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).

If you're a smartphone customer, you can still of course pay $60 a month for 5GB worth of data, but the significant majority of customers are going to be using what Verizon's now calling "Enhanced Multimedia Phones," which come tied to this new pricing. The company this week launched the first phone that utilizes this new, not so bargain basement pricing: the 3.1-inch AMOLED touch screen Samsung Rogue:Except with such low caps and steep overages, customers interested in freely wandering the web consuming video are going to be punished for their curiosity. That's of course where Verizon comes along to direct customers back to their $10.00 monthly VCAST video service. Previously, users who rarely went online could pay (an equally ridiculous) $1.99 per megabyte, though at least they had the option of choosing to not pay if they didn't use the Internet. Heavier users could sign up for the "unlimited megabytes" offered by Verizon's $15 a month Vcast VPak.

Now, data plans for every new Verizon "Enhanced Multimedia Phone" going forward are mandatory. Existing users will be grandfathered, though that obviously will change as they finish out their contract and sign up for new devices.

So what's the motivation? More money for an already very profitable company, silly. Verizon Wireless' second quarter results indicated that wireless data revenue comprised 29.3 percent of total Verizon Wireless revenues (net $3.16 billion in the second quarter alone), and jumped 24 percent from one year earlier. Verizon's already impressive wireless profits are about to get more impressive, and while that's great news for investors and Verizon executives, it's not particularly great news for you, or the generally open nature of the Internet.

You quickly begin to see how Verizon's promise of an open wireless network is somewhat disingenuous and is, as we stated back in 2007, really about nickel and diming users with unreasonable data charges. Verizon's pricing model offers virtually no value to consumers, while the company continues to shove users in the direction of their inferior content offerings. Ever since being busted by New York's Attorney General for pretending to offer unlimited data, Verizon's been looking for the chance to shift to wireless per-byte billing, and that chance is finally here.

Even if per-byte billing is the answer (and consumers have repeatedly come out against the idea) Verizon could have imposed more reasonable pricing. Instead, as Time Warner Cable recently did, Verizon went right for the pie in the sky, imposing pricing that's so out of line with real world costs it has to be considered a slap in the face.