Verizon Open Development
 

http://www.verizonwireless-opendevel....com/index.php

I haven't heard a thing about this on here...but it seems like it could really affect us ppc users. If I understand it right, we would be able to buy any phone from any carrier and have it work with a verizon wireless account. It sounds like a damn good idea to me, and I am getting excited about the Alltel merger now...



What do people think about this?

Why wouldn't you want to switch to verizon since you could use any phone out there (unless verizon offers absolutely no service in your area- which, due to their mergers with Alltel and Unicel I see less and less possible)

Re: Verizon Open Development
 

thats RIDICULOUS they would lose so much money on phones, and sprint would sue because they jacked up their diamond so people would go to them. WRONG!

Re: Verizon Open Development
 

well, any cdma device. you couldn't activate an iphone on verizon unless they r starting a gsm service as well.

Re: Verizon Open Development
 

If you buy a device from another carrier, you'll likely end up paying full price, i.e. $500+, if you aren't activating it on that carrier.

Re: Verizon Open Development
 

very true... that would definitely be the biggest downside i see. (lets hope marketing depts really start pushing the mail-in rebates...)

and yeah the phone would have to obviosly be cdma until verizon changes up their network. but even still, this opens up such a wide variety of phones to choose from- clearly more than anyone on any other carrier (in the world?). cant be a bad thing...

Re: Verizon Open Development
 

Companies usually don't profit from phones. If people buy phones on other carries they actually would save money. Now let's see if verizon plays nice when it comes to services working correctly.

Re: Verizon Open Development
 

I think the biggest benefit would be getting phones off Ebay or something like it and being able to get them on verizon.

Re: Verizon Open Development
 

if this is the case i will just buy an unlocked touch pro and put it on the verizon network, that way i could get the better verison.

Re: Verizon Open Development
 

i still think it is wrong just because verizons phones suck compared to sprints and sprint is losing people, so they said o we r gonna jack up our new pdas and now verizon customers could use them

Re: Verizon Open Development
 

Yes they can activate them, but from my experiance, Verizon will be charging them $175 to activate them. I gave my cousin my Samsung Blade, and that appears to be the going rate for activation. So the customers who want to do this are going to be the hardcores and not the casual users.

It's a great idea, but it's going to be stealing anyone's thunder (no pun in tended) any time soon.

Also, I am fairly sure Sprint offers something like this too....

Re: Verizon Open Development
 

im pretty sure there is noo 175 dollar activation fee. where did yoou get this number from?

all iive been told is that as of feb 19 it begins, you ca use any phone compatible with verizons network, and the activation process will take up to three weeks to complete.

edit: how nice are thoose double-letter keyboard inputs? goooootta love my wild "o" key...makes my 6800 so unique, and annooying.

Re: Verizon Open Development
 

Got the number from Verizon. Went through customer service on the phone twice, chat once, and in store once. Had to send the phone to North Jersey. I guess to have it flashed. Total cost $175.00 plus S&H.

Re: Verizon Open Development
 

...
for something like the raphael to be flashed is 175 dollars extra? where's dreisdelle's instructions to put non verizon phones on their network??? Because I'd rather try that first then shell out almost 200 extra dollars plus the price of the raphael

Re: Verizon Open Development
 

haha yeah ur lookin at like 800+ dollars to take a sprint raphael and bring it to verizon... i dunno if a motion sense and a little bit of extra ram is worth that

Re: Verizon Open Development
 

maybe a topic should be open up about this...seriously an unofficial "verizon" rom can be released for people that buy phones like that
but for adding the esn in the db I just saw drellisdee do it on a 6700, 6800 and a 6900 from sprint but I dunno haven't seen em post in a bit

Re: Verizon Open Development
 

Verizon would love to to have people move over with phones that they already own. That is free money to them. Phone carriers already have money built into your plan that pays for the 'discounted' phone. There is not much that they can do to restrict you from going to another carrier, unless they put something in the contract that forces you to keep it on a certain provider. Even then there is a limit on what they can do.

And Sprint did not jack up their PDAs, they left them the same. IF the Verizon version is different, it is because the downgraded and not because Sprint upgraded. Sprints specs are the same as the HTC specs.

You can also get the official ROMs for other providers too. I was able to get them from Verizon. I called them up and said that I had a phone that was out of warranty, but the ROMs somehow got corrupted. They sent me their ROMs to install on a PPC phone. I was just doing this to test that I could get the ROMs if i needed to if I buy a touch pro from Sprint if the Verizon version is gimped.

Re: Verizon Open Development
 

Cell companies make money from you sticking with them and paying a lot more than they need every month. The reason Sprint is losing money is because of inconstent support and bad management and a lack of direction with plans. For $30 a month a SERO limited time offer was a loss for them hence they don't offer it anymore. That's the reason Cricket isn't huge, they don't charge enough to make a decent enough profit to build towers.

Alltel has a decent foothold between both cost of phones and plans, but they are too restrictive of that kind of stuff. One positive though is they make things as stable as possible, but they make the money on the plans because you sign a contract.

Who knows though? Verizon's buyout may bring positive changes. We just haven't seen anything yet.