I wonder how much the cell industry is going to truly change with the advent of the iphone. I am considering entering me and my wife into the smart phone arena. The benefits are profound. We are both accustom to communicating via instant messaging and email. Works great because in meetings i can talk to her without having to excuse myself, and when she is in the classroom she would be able to fire off a text message or email easily without disturbing the flow of her classroom. An iphone family share plan would cost us 110 dollars a month and we get the benefits of email and instant messaging easily at our finger tips. Similar offerings from verizon and competitors would be 160 bucks a month. Unless i am missing something it appears verizon cant put a smartphone on a family share plan. Now i wonder how this will change in the coming months. the cost savings per month with att is substantial for equivalent features. Verizon has been rolling out their “premium plan” campaign. i just dont see this as competitive. Att gives you you-tube and any other h.264 video site. Verizon gives you vcast (only if you have 3g access)…. Att gives you full internet….verizon gives you….mobile internet. Verizon does give you unlimited text messaging… att only gives you 200 sms messages. However att will gladly allow you to upgrade.

Long and short. if smart phones truly start to accelerate in growth, I am anxious to see what will happen across the competition. surely Verizon will not just arrogantly assume that people will choose there network over the almighty apple logo branded on their phone? At&t’s network is going to improve and “its the network” will only go so far. I hope Verizon and other CDMA providers provide a competitive solution at least in their service plans.