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Verizon Mobile Hotspot On WebOS Phones Now Free
Used to be $40 a month...
Usually when Verizon Wireless pricing makes the news, said news isn't particularly good -- be it higher ETFs, weird phantom fees, or just higher prices in general. That's why it's kind of refreshing to see that Verizon is now letting Palm Pre Plus and Pixi Plus users use those phones' Wi-Fi sharing service for free (Verizon used to charge $40 a month). "Customers who purchase or upgrade to a Palm Pre and Palm Pixi will get the Mobile Hotspot for free," Verizon tells Engadget. "Existing customers who already have the service will find charges on their next bill will be $0.00." That's good news for those users, who get the 3G to Wi-Fi sharing capabilities of a MiFi or other 3G router, without the cost. Meanwhile, in an effort to prop up Palm, Verizon's dropped the Pre Plus and Pixi Plus subsidized price tags to $49.99 and $29.99, respectively.
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glinc
join:2009-04-07
New York, NY

glinc

Member

EVO 4G

I guess they had to do this to get ahead of the announced feature of the EVO 4G which prolly be for free.

ozzny
Premium Member
join:2005-04-22
Bronx, NY

ozzny

Premium Member

Re: EVO 4G

said by glinc:

I guess they had to do this to get ahead of the announced feature of the EVO 4G which prolly be for free.
There must be something else going on besides a response to Sprint. Sprint is too insignificant for Verizon to care.

kapil
The Kapil
join:2000-04-26
Chicago, IL

kapil

Member

Re: EVO 4G

said by ozzny:

There must be something else going on besides a response to Sprint. Sprint is too insignificant for Verizon to care.
One of your two closest competitors is too insignificant? The third largest company in your industry's is too insignificant? A company with 50+ million customers is too insignificant? If you ever get to run a company, be sure to let us all know so we can avoid buying stock in it.

ozzny
Premium Member
join:2005-04-22
Bronx, NY

ozzny

Premium Member

Re: EVO 4G

said by kapil:

said by ozzny:

There must be something else going on besides a response to Sprint. Sprint is too insignificant for Verizon to care.
One of your two closest competitors is too insignificant? The third largest company in your industry's is too insignificant? A company with 50+ million customers is too insignificant? If you ever get to run a company, be sure to let us all know so we can avoid buying stock in it.
Yes, too insignificant. Sprint loses customer every quarter while every other company in this industry gains customers. Their stock is worth less than the paper it's printed on. Their marketing department just doesn't get it. Their customer service has one of the lowest rating in the industry. Churn rate is extremely high, if it wasn't for Boost Mobile their numbers would be even worse. Shall I go on? I think you get the point.

NY Tel
Premium Member
join:2004-04-09
Smithtown, NY

NY Tel to ozzny

Premium Member

to ozzny
said by ozzny:

said by glinc:

I guess they had to do this to get ahead of the announced feature of the EVO 4G which prolly be for free.
There must be something else going on besides a response to Sprint. Sprint is too insignificant for Verizon to care.
The phone(s) are a bomb and are not selling. That's why they did it.

ReVeLaTeD
Premium Member
join:2001-11-10
San Diego, CA

ReVeLaTeD

Premium Member

Re: EVO 4G

said by NY Tel:

said by ozzny:

said by glinc:

I guess they had to do this to get ahead of the announced feature of the EVO 4G which prolly be for free.
There must be something else going on besides a response to Sprint. Sprint is too insignificant for Verizon to care.
The phone(s) are a bomb and are not selling. That's why they did it.
I don't doubt this is the case. However, I just picked the phone up and, coming from a 5-year-long BlackBerry streak, I can say that the Palm Pre Plus is quite possibly one of the best overall devices I've used for what I use cell phones for. It allowed me to get rid of two lines (my phone and my MiFi) AND save $30/month...plus, the Mobile Hotspot is 5GB rather than the 250MB I was paying for on the MiFi. Win all around.

NY Tel
Premium Member
join:2004-04-09
Smithtown, NY

NY Tel

Premium Member

Re: EVO 4G

Yes while the phone may not be mainstream - I did use it for a day and it does have excellent sound quality. Watch the battery life. If you set active-sync (or whatever it uses to get mail) for instant as opposed to "check ever 15 minutes" I noticed it sucks the life out of the battery.
Other than that - enjoy the lower cost and new phone.

