Thursday, March 25, 2010

Motorola DEVOUR_FrontOpen.jpg

Verizon Wireless and Motorola, Inc. today announced that Motorola DEVOUR is available online and in Verizon Wireless Communications Stores today for $149.99 after a $100 mail-in rebate with a new two-year customer agreement.

DEVOUR is the second Android™-powered smartphone from Motorola to run on Verizon Wireless’ 3G network. The phone comes with MOTOBLUR, Motorola’s unique content delivery service created to make wireless phones more personal and customizable. Additional features and specifications of Motorola DEVOUR can be found by visiting http://news.vzw.com/news/2010/02/pr2010-02-02c.html.

Motorola DEVOUR customers will need to subscribe to a Verizon Wireless Nationwide Talk or Nationwide Talk & Text plan and an Email and Web for Smartphone plan. Nationwide Talk plans begin at $39.99 monthly access, while Nationwide Talk & Text plans begin at $59.99 monthly access. An Email and Web for Smartphone plan is $29.99 for unlimited monthly access. Customers will receive the handset rebate in the form of a debit card; upon receipt, customers may use the card as cash anywhere debit cards are accepted.

For additional information on Verizon Wireless products and services, visit a Verizon Wireless Communications Store, call 1-800-2 JOIN IN or go to www.verizonwireless.com.



LG Cosmos_Front_Closed.jpg

From CTIA WIRELESS 2010®, Verizon Wireless and LG Electronics MobileComm U.S.A., Inc. (LG Mobile Phones) announced LG Cosmos™ will be available on March 25 in Verizon Wireless Communications Stores and online at www.verizonwireless.com. Equipped with a slide-out QWERTY keyboard for easy text messaging and built-in social networking tools and features, LG Cosmos allows customers to keep their friends in the know while keeping up with life on the go.

Key features:
· Compact, friendly and stylish candy bar phone with a rounded shape and metallic finish
· Web-based e-mail, instant messaging and chat
· Text, picture and voice messaging
· One-touch speaker phone
· Speaker-independent voice commands, including Call, Send Msg To, Go To, Check, Contacts, Search, Redial, My Verizon and Help
· Voice clarity – Auto adjust voice clarity based on surrounding noise level
· Bluetooth® 2.1 capabilities with support for the following profiles: headset, hands-free, phonebook access and object push
· Send calendar events, contact information and print photos via Bluetooth
· Dedicated favorites shortcut keys for up to 10 contacts
· Micro USB charging port
· USB charging via computer
· GPS support for enhanced location accuracy

Additional features:
· Access to Twitter, Facebook®, MySpace and other social networking sites
· 1.3 megapixel camera that includes:
o Three different resolutions
o Zoom up to 2.0 times
o Noise reduction to improve image quality in low-light environments
o Image editor that allows users to zoom, rotate and crop any picture
o Insta-uploading of pictures directly to online albums and Facebook
o Customizable shutter/cue sound, brightness, white balance, color effects, photometry, self-timer and night mode

Pricing and availability:
· LG Cosmos will be available on Thursday, March 25, online at www.verizonwireless.com and in Verizon Wireless Communications Stores for $29.99 after a $50 mail-in rebate with a new two-year customer agreement. Customers will receive the rebate in the form of a debit card; upon receipt, customers may use the card as cash anywhere debit cards are accepted.
· For additional information on Verizon Wireless products and services, visit a Verizon Wireless Communications Store, call 1-800-2 JOIN IN or go to www.verizonwireless.com.



Saturday, February 27, 2010

verizon.jpg

In the aftermath of today’s 8.8 magnitude earthquake in Chile, Verizon Wireless has waived all calling fees for its customers trying to reach loved ones in Chile.

Starting immediately and retroactive to the time of the earthquake, Verizon Wireless customers with regular monthly bills can make calls to connect with family and friends in Chile at no cost when they’re on the Verizon Wireless network in the U.S. Verizon Wireless customers with monthly bills who receive calls from Chile will also receive those calls free of charge. The company is making calls free for at least one week. Calls made while roaming are billed at normal rates.

Dan Mead, chief operating officer of Verizon Wireless, said, “At times of crisis, we spring to action. By acting urgently, we are helping families connect without worrying about cost.”

In addition, Verizon Wireless teams are working with international relief organizations to provide mobile giving options for customers who wish to donate to the earthquake relief efforts. All Verizon Wireless customers who pay a monthly bill, including those formerly with Alltel, may contribute to Chilean earthquake relief efforts via their mobile phones. To make a $10 donation to Habitat for Humanity, text the word “CHILE” to 23583; to make a $10 donation to World Vision, text the word “CHILE” to 20222. Customers will receive a text response to confirm the $10 donation, and 100 percent of customers’ donations will go directly to the relief organization’s efforts to help the victims of the Chilean earthquake. Additional international relief organizations are expected to begin mobile giving campaigns soon.

Verizon Wireless donates the cost of the back-and-forth text messages. Customers will not be charged for the text messages, and the $10 donation will appear on their regular monthly bills.



Monday, January 25, 2010
Palm-Pre Plus_Front-H4-Web.jpg (JPEG Image, 1769x2700 pixels) - Scaled (50%)

Today’s availability of Palm® Pre™ Plus and Palm Pixi™ Plus will bring the Palm webOS™ experience to the nation’s largest and most reliable wireless 3G network. The reach and reliability of Verizon Wireless’ 3G network will provide customers with a 3G advantage when they use Palm Pre Plus and Palm Pixi Plus to:

· Download and use cool apps, from mobile social networking portals to streaming radio
· Browse the Web to keep up with news, sports, stock quotes, Hollywood gossip and more at faster speeds
· Stream must-see video
· Share e-mails with friends, family and coworkers that include picture and video attachments
· Download and play vivid, rousing games
· Quickly download and play music favorites from top 40 to classical
· Work on the go with rapid file sharing

Palm Pre Plus is $149.99 after a $100 mail-in rebate, and Palm Pixi Plus is $99.99 after a $100 mail-in rebate, each with a new two-year customer agreement. Buy a Palm Pre Plus or a Palm Pixi Plus and get a Palm Pixi Plus free after a mail-in rebate through Feb. 14.

Learn more about the features of the new Palm Pre Plus and Palm Pixi Plus at http://news.vzw.com/news/2010/01/pr2010-01-07c.html and http://news.vzw.com/news/2010/01/pr2010-01-21.html.
About Verizon Wireless’ 3G Network



Wednesday, January 20, 2010

verizon.jpg

Kudos to Verizon for this program effective retroactive to the first earthquake date of January 12th. Here’s the press release for details.

Starting immediately, Verizon Wireless customers with contracts or monthly bills in the United States can make calls to reconnect with friends, family, businesses and emergency services in Haiti free of long distance charges. In addition, Verizon Wireless customers with contracts or monthly bills currently in Haiti will not be charged any fees when making phone calls back to the United States. Charges for these voice calls are waived retroactive to last week’s earthquake on Jan. 12 until 11:59 p.m. EST on Sunday, Jan. 31, 2010.

Verizon also will waive all long-distance usage charges on calls made to Haiti from any Verizon residential landline (for more information, visit www.verizon.com/news).

Dan Mead, chief operating officer of Verizon Wireless, said, “Communicating and connecting families is essential to what our business stands for, and who we are. During this major relief effort as communication systems are starting to come back on line, we understand the importance of being in touch with the people who matter most.”



Friday, September 25, 2009
att-logo.jpg

Well “late summer” has come and gone and nearly half a day into the promised launch date of MMS for all AT&T iPhone customers, it finally arrived a little before noon Pacific time. With Twitter a flame with tweets to slam the network at 5 pm Eastern with MMS use, one thing is certain about todays MMS release: Apple is watching.

Apple formally introduced Multimedia Messaging Service to the world in early June at its iPhone OS 3.0 dog and pony show. It displayed it before the developers in a nice large screen with all the carriers that would support MMS upon the June 28th release. Of course, it paused for everyone to take in the fact that the Death Star AT&T logo was missing from the slide at Moscone Centers stage. Front and center, not.

