Verizon to Charge Customers $2 for Paying Their Bill Conveniently: [4th Jan 2012]

In late December Verizon informed their customers that from January 15 they will be charged a $2 "convenience" fee to pay their bill over the phone or online. They described the charge as being about offering their customers the best possible wireless service. The fee would not be charged to those who pay via autopay or electronic check. However in the week since this announcement the press have become involved and the FCC have agreed that they will take a look at the proposal. They say they are concerned about the move and will be looking into it. Customers also started online petitions and even called for boycotts. In response, Verizon have now agreed to scrap the fee and say they are listening to their customers. They are now encouraging their users to take advantage of the most efficient payment methods, but not by imposing a fee at this time. Experts are pointing out how changes can now be made to industry policy through the mobilization of the public.


It has been revealed by an industry insider that Comcast will be phasing out its "Internet2Go" wireless broadband service over the next six months. In fact the service is no longer available via the company website, but those who are still subscribers can continue to be for the time being. It is thought that the move is part of the new deal with Verizon which will see the company bundle Verizon LTE services. With just 30,000 subscribers, the Internet2Go service has not been popular and it is thought they are likely to be off-loaded to Verizon services which they will buy via Comcast. Verizon say that the integration of the two companies in the offering of LTE services will make it more appealing to customers although this is disputed by online pundits.


A report published by Tariff Consultancy has indicated that the pricing for LTE will drop by 60% over the next five years as the technology becomes more widely used and offered by more carriers. Currently LTE or 4G services are touted as being a premium product and are often priced much higher than other services. The report shows that worldwide data usage for LTE users averages at 22GB which is significantly higher than the average usage in the US, showing that there is room for improvement. The study looked at 30 carriers and discovered that just six of these are offering LTWE on an unlimited basis and most offer an 80GB cap. It is also estimated that by 2016 there will be 250 million users of the technology. A spokesperson from the consultancy group has commented that LTE will start to adopt the same mass market characteristics already in place for fixed broadband and 3G.


The latest data from comScore has shown that one in every five minutes spent online worldwide is now taken up with social networking activities. The report from the company titled "Its a social world: Top 10 need-to-knows about social networking and where it's headed" points out that more than half the worlds population visited Facebook in October 2011. In addition 82% of the global population has access to social networking sites. Surprisingly, the US did not rank in th top ten list of social networking sites usage and Israel came in as number one with 11 hours spent on these sites during October. This country was followed by Argentina, Russia and Turkey. Women were also more likely to engage in social networking spending 1.5 hours longer on the sites than men. In the US it was discovered that 94% of those aged over 55 use social networking sites and one third of US social network sites users were accessing them through their mobile and 64% used their smartphone at least once during the month.