ReVeLaTeD
Premium Member
join:2001-11-10
San Diego, CA

ReVeLaTeD

Premium Member

Re: EVO 4G

said by NY Tel:

Yes while the phone may not be mainstream - I did use it for a day and it does have excellent sound quality. Watch the battery life. If you set active-sync (or whatever it uses to get mail) for instant as opposed to "check ever 15 minutes" I noticed it sucks the life out of the battery.
Other than that - enjoy the lower cost and new phone.
No more so than the Storm or Storm 2 which I came from. Not for nothing though - I don't need emails instantly anymore like I used to. Still a kickin phone. I could dump my work phone if they weren't paying for it, besides the fact that the BlackBerry Pearl 8100 is still a better phone in terms of general call quality...but I think that's always going to be the case.

NY Tel
Premium Member
join:2004-04-09
Smithtown, NY

NY Tel

Premium Member

Re: EVO 4G

said by ReVeLaTeD:

said by NY Tel:

Yes while the phone may not be mainstream - I did use it for a day and it does have excellent sound quality. Watch the battery life. If you set active-sync (or whatever it uses to get mail) for instant as opposed to "check ever 15 minutes" I noticed it sucks the life out of the battery.
Other than that - enjoy the lower cost and new phone.
No more so than the Storm or Storm 2 which I came from. Not for nothing though - I don't need emails instantly anymore like I used to. Still a kickin phone. I could dump my work phone if they weren't paying for it, besides the fact that the BlackBerry Pearl 8100 is still a better phone in terms of general call quality...but I think that's always going to be the case.
I currently have the Pearl 8130 on Verizon and yes it does have excellent quality. Ah the Storm, one of Verizon's MOST returned phone in their history if my sources are correct....

ReVeLaTeD
Premium Member
join:2001-11-10
San Diego, CA

ReVeLaTeD

Premium Member

Re: EVO 4G

said by NY Tel:

said by ReVeLaTeD:

said by NY Tel:

Yes while the phone may not be mainstream - I did use it for a day and it does have excellent sound quality. Watch the battery life. If you set active-sync (or whatever it uses to get mail) for instant as opposed to "check ever 15 minutes" I noticed it sucks the life out of the battery.
Other than that - enjoy the lower cost and new phone.
No more so than the Storm or Storm 2 which I came from. Not for nothing though - I don't need emails instantly anymore like I used to. Still a kickin phone. I could dump my work phone if they weren't paying for it, besides the fact that the BlackBerry Pearl 8100 is still a better phone in terms of general call quality...but I think that's always going to be the case.
I currently have the Pearl 8130 on Verizon and yes it does have excellent quality. Ah the Storm, one of Verizon's MOST returned phone in their history if my sources are correct....
I actually had no complaints about the Storm 2 itself except for the moron who designed the media card slot. The 16GB card snapped when I tried to remove it because it was literally so tight in there it might as well have been fused to the metal. Now the slot is unusable even though I got all of the fragments of the card out. Will make it hard to sell the poor thing, it's flawless otherwise.

The only other issue I had with my Storm 2 is my extreme dissatisfaction at the idea that Verizon can change applications on it whenever they please to whatever they please; they can change my settings (hated the Bing search change passionately), and that it didn't respond fast enough to keep up with what I was doing during phone calls. Other than that - web browsing, email, news, etc - as a data phone it really had no peer...until now.
wispalord
join:2007-09-20
Farmington, MO

wispalord to glinc

Member

to glinc
Nope 29.99 for 8 users unless the phone is rooted then it's free

MemphisPCGuy
Taking Care Business
Premium Member
join:2004-05-09
Memphis, TN

MemphisPCGuy

Premium Member

If I had only gotten my Centro Rebate...

... I'd be ready to update. The Salesman told me they handled the rebate and then stuck the rebate certificate in the box and handed me a receipt with my plan attached. Called to see what was up 3-4 months later and was ineligible because I hadn't sent in the rebate form. Salesman swears he would never tell anyone they handle the rebate .. but yesterday I went in and they told me they handle the rebate .... wtf! $70 verizon dollars down the tubes
MRCUR
join:2007-03-09
Lancaster, PA

MRCUR

Member

Re: If I had only gotten my Centro Rebate...

Here's the solution to your problems: don't listen to the sales morons and send the rebates in yourself.

Problem = solved.
questionable1
join:2005-10-18
Phoenix, AZ

questionable1 to MemphisPCGuy

Member

to MemphisPCGuy
Hey MemphisPC Guy

Yes they don't give rebates anymore on the Palm Pre or Pixi Pluses
InfinityDev
join:2005-06-30
USA

InfinityDev

Member

huge for Palm

This is really huge. Now all Palm has to do is advertise the Pre properly. Fifty bucks for a small form factor, industrial strength multitasking smartphone that can share its data plan with a wifi device at no additional cost!