After a furry of angry tweets, Facebook status updates, and blog posts around the Interwebs, AT&T months later sent Seth, its PR guy, to explain the absence via video. See, the thing was, iPhone users were just so unlike other smartphone customers with their data use that AT&T couldn’t possibly support MMS so soon. Soon? Really, MMS support was a surprise to AT&T the day of announcement? Hard to believe but even so, it begs the question why hadn’t it built out the network PRIOR to the announcement when it had to know it was eventually coming? Well, Mr. ATT went on to tell viewers that Ma Bell was fixing a hole for the benefit of iPhone users and would be taking care of signal issues, as well, during the summer. Bonus! Seth really worked it in the video showing lots of towers, data, and hope. Yes, hope you can believe in.

Well, here we are, finally MMS is working and running for iPhone users nationwide and all eyes are on AT&T. How will it handle this? Rumors on Twitter early Tuesday, just days before roll-out, was that a preliminary stress test crashed the system. Today will be a test like none other for AT&T and if it fails, well, it’s almost a sure bet that Verizon will reap success from AT&Ts failure. With Seth’s assurance that iPhone users would enjoy the experience and the billions of dollars it poured into upgrades, failure will only mean that AT&T will never ever be able to fix its holes. Apple will use that as reasoning why it just is no longer “happy” with its relationship and will tell AT&T that it wants to see other people. Of course, it’ll still be friends with AT&T, just not exclusive friends.

So, AT&T, today you must shine or it is over. No marketing blitz will save you from the woes of Apple taking a trip to Jersey and welcoming that guy with his glasses and large group of friends to the iPhone family. As they say in Jersey, put up or shut up.

UPDATE: Upon my first MMS test, it took nearly a minute to complete the send of the MMS message to my wife’s iPhone. Here’s the great part. At five bars in a 3G area, it took nearly 10 minutes for her to receive the MMS message. 10 minutes! While I know everyone with an iPhone is probably using the system right now, man, 10 minutes is S-A-D. I could have described the picture to her via SMS in that amount of time. Shesh…



usb760_Front_Lft_NCap_LRG.jpg

Verizon Wireless announced that the USB760™ Micro Modem is available in business sales channels beginning today. Developed by Novatel Wireless (NASDAQ: NVTL), a leading provider of wireless broadband solutions, the USB760 gives customers a powerful, pocket-sized wireless broadband modem that runs on Verizon Wireless’ high-speed network, which uses Evolution-Data Optimized (EV-DO) Revision A (Rev. A) technology. The USB760 will be available for order in Verizon Wireless Communications Stores on Dec. 1.

Customers can use the included VZAccess Manager™ software on the USB760 for easy connection management and automatic installation on Windows® and Mac systems without the need to install software from a CD. Measuring just more than two inches long and weighing less than an ounce, the USB760 is designed to be extremely durable, and combines a variety of innovative features into its tiny package, including an integrated microSD™ slot, allowing for the seamless storage and transport of up to 8 GB of files, photos or videos on a removable SD storage card (sold separately). Designed to work with any laptop, tablet PC or desktop running Windows, Mac or Linux operating systems and equipped with a Type-A USB port, the USB760 features an internal advanced dual-band diversity antenna, as well as an optional external antenna for enhanced performance on the fringe areas of networks and in highly mobile environments. NovaSpeed™ software helps optimize performance and enables simultaneous uploads and downloads at significantly enhanced speeds.

The USB760 from Verizon Wireless gives customers access to the company’s BroadbandAccess service, which provides fast access to e-mail, corporate data, the Internet and more. With average download speeds of 600 kilobits per second (kbps) to 1.4 megabits per second and average upload speeds of 500-800 kbps, BroadbandAccess from Verizon Wireless allows customers to download a 1 Megabyte e-mail attachment – the equivalent of a small PowerPoint® presentation or a large PDF file – in about eight seconds and upload the same-sized file in less than 13 seconds.

The USB760 is available for $99.99 after a $50 mail-in rebate and a new two-year agreement. Customers will receive the rebate in the form of a debit card; upon receipt, they may use the card as cash anywhere debit cards are accepted. Customers can select from one- or two-year BroadbandAccess plans that offer 50 MB data usage for $39.99 monthly access or 5 GB data usage for $59.99 monthly access.

For more information about Verizon Wireless products and services, visit a Verizon Wireless Communications Store, call 1-800-2 JOIN IN or go to www.verizonwireless.com. Business customers may contact their Verizon Wireless Business Sales Representatives directly at 1-800-VZW-4BIZ.



