There’s a storm brewing that’s going to rain on Verizon and give you unlimited amounts of sunshine. Skype is now going to be available on a number of Verizon’s smart phones.
This is good news for consumers like us. Whether the wireless carriers like it or not, the momentum is shifting in our favor. I think our wireless experience is going to come down to cost/coverage in the very near future. You’ll be able to get unlimited data plans and the days of taxing you to death with texting plans and calling plans will finally be behind us.
The savvy wireless phone users will realize it’s very much to their advantage to shift their phone numbers to calling services like Skype or Google Voice so that you will be able to freely move from one wireless carrier to another based on price and coverage alone. I’d liken it to your ability to switch DSL/Cable providers to get the best price every year.
I think it’s high time that the wireless carriers lose their leverage over their customers. I think we’ve overpaid for mediocre service for a long time. I’m excited to think that we can shift these carriers to being “dumb pipes†so that we simply use them for the connection. No longer will we have to settle for crappy phones with crappy services. With phones like the Nexus One and the Iphone (and the hundreds that are coming down the pike) we’ll be able to slowly forget what carrier we are even using, except for the data bill that shows up each month.
Of course I’m exaggerating a little bit because I think we all know that the carriers aren’t going to be marginalized that easily, but I think the writing is on the wall. The tides are shifting in our favor and it’s just a matter of how long it takes to be complete!
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