Verizon may offer a phone plan with no outbound calling

Verizon May Offer Phone Service That Doesn't Allow Outbound Calling [Multichannel News - Bit Rate]

Here's a head scratcher. Yesterday, Verizon announced they may offer a new home telephone service offer for their customers. They're calling it a great value in home phone. But there's a catch, subscribers to the new phone service can't call anyone, they can only receive calls. Apologies to Alexander Graham Bell, but I thought the point of a telephone was so that people could call their friends and family not simply waiting and hoping for the phone to ring.

For those of you that think this is a joke, I promise that Verizon's phone offer is very real. It was profiled in yesterday's Wall Street Journal. It's a reaction to the large numbers of Verizon customers who are ditching their Verizon as their phone company and opting to switch to less expensive phone offers from cable operators. In the last quarter of 2008, Verizon lost 670,000 landline customers. Many of those customers are now happy cable customers, with a less expensive phone bill bundled with cable television and broadband. While I'm sure the phone company seriously wants to retain those customers, I can't fathom how they plan to keep them by offering them such a limited phone service.

Do you think they'll use the "can you hear me now?" guy to advertise their "I can't call you, so call me" telephone plan?

Comments

[sineswiper]

Russ, if Verizon is going to be charging the same price for their one-sided service that Insight charges for their fully functional service, what's the point? BOFK's idea of alarm system is interesting, but a very limited market, especially considering that Verizon is trying to win some of those huge numbers back.

There might be a potential market for that in the cable world, but it would have to come with some cost savings on their end to justify the drop in an already low monthly price.

[Russ]

Michael, your post just proves why Insight is losing favor with some customers - because you do not address the WHOLE marketplace. With so many people having multiple cell phones in the house, having a home phone that is incoming only makes a lot of sense. While it is certainly not for everyone, there is a segment of the market that wants a minimum-but-useful level of service. Insight and other cable providers seem to be mired in the past where they only provide services for what they think users may want. The future of VOIP and CTV is complete freedom of choice and someone needs to recognize that incremental gains can be made by offering innovative choices to niche customers - you can rest assured that Google or Yahoo or someone is already working on it.

[Steve Huff]

This is an awesome idea!!! Everytime my mother-in-law called I'd say, "I'll call you back as soon as I can".

[Why Knock Verizon]

It will be good to have the New FIOS 20/20 Internet Verizon has now. I just hope it will be Available in Kentucky Before Insight Broadband caps or throttles even more customers, yes it's true, they asked me to monitor my 20mb usage, maybe even cut it back to a few hours a day. or maybe 8mb or 9mb when I have a 20mb connection. even cut me off until I called them because I sent a bunch of pictures I had taken of my family back and forth to my relatives. over a period of time saying I had exceeded Bandwidth usage for uploading over several days. I guess you don't get what you pay for anymore, but cheers for blogging Verizon when one day it might just be Insights biggest competition not to worry though they will get many more customers than before with these tactics being implemented now the good ole violating exceptible use policy that can cut you off for anything they deem strains their nodes or neighbors Bandwidth when it's already apparently exceeding the limits placed on it now.

[bofkentucky]

What this is perfect for alarm circuits and home/business fax lines. ADT (and most other alarm systems) refuse to interconnect with a packetcable/emta systems. FTTN/FTTH telco solutions may also fall under similar restrictions, if the nodes don't have generator and battery plant for extended periods

Some systems will interconnect if you have an automatic transfer generator system but even those are rare.

Cablelabs and the industry need a solution, from the back of my envelope there are a few options:

1) Higher performance batteries in the MTA, 24 hours of standby at a minimum, 2-3 hours of talk time, preferably 72 hours similar to the traditional 48VDC plant at a phone Central Office.

2) Wireless (GPRS/1xRTT class service) with a seperate long life battery system, it could be done like onstar with existing cellular modems today. A 700Mhz wireless system with each node having a "microcell" could be done after the DTV switch

[Paul]

Well that's just insane. Let's see, the cable company's have a lower rate on their phone service. Let's make our cheaper but you can only recive calls. Still a win for the cable companies I think, since you can't call anyone and give them your new number.