You might remember how during the summer, Teresa Dixon Murray at the Cleveland Plain Dealer did a great job highlighting a phantom $1.99 fee Verizon was hitting consumers with -- even if they didn't use any data. The phantom charges were being incurred when phones were off, phone batteries were dead, Internet access was blocked, or the phones didn't have the necessary software to go online. Many of you at the time complained about the fee as well. If you remember, Verizon told the paper that the charges were "erroneous" and that users would be getting full refunds.

Fast forward several months later, and David Pogue of the New York Times pens an article today exploring how users are still getting socked by the phantom fee. Pogue doesn't reference Murray's earlier investigation into the phantom fee, but he does take the story one step further by quoting a Verizon insider who claims Verizon's well aware of the scam, but refuses to do anything about it because of the millions in additional revenue it generates. Says the insider: story continues..

Verizon's confirming reports from earlier this week that those who buy the new Motorola Droid this Friday will eventually have the ability to tether the phone and use it as a netbook and laptop modem. While Verizon's still not getting specific on the launch date of the functionality ("sometime in 2010"), they are getting specific on the price.

According to a leaked memo posted over at the Boy Genius Report, Verizon is preparing to double the early termination fee for customers who buy new smartphones via Verizon. According to the memo, customers after November 15 who buy an "advanced device" (smartphones) can expect to pay a $350 ETF, though that total will decrease $10 a month every month a user's under contract. The BGR surmises that the change is to stop people from flipping subsidized smartphones over at eBay, though you can also be sure Verizon's forced migration to open devices and platforms has them eager to make up some of that lost revenue in other places.

While they normally fight over wireless competition, net neutrality and white spaces, Google and Verizon got along well enough today to announce a collaboration that will bring Google Android handsets to Verizon within weeks. Rumors of Android phones on Verizon have been bubbling for a while, but this morning saw some additional details emerge.

It's been made fairly clear that as Verizon loses the ability to lock down their phones and network (forcing consumers toward their wireless handset content), the carrier is going to make up for it by squeezing the pipe and imposing some steep per-byte charges. A recently leaked Verizon memo gave insight into the company's new wireless pricing plans for Internet-enabled handsets not quite powerful enough to be considered "smartphones": $9.99 for 25MB (50 cents each additional MB) or $19.99 for 75MB (30 cents each additional MB).

The Cleveland Plain Dealer has been doing an excellent job this week highlighting a $1.99 "data usage fee" Verizon's been imposing on wireless customers who, well, aren't using any data. An August 14 column first brought the issue some attention, when Teresa Dixon Murray noted that Verizon has been charging customers $1.99 for doing absolutely nothing.

The folks over at Verizon starting using Twitter (see posts here and here) this afternoon to generate buzz about the fact that Verizon has successfully tested wireless data/voice connectivity in both Seattle and Boston using gear from LG and Samsung. According to this press release, the Seattle testing was successful back in July, with the Boston tests completed this week. Verizon plans to launch the faster technology (downstream speeds between 7-12Mbps downstream and 3-5Mbps upstream to start) in 30 markets in 2010, with deployment completed by 2014. Boston and Seattle now have 10 LTE 4G cell sites up and running on the 700 MHz spectrum, according to the carrier.

Back in 2007, Verizon announced that they'd be throwing off the shackles of closed network architectures and crippled devices to embrace the glorious open and free Internet, a decision that was lauded by the technology media as a massive paradigm shift for the company. Unfortunately, the technology media gave Verizon their cookie before the company actually accomplished anything.

In a conference call with analysts to discuss yesterday's earnings (which we already discussed at length), Verizon Wireless executives announced that they'll first test faster LTE wireless broadband technology in Seattle and Boston. Verizon had already announced that they'd test the technology in 2009 for a 2010 launch in roughly thirty markets, but they'd yet to mention specific markets.

Verizon competitor Cablevision recently announced they'd be offering free Wi-Fi to all of their customers in the New York City tri-state area. Verizon responded swiftly to Cablevision's offer, calling it it a "marketing stunt." So it's interesting to see Verizon today announce they're going to...offer their broadband customers free Wi-Fi.

