amazon.com for about $90 and, aside from some 
weirdness like Verizon's Backup not working on it, she is quite happy.
-- 
	Jerry Natowitz
===>    j.natowitz (at) gmail.com