Amazing.

shaner
Premium Member
join:2000-10-04
Calgary, AB

shaner

Premium Member

Re: huge for Palm

said by InfinityDev:

This is really huge. Now all Palm has to do is advertise the Pre properly. Fifty bucks for a small form factor, industrial strength multitasking smartphone that can share its data plan with a wifi device at no additional cost!

Amazing.
I agree. The Palm Pre Plus has the potential to really eat into the iPhone aura, if they market it properly. With the "mifi" capability, that's an amazing device. Now if Palm could only convince one of it's owners (Bono) to stop doing Blackberry commercials.

C0deZer0
Oc'D To Rhythm And Police
Premium Member
join:2001-10-03
Tempe, AZ

C0deZer0

Premium Member

Re: huge for Palm

said by shaner:

I agree. The Palm Pre Plus has the potential to really eat into the iPhone aura, if they market it properly. With the "mifi" capability, that's an amazing device. Now if Palm could only convince one of it's owners (Bono) to stop doing Blackberry commercials.
Actually, I would deliberately avoid that suggestion, because anyone who watches South Park would basically avoid anything and everything that Bono promotes.

Thus, my advice to Palm is to keep Bono promoting the dingleberry.
xenophon
join:2007-09-17

1 edit

xenophon to InfinityDev

Member

to InfinityDev
Very curious that free tethering is for webOS only. Great for Palm if this is the case as they need to stand out somehow. Is it an apology for the crappy job VZW did with launching webOS?

I have a Pre and am convinced it is _the_ smartphone OS of the future. More open than iPhone and much more polished and easier to develop for than Android, with a significant focus on one-handed operation, which no one does better than Palm.

Just ask Gameloft how easy it is to develop for webOS. They nearly instantly ported 3D game to webOS and already have most of the game library on Palm. They took many months to get one advanced 3D game on Android and it only works on Droid. The homebrew community also ported Doom/Quake in a day once the 3D libraries were found.

OldschoolDSL
Premium Member
join:2006-02-23
Indian Orchard, MA

OldschoolDSL

Premium Member

Verizon April Fools?

It would be nice if this is true.... But hen has Verizon given anyone something for free?!!?

crzy13
@iauq.com

crzy13

Anon

Re: Verizon April Fools?

Just went to my account online and added mobile hotspot and showed $0.00 monthly fee.
questionable1
join:2005-10-18
Phoenix, AZ

questionable1

Member

Re: Verizon April Fools?

Love the new feature. Normally you don't get anything from verizon for free but this is amazing
podstolom
join:2010-01-25
Wichita, KS

podstolom

Member

Palm Nailing Verizon

I bet Palm nailed VZW to the wall on this WiFi Hotspot thing. They probably always intended this to be a no-upcost feature of the phone and decided their atrocious quaterly financials necessitated some drastic action. I've heard WebOS is actually pretty good, don't know about the quality of the phone.

Telco_Tech
join:2009-05-18
Toledo, OH

Telco_Tech

Member

Re: Palm Nailing Verizon

said by podstolom:

I bet Palm nailed VZW to the wall on this WiFi Hotspot thing. They probably always intended this to be a no-upcost feature of the phone and decided their atrocious quaterly financials necessitated some drastic action. I've heard WebOS is actually pretty good, don't know about the quality of the phone.
I've owned two Palm Pre's and I can testify that yes, webOS is an excellent OS. At the time I left the platform though, the system was riddled with quirks and annoyances that ended up driving me to Android. As nice as webOS is though, the hardware they slapped it on is trash. I can't speak about the build quality of the Pre Plus or Pixi line but the Sprint version of the Pre is really lackluster. Palm might stand a chance of surviving if they can release a well made phone with a more polished version of webOS before they run out of money.

- Tate

sidmystic
join:2005-04-06
Bothell, WA

sidmystic

Member

Meh

All you Blackberry users, though... no free tethering for you, lunkheads!

BBUsers: Gee, thanks, Big Red! May we have another?

Telco_Tech
join:2009-05-18
Toledo, OH

Telco_Tech

Member

I remain unimpressed

This is a good move for consumers but honestly, why were they ever charging extra for this "service" in the first place? You pay X dollars for 5 GB of wireless data per month. What business is it of your carrier's how you consume those 5 GB?

