Exactly How Much Is It Going To Cost Me To "Rule The Air"?

There's an overwhelming energy going on today as iPhone fans contemplate how and when to switch, either from their iPhone on AT&T or from another carrier and handset, to an iPhone on Verizon. As very briefly mentioned in our "The Verizon iPhone: Switching Now Might Be A Bad Idea" article, Verizon has yet to murmur any real information dealing with a data plan or related features. AT&T customers with an iPhone have had three different data plan options thus far: $15 for 200MB per month, $25 for 2GB per month, and the original $30 unlimited plan, which early buyers could continue to use but never return if they opt-out. As of now, the only thing promised is that Verizon will enforce the same "data plan required" stipulation that AT&T has demanded.

Are there minimum service and data pricing requirements? Yes, iPhone customers will need to choose from any of the current Nationwide plans. Customers will also be required to activate a data package, pricing will be announced at a later date.

Verizon is touting their ability to handle the onslaught of data requirements better than AT&T, so much as they've also announced the Personal Hotspot feature, allowing up to five Wi-Fi capable devices to feed off of your iPhone 4's cellular connection. As a reminder, AT&T charges an additional $20 per month just for standard tethering. One thing is for sure, users need to realize that Verizon doesn't exist to give out unlimited ride passes to their trolley, because they're just as willing to "nickel and dime" customers as much as other businesses.

Detailed Billing - A detailed bill provides all billing information to customers, including: Local, Long Distance, Toll, Data, and Roaming call detail. Detailed bills also include Date, Time, Rate Period, Call Type, Minutes, Charges, Called Number, Destination, Usage Type, Airtime Charges, and Total Charges.

Seeing as uses have gotten adjusted to AT&T rules and regulations, we need to look at one other item: Visual Voicemail. Verizon does offer such a service to customers owning a visual voicemail-capable device, however, they charge an additional $2.99 per month for this convenience. Will this be the case for iPhone users, or perhaps it will be a feature of the data plan. AT&T and Verizon do have slightly different visual voicemail restrictions. AT&T offers up to forty, four minute long voicemail messages, that are retained up to 30 days after being received. On the other hand, Verizon allows up to forty, five minute long messages, that are stored up to 40 days from receipt. The final item to note is certain features are extremely unlikely to transition to the iPhone visual voicemail realm, one being multiple different greetings. Of course, this is all speculation but the fact that Verizon remains tight-lipped on the subject, probably doesn't hint at thrilling news to come. It's not yet time to start shaking your fist, or attempt to scoff iPhