Verizon CFO: “Unlimited is just a word”

Written by

Mashable:

Verizon believes unlimited data plans are on their way out, the company’s CFO told investors at a Goldman Sachs conference on Friday. “The good news here though is the dilution is not as much as we expected,” said Fran Shammo, explaining how the company hasn’t seen much attrition after dropping its unlimited data plan in May. Shammo added that “Unlimited is just a word. It doesn’t mean anything…”

No – it doesn’t. Mostly because you cell phone providers have made it meaningless. You used it to sucker in customers and once you got your hooks into them, you removed or “redefined” the word to suit your needs – but not the needs of the customers.

So you’re right, it doesn’t mean anything – when weasels like you use it.



  • Fabio

    Asshole is just a word too

  • http://chris.pirillo.com/ Chris Pirillo

    Hear, hear.

  • VGISoftware

    Uh, oh. The mighty Shawn King is disappointed. . .

    As if “unlimited” EVER meant anything substantial of ANYONE!

    The hard cold fact is that NOTHING is “free” or “unlimited” in the Physical Universe.

    Any hopes or beliefs to the contrary are delusional.

    How about we just move on!

    Hope those who left AT&T for Verizon’s greener grass aren’t too distraught! Heh, heh.

    Frankly, I think AT&T’s “Mobile Share” is a reasonable system, and I don’t mind paying for what I consume–just like the water or electric bill!

    • http://www.theuniversalsteve.com SSteve

      And that was “My Two Cents” by Kent Brockman. He, for one, welcomes our new weasel overlords.

    • http://twitter.com/Moeskido Moeskido

      Do you seriously believe it’s okay for a carrier (or indeed any business) to promote a service using deliberately deceptive language… or are you just gloating at another consumer because you imagine you have some sort of affiliation with their competition?

      Also, If you run a company of your own this way, I’d like to know which one it is, so I can avoid ever doing business with it.

      • VGISoftware

        Oh cool your jets, Moesky. Just try for once not to put words in my mouth.

        After all that’s been said from carriers and consumers about “unlimited” since day one when iPhone debuted, would any reasonable person try to take the carriers at their word that “unlimited” REALLY meant that?

        I wouldn’t put it past you, of course.

        • http://twitter.com/Moeskido Moeskido

          Still as awesome as you ever were.

          This isn’t about your “reasonable” standards for consumer expectations, or your apparent contempt for anyone who would still require any business to advertise itself truthfully. This is about a continuing degradation of marketing language used to deceive. The fact that you’re blowing it off says a lot about you.

          Seriously: where do you work? I’d very much like to avoid it.

          • VGISoftware

            I’d be quite grateful if you WOULD avoid me, including this comment thread.

            But at least you’re confirming my suspicions that there at least two worlds at play here: the real world where life just goes on, and the world where you and your ilk desperately try to fabricate CONTROVERSY where it doesn’t exist.

          • http://twitter.com/Moeskido Moeskido

            Translations:

            “life goes on” = “let me make dissociative excuses for dishonest business practices I hope nobody ever tries to improve”

            “controversy” = anytime someone treats me like a shit-talking troll

            VGI Software = a notional company that will never make anything that anyone might need

            There, fixed it for you.

          • http://twitter.com/Moeskido Moeskido

            Translations:

            “where life just goes on” = where we should all ridicule complaints about deceptive business practices that nobody should ever try to correct, because false advertising is great for everyone

            “controversy” = any degree of disagreement with your dissociative, apologist-troll shit-talk

            “VGI Software” = a notional company that will likely never make anything that anyone might need

            There, fixed it for you.

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Vera-Comment/100002347335999 Vera Comment

      “Frankly, I think AT&T’s “Mobile Share” is a reasonable system, and I don’t mind paying for what I consume–just like the water or electric bill!”

      yeah.. but your utilities don’t add a fee per faucet/outlet.

  • http://twitter.com/bckieffer Brian Kieffer

    I seem to remember there being another word. It describes the act of calling something one thing in order to sell it, even though it’s something else entirely. Can’t quite put my finger on it.

    • Ggg

      I believe the word you’re looking for is ‘lying’

  • http://www.dylanborja.com/ Dylan Borja

    New Oxford American Dictionary:

    unlimited |ˌənˈlimitid| adjective not limited or restricted in terms of number, quantity, or extent: the range of possible adaptations was unlimited. • Brit.(of a company) not limited. • Mathematics (of a problem) having an infinite number of solutions.

    DERIVATIVES unlimitedly adverb, unlimitedness noun

  • JohnDoey

    The generic carriers are going to be out of the customer service business soon, anyway.

    It doesn’t make sense for millions of iPhone users to each setup their own cell plan, each choosing from various different options, each getting screwed over in a subtly different way. That is thousands of years of human life being lost. That would be like buying an iPod and then going to a record company and setting up some kind of contract where they’ll sell you music for your iPod. That would lead to record companies becoming experts at screwing users over on the music they buy for their iPods with complicated plans and options and hidden fees, and it would lead to lower iPod sales. Instead, Apple acts as a middle man between the music listener and music publisher, and protects the interests of the listener as through they are part of a Union of iPod Listeners. This is the sales price for everyone; this is what you get, same as everyone else. No individual customer can be screwed over. That same thing has to happen with the data we want for our iPhones, which is just as important to the iPhone as music is to iPod. Apple will sell more phones if they essentially make the carrier go away. If iTunes is your carrier, and the pricing is as easy as iTunes Store pricing.

    But even if there weren’t ways for Apple to save users money, they should also just bring all iPhone customer service in-house. I had a problem with my iPad data once, and I spent about 2 hours talking to various AT&T people before they gave up and said it has to be an Apple issue. So they transferred me to an Apple person who figured out right away it was an AT&T issue, but instead of transferring me back to AT&T, he took my number, and then HE called AT&T and talked to them for over an hour before calling me back and telling my my iPad data should now be working, and it was. That is how it should be for everything: customer deals with Apple, Apple deals with faceless, senseless AT&T. If Apple takes $30 per month from every iPhone user and gave them 10 GB each, I would bet they could buy all the data that those users need and still have a large profit left over, because most people only use a couple of GB per month, and there is almost no paperwork on “iTunes carrier option $30 for 10 GB monthly YES/NO.”

    Most of what AT&T does is irrelevant to iPhone users. And they get less relevant when iPhone goes data-only. Yet AT&T is raking in HUGE amounts of cash. They make billions per quarter just on data. If Apple only has to replace 1 of AT&T’s services, they can certainly beat AT&T’s price and yet remain profitable.

    We all know that users are being screwed by carriers, just like 6 years ago, all phone users were getting screwed by lousy handset companies and nobody made a good phone. The solution is obviously for Apple to step in again with a virtual carrier that changes everything.

    • http://twitter.com/Moeskido Moeskido

      Just because something should be done doesn’t mean the existing carrier cartel will allow it.

      Your solution is not obvious. Apple has no reason to want to step into the quagmire that the carriers have made of their business category, given the risks of direct retaliation they could muster.

  • http://www.thediceguys.com Dean Lewis

    I have two words for Verizon.