And yes, I see this purely as a knee jerk reaction to the EVO 4G, which will presumably tether for free (if not, custom ROM's will make it free).

- Tate
glinc
join:2009-04-07
New York, NY

glinc

Member

Re: I remain unimpressed

For mobile data, you pay X amount/month and you get unlimited data on your device. Then paying x amount extra would give you 5GB to tether.

Now with this move IDK if it will be 5GB or unlimited to tether.

Gbcue
Premium Member
join:2001-09-30
Santa Rosa, CA

Gbcue to Telco_Tech

Premium Member

to Telco_Tech
said by Telco_Tech:

This is a good move for consumers but honestly, why were they ever charging extra for this "service" in the first place? You pay X dollars for 5 GB of wireless data per month. What business is it of your carrier's how you consume those 5 GB?

And yes, I see this purely as a knee jerk reaction to the EVO 4G, which will presumably tether for free (if not, custom ROM's will make it free).

- Tate

I know, especially since it's a built in feature of the phone.
BiggA
Premium Member
join:2005-11-23
Central CT

BiggA

Premium Member

AT&T

If AT&T follows suit, I'll have to get one of these things. The one feature on my E71 that I have to have is tethering. I want my laptop and iPod to be able to go online wherever without having another plan or whatnot.
stufried
Premium Member
join:2003-10-13

stufried

Premium Member

Re: AT&T

Jokuspot?
BiggA
Premium Member
join:2005-11-23
Central CT

BiggA

Premium Member

Re: AT&T

On my E71, yeah. It works great, as long as you have a well-charged battery.
mexicali100
join:2010-01-04
Schenectady, NY

mexicali100

Member

Just Got one a Week ago - I think it's $15 for tethering

I just got a Pixi a week ago. Verizon's website was confusing on the Tethering plan. Their $15 "Mobile Broadband" plan, which is usb tethering, wasn't available for the Palm phones under business plans, but was available when you used the site as a consumer. Then they also had the "Mobile Hotspot" for $40, which changed prices three times over a two day period.

Nevertheless, they must of heard me bad talking them for essentially charging $25 a month Just for enabling a built in hardware function. (That is way more absurd, then $10/month navigation.)

I believe what Verizon will be offering is $15 tethering, wired or wireless. I shall, see.

The pixie is a great piece of hardware and the webOS is too good to fail.

ReVeLaTeD
Premium Member
join:2001-11-10
San Diego, CA

ReVeLaTeD

Premium Member

Re: Just Got one a Week ago - I think it's $15 for tethering

said by mexicali100:

I just got a Pixi a week ago. Verizon's website was confusing on the Tethering plan. Their $15 "Mobile Broadband" plan, which is usb tethering, wasn't available for the Palm phones under business plans, but was available when you used the site as a consumer. Then they also had the "Mobile Hotspot" for $40, which changed prices three times over a two day period.

Nevertheless, they must of heard me bad talking them for essentially charging $25 a month Just for enabling a built in hardware function. (That is way more absurd, then $10/month navigation.)

I believe what Verizon will be offering is $15 tethering, wired or wireless. I shall, see.

The pixie is a great piece of hardware and the webOS is too good to fail.
Mobile Hotspot is the free one. It's not USB tethering. It turns the Pre/Pre Plus/Pixi into a MiFi, essentially. The data consumed on Mobile Hotspot is treated separately from the data the phone itself uses. Having the Mobile Hotspot for free is just absolutely beautiful.

jnc2000
Premium Member
join:2003-08-05
Pittsburgh, PA

1 edit

jnc2000

Premium Member

Official.

wrong link....

FLATLINE
join:2007-02-27
Buffalo, NY

FLATLINE

Member

Great!

Oh yeah this is great for all five of the people who have these phones. Good job Verizon.

eric_n_dfw
join:2001-10-22
Roanoke, TX

eric_n_dfw

Member

Ultimate iPad companion?

I was considering getting either an iPad 3g and dropping my iPhone for a plain-old phone, but this makes me think I might want to go with a WiFi iPad + a VZ Pixie instead.

Very interested to see how AT&T reacts.

MovieLover76
join:2009-09-11
Cherry Hill, NJ
(Software) pfSense
Asus RT-AC68
Asus RT-AC66

MovieLover76

Member

decent

That is a really decent move on verizon's part, I wish my iPhone did that, it's the one feature of jailbreaking that has appealed to me, but I'm a on 3GS with 3.1.3 so no jailbreak right now and I know I'm gonna want the 4.0 upgrade so jailbreaks are out of the question for me for quite awhile