Verizon may be cutting off Treo dial up networking tool

Bob Russell · 02-01-2006, 12:40 PM

Experienced Treo users are probably familiar with the PDAnet tool that allows you to connect your laptop to a Treo and surf the web. Verizon has never allowed that in their terms of agreement, so if you want to surf on both your laptop and your Treo, you need a separate plan for each, which I think runs about $40 each with unlimited data. With PDAnet, you can just get the Treo plan, and use it with your laptop.

It seems that Verizon wants more of your money, so they may be on the road to making PDAnet useless and introducing an add-on $15 plan. Hard to complain too much, though, as it's much less imposing than some of Verizon's other policies with regard to data plans. Their 10meg/month plan, for example, includes a hefty shakedown with some pretty severe charges for data that goes over the 10meg limit. Even worse, they don't allow streaming media over the data network. But isn't that the next "killer app" after mobile email and web browsing? On the other hand, the $15 fee might be more reasonable as an addition to an unlimited Treo data plan because you would be expecting more data usage, especially with the new 700w with its faster speeds. Certainly much more reasonable than the $40/month for the unlimited Treo data plan. Heck, you can surf to your heart's content with almost any other Verizon phone using a $5/mo WAP browser fee.

But take my own complaints with a grain of salt. I'm just holding a grudge because I went with Verizon instead of Sprint, which has a $15/mo unlimited data plan for the Treo. As a result I eventually ended up canceling my data plan altogether. Verizon made and is making a fortune on me because I hardly use my phone minutes most of the time either. So when a nice new PalmOS Treo appears at Sprint one of these days, it's probably a quick goodbye to Verizon after way too many months of being soaked.

Read all what has been written about the Verizon customer service rep's informal comments at Whatever Comes To Mind.

(Via JKonTheRun)

Chaos · 02-01-2006, 10:16 PM

What? A company trying to lock out a free program so they can charge for the same use? Who would have expected that?!

Sarcasm aside, all corporations (in particular, publicly traded ones) go for whatever they can to make as much money as possible. Removing the ability to use something free in order to charge for it is definitely not unexpected in my mind... And you're certainly not wrong to hold a grudge against Verizon. They certainly have shown some... dislikeable business tendancies in the past and present.

02-01-2006, 12:40 PM	#1
Bob Russell Recovering Gadget Addict Posts: 5,381 Karma: 676161 Join Date: May 2004 Location: Pittsburgh, PA Device: iPad	Verizon may be cutting off Treo dial up networking tool Experienced Treo users are probably familiar with the PDAnet tool that allows you to connect your laptop to a Treo and surf the web. Verizon has never allowed that in their terms of agreement, so if you want to surf on both your laptop and your Treo, you need a separate plan for each, which I think runs about $40 each with unlimited data. With PDAnet, you can just get the Treo plan, and use it with your laptop. It seems that Verizon wants more of your money, so they may be on the road to making PDAnet useless and introducing an add-on $15 plan. Hard to complain too much, though, as it's much less imposing than some of Verizon's other policies with regard to data plans. Their 10meg/month plan, for example, includes a hefty shakedown with some pretty severe charges for data that goes over the 10meg limit. Even worse, they don't allow streaming media over the data network. But isn't that the next "killer app" after mobile email and web browsing? On the other hand, the $15 fee might be more reasonable as an addition to an unlimited Treo data plan because you would be expecting more data usage, especially with the new 700w with its faster speeds. Certainly much more reasonable than the $40/month for the unlimited Treo data plan. Heck, you can surf to your heart's content with almost any other Verizon phone using a $5/mo WAP browser fee. But take my own complaints with a grain of salt. I'm just holding a grudge because I went with Verizon instead of Sprint, which has a $15/mo unlimited data plan for the Treo. As a result I eventually ended up canceling my data plan altogether. Verizon made and is making a fortune on me because I hardly use my phone minutes most of the time either. So when a nice new PalmOS Treo appears at Sprint one of these days, it's probably a quick goodbye to Verizon after way too many months of being soaked. Read all what has been written about the Verizon customer service rep's informal comments at Whatever Comes To Mind. (Via JKonTheRun)

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02-01-2006, 10:16 PM	#2
Chaos Evangelist Posts: 418 Karma: 281 Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: Canada Device: Assorted older devices	What? A company trying to lock out a free program so they can charge for the same use? Who would have expected that?! Sarcasm aside, all corporations (in particular, publicly traded ones) go for whatever they can to make as much money as possible. Removing the ability to use something free in order to charge for it is definitely not unexpected in my mind... And you're certainly not wrong to hold a grudge against Verizon. They certainly have shown some... dislikeable business tendancies in the past and present.

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