Verizon's FiOS billing and customer service has long been the Achilles heel of an otherwise excellent service, and Verizon has long promised us that they'd get a handle on the problems. It's now 2009 and in via a freshly launched blog, Verizon again says they're working on making bills simpler and correcting billing errors more quickly.

Apparently Verizon's recent shiny privacy facelift didn't impress some people. The Consumerist points to one self-proclaimed "freak with bullhorn" from Zug.com who visited the home address of Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg to complain about lax privacy policies, after he was easily able to buy the CEO's personal cell phone information online.

As part of an agreement with Florida's Attorney General, Verizon and Alltel (now part of Verizon) will have to deliver roughly $30 million in refunds to consumers for ringtones and other services that customers either didn't want or didn't understand they signed up for. According to a statement by Attorney General Bill McCollum, Verizon is also required to adopt new guidelines preventing customers from getting snookered by such promotions in the future. Cell phone content includes ringtones, music, wallpaper, horoscopes and other material that is often promoted by online marketers as “free,” but ultimately ends up costing up to $19.99 a month, says a statement from McCollum's office.

Verizon wireless broadband users who travel abroad frequently should be happy to note that Verizon Wireless today unveiled their new USB1000 Global Modem from Novatel Wireless. The modem features 800/1900 EVDO Revision A, quad-band GSM/EDGE and tri-band 850/1900/2100MHz WCDMA/HSDPA/HSUPA radios on board.

As we've recently noted, both Verizon and AT&T are planning to offer subsidized netbooks, something that will bring additional attention on their very low wireless broadband data caps and sometimes costly overages. In the hopes of selling more netbooks as they move forward, Verizon is bringing their 3G EVDO data plans more in line with the plans used for their new Wi-Fi/3G router. The cap on their $40 tier will jump from 50 MB to 250MB, while overages will decrease from 25 cents to 10 cents per megabyte. The cap for their $60 tier remains at 5GB per month, though overages are being reduced from 25 cents to 5 cents per megabyte.

Last week Verizon wireless unveiled a little more detail about their LTE plans, telling investors and analysts on a conference call that Verizon Wireless LTE devices will have swappable SIM cards. That means that you should have a broader choice of devices, though as we've explored Verizon's shift toward a truly open network has thus far been more showmanship than substance. Verizon hopes to have a trial market up late this year, thirty markets live in 2010, and the majority of their deployments up and running by 2014.

To gain approval for their acquisition of Alltel, Verizon was forced by the FCC to divest a number of Alltel markets by May 9, in order to maintain something vaguely resembling competition in the mobile market. The divested markets, which include all of North and South Dakota and chunks of sixteen other States, make up a decent-sized chunk of Alltel's former footprint -- though most of the 85 markets are in less profitable areas. Stocks rallied a bit late today on the news that -- not too surprisingly -- AT&T will be buying most of these markets for a cool $2.5 billion.

Back in March, it leaked out that Verizon was working on a new portable 3G Wi-Fi Gateway -- essentially a rebranded version of the Novatel MiFi. Verizon has now officially launched the Verizon MiFi 2200, which costs $100 after a $50 rebate. The device has a 40 hour battery, and bandwidth for the device is dribbled out to the tune of $40 per month for 250MB of data, $60 for 5GB, with each additional MB costing ten cents. Verizon also offers a $15 no contract "day pass." While those prices aren't particularly sexy, it's a turnaround for Verizon, who back in 2005 liked to complain that such devices were against your terms of service, while pretending that your very limited EVDO connection was unlimited.

Before the first iPhone was released, Apple actually approached Verizon with exclusive distribution rights to the device, though Verizon balked at the money Apple was asking for. AT&T was less shy, willing to pay between $300-$450 per phone sold for an exclusive partnership until 2010.

Back in 2007, Verizon made a big deal about "opening up" their wireless network. The announcement got a huge amount of kudos from the press, which collectively gushed about how Verizon Wireless had turned a corner and embraced the new, open wireless paradigm.