While I appreciate your explanation, NickB, I think that it is a load of bull hockey. The entire purpose of offering free upgrades is customer retention (it is a well known business model, so do not insult us by denying it). You and your competition have been engaging in this behavior for years. Your offer of a new phone every two years has seen me upgrade from a basic flip phone to a phone with a keyboard to a Blackberry Storm and then to a Droid X. There are now three phones on my plan, two Droids and a basic phone. We share 1400 minutes and friends and family between us. Each of the Droids have unlimited data. This plan costs us $4500 during the course of our contract. To "upgrade" our phones with the same setup (2 smartphones and one basic phone) will cost us $90 in upgrade fees and an additional $20+ per month. Yes, we will be sharing unlimited voice and texts, but we will be paying more per month for less data (right now we pay $30 per line for unlimited data, but under your new plan that will be $35 per line for 4Gb each month). Basic Service under your new "Share Everything" plan will start at $180 a month for us, before taxes while my service now runs between $155 and $162.
You state in your post that: "The upgrade fee also supports some of our other services such as the wireless workshops offered in our stores, back up assistant plus, our around the clock customer service, and the upkeep of our industry leading network." I would buy that, but for the following: 1. I have never seen a workshop offered. I might not be looking in the right place. Truth be told, if they are anything like your online workshops, they are completely useless. 2. Back-up assistant plus is really not useful, at least not in my opinion. The one time I have had to use it (switching from the Blackberry Storm to the Dorid X), it was not compatible. Not only is it not useful, it is not needed, as all android contacts are shared with your g-mail account and automatically imported to your new device. After a bit of research, I have found that Apple does the same thing (albeit in a different way). 3. Verizon Wireless, like all major corporations, has a strategic plan for capital improvements (i. e. new 4G antenna or new towers) that is built into the service fees: 24 hour customer service is also built into the service fee. The claim from Verizon Wireless that they are not able to keep up with the advances in cellular technology are, at least in my opinion, bogus, as Verizon Wireless in supposed to be an innovator in the field. Your contention that Verizon Wireless pays full retail for the phones you offer for free or at a discount is also a bit of a sticking point for me...I would bet that you are, in fact, paying a substantially discounted wholesale price.
Verizon Wireless should just stick to giving us a free or discounted phone, with no upgrade fee, in return for us continuing to spend thousands of dollars a year on your service.
