According to a New York Times article, Verizon is doubling it’s early termination fee for smart phone users to $350.00. Smartphones are considered to be any Android, Blackberry or similar phone. The fee is prorated at $10/month; however, after 2 years, you still have a $110 penalty for canceling with the carrier.

According to the article, Verizon is known for price gouging anf high prices. On top of these fees, Verizon is known for billing users for minimal amounts of data use (including accidental) for data usage as low as .02 Kb. Should they be allowed to make mobile internet browsing so accessible if they are not accounting for accidental usage? In my opinion, they should include a very small amount of basic data usage in every plan or allow users to disable the internet within a few easy to understand steps via the mobile device.

I agree with David Pogue when he says:

“I realize this is a business, that Verizon exists to make money. But the part I don’t get is why doesn’t Verizon calculate the business cost of making customers unhappy?”

What ever happened to the consumers demanding customer service. Have these massive organizations become so large that they no longer have to care about customer service. Typically, consumers would be able to show their satisfaction based on whether they remain a customer, but with a $300 termination fee, a 2-year contract and our current economy, our options are not what they may have once been.

I recently tried switching my small business to a new hosting company, Neosurge. I hadn’t read any reviews other than the promotional advertisements that looked to be generated by Neosurge solutions themselves. As there were no negative reviews and the domain had been active under the same owner for a few years, I figured it well worth the try.

I was reading an article last week from InformationWeek magazine that detailed a new effort that Coke is pushing forward that will most likely change the face of soda vending as we know it. The source of the article can be found here:

http://www.informationweek.com/1233/coke.htm

The ideas behind reinventing these dispensers is revolutionary. According to their CIO, they will be able to perform audits on their products and customer tastes based on RFID chips that are strategically placed on the various solutions used to create the beverages. They will be able to add new drink flavors instantly and remove them just as fast. The new rigs will have the ability to generate better reporting than that which is currently available to their vendors. All of this information is submitted over the Verizon network.