Thursday, November 13, 2008
verizon.jpg

Verizon Wireless, the nation’s leading wireless provider, and Photobucket, the Web’s premier standalone photo and video-sharing site, today announced the availability of a new mobile photo service on select Verizon Wireless handsets that enables Verizon Wireless customers to easily send photos from a mobile device to a Photobucket album. The application will launch exclusively for Verizon Wireless customers and is available for download from Verizon Wireless mobile storefront by texting ‘photob’ to 2777, in the Community and Sharing category of the Verizon Wireless Get It Now catalog or by visiting photobucket.com/mobile.

Jennifer Byrne, director of digital media at Verizon,said, “Mobile phones are adding a new dimension to sharing images between friends, colleagues or family members. Photobucket is bringing Verizon Wireless customers a new and easy way to share their photos and videos in real-time, without needing to move to a PC to upload and send them.”

“Photobucket is thrilled to team up with Verizon Wireless to provide a quick and easy photo sharing solution for people on the go,” said Alex Welch, President of Photobucket. “Photobucket has always been committed to making photo sharing fun and easy. The Photobucket Mobile Uploader for Verizon Wireless unlocks the full potential of camera phone photos, allowing users to easily save and share images online more easily than they would using traditional digital cameras.”

To utilize the application, Verizon Wireless subscribers sign up for a Photobucket account – which can be created for free at http://photobucket.com – and enter their log-in information to link their Verizon Wireless account to their Photobucket online photo album. Once the accounts are connected, the application instantly uploads photos already saved on the phone to the user’s Photobucket account. The Photobucket Mobile Uploader then automatically sends any future photos directly to the same Photobucket account.

Verizon is the first carrier in the United States to be offering the Photobucket Mobile Uploader and the application will be available initially on 13 handsets. The service is available now from Verizon Wireless, which enables the user to send unlimited mobile photos to their Photobucket account for a monthly subscription fee of $2.99.



Monday, August 11, 2008

VOYAGER_Open_Inbox_300dpi.jpg

Verizon Wireless today introduced Visual Voice Mail, an application that works much like Apple’s iPhone Visual Voicemail. The application is available for the LG Voyager, an iPhone-clone of sorts, that gives the Verizon user the ability to check voicemail right on their phone. Going beyond the iPhone’s simple listen at your conveniences, Verizon’s Visual Voicemail allows for customers to forward voice mail messages in addition to the ability to listen, delete, and reply to. The non-linear system allows a Verizon customer to retain up to 40 messages for 40 days on their LG Voyager.

Verizon also notes that customers can create up to 10 greetings, 20 distribution lists and 50 distribution members to receive messages.

Verizon relies on the Alcatel-Lucent 5150 Messaging Applications Broker (MAB) for visual voice mail, “Which provides enhanced notification and content delivery services for voice, text and video messages through an intuitive visual interface.”



LG Decoy

Feeling a bit like grandpa with this statement, I can remember the days when Bluetooth headsets (BTh) where just a few and even those where difficult to find. Today with many states going with hands-free laws (California to join the fray four days prior to our Nations birthday,) headsets are a dime a dozen now. Many offer a wide range of differing features but none seem to offer what LG’s Decoy does. You see, the Decoy docks its Bluetooth headset in the phone!

According to the Verizon press release SvenOnTech received, the headset attaches to a “discreet docking port” on the back of the slider phone. With the 2.2” mirror-like LCD screen and five-way joystick, you’ll be able to navigate through the multimedia friendly phone that supports mp3, .wma, .aac and unprotected .aac+ files as well as doing the V-CAST thang. You’ll also be able to do email (access MSN® Hotmail®, America Online® and Yahoo!®) along with web surfing. Speakerphone, 2.0 MP camera, and Bluetooth 2.1 pretty much round out this phone. Full set of features after the jump.

The LG Decoy will be available beginning on June 16 for $179.99 after a $50 mail-in rebate and a new two-year customer agreement through Verizon Wireless’ online store at www.verizonwireless.com and in Verizon Wireless Communications Stores, including those in Circuit City.

Read the rest of this entry »