Yes, we at Phonecan are alive.  We’re just doing other things lately.  Sorry.

We thought we’d pull ourselves away from grilling burgers and enjoying the warm weather where we are to cover some news - our way, of course.

Recently, Verizon Wireless finally announced their new data family share plans (if you want to see the official stuff, Verizon was good enough to launch a page which details the new price plans).  And by “new,” we definitely mean new.

The best way to summarize the new plans is with this: minute and texting plans are basically a thing of the past, and data plans are the way of the future.  In fact, this is the very thing that some of the Phonecan moderators have been telling people to expect for many, many years.  We can’t count the number of times we’ve mentioned to someone that one day a cell company was going to scrap everything, hand you a plan with unlimited voice and text, and ask you to buy a bucket of data.  We should have counted, cause now it’s here.

There’s a long list of details, and for whatever reason, much larger and more visited sites around the web haven’t covered it yet.  So here it is…

AT&T recently eliminated its 1000 text package.  That gives customers the option of unlimited or nothing at all.  The change is unveiled with the standard corporate talking points.  “Our customers overwhelmingly prefer unlimited.” 

True, but customers also prefer choice.

Let’s cut right to the chase on this one. As it stands, the editors of PhoneCan are content with Google’s acquisition of Motorola Mobility.

And we don’t appear to be the only ones. Which should be enough for most people to ask why. Why are so many companies accepting this purchase, even though they likely compete with Google and/or Motorola?

What are the real reasons behind the acquisition? What do Google and Motorola Mobility gain?

And what will the company be called (since Motorola Solutions is a separate company)? Googorola?

One of the most interesting editorial pieces we’ve ever written was our article, Hunting Down A Unicorn: The VPhone.  For us, we spent considerable time last year working to get current information about the device, only to find none.  In response to our article, certain representatives of Saygus, the company behind VPhone, started inundating us with emails and comments making various claims about our article.

Because it’s now been more than seven months since our article posted, we thought we’d do a little recap on the VPhone.

Recently, Zach Epstein of BGR blasted non-Apple tablets in a featured editorial.  In the article, Epstein makes the argument that tablet makers are somehow “doing it wrong” by not following Apple’s tested and proven format, or by a lack of innovation.  Unfortunately, his article does little to convince me that tablet makers haven’t already followed Apple’s lead, nor does he convince me that they don’t have an eye toward innovation.

From the person who just checks their email to the other who streams Pandora eight hours a day, we all have need of our data plans. �Data plans give us access to a world of information on our phones or tablets. �But just what is a byte, and why should we care? �And what’s the deal with tiered data plans?

We explore the data plan as it is today, look at what’s changed in the last couple years, and where the future may or may not end up.

This is a follow up to our article titled “The Basics: Understanding Verizon’s Upgrade Policy.”

We get a lot of searches and questions from people trying to understand Verizon Wireless’ upgrade policies and discounts.  Our Upgrade Policy article accounts for a lot of our traffic, but upon further review, we felt it might be prudent to follow up with an article explaining why discounting has changed over the years, and what it looks like today.

If you haven’t read the original upgrade article, please read it first.

And now… the fascinating world of Verizon Wireless subsidy.

Due to the lengthy nature of this article, we’re going to skip the smarmy intoduction and ask you to click on the MORE button.  Thank you.

“Let me speak to your supervisor!”  These are words that many of us have uttered at one point or another.   The words may conjure up images of ineffectual entry-level customer service employees who are unempowered to resolve any “real” issues.  Maybe they conjure up images of customer service employees who don’t realize just how valuable your business is when you’re asking for something.  Surely a supervisor will listen to reason.  Or will they?

Read on for an insider’s perspective on escalating and what it does (or doesn’t) accomplish.

Last week, Verizon Wireless carefully announced that they were going to eliminate one-year contracts as an option for their customers.

The truth of the matter is, one year contracts likely comprise of less than 1% of overall contracts.  We have no real data on this, but a long observation of the business tells us that the numbers are minimal.

The problem, though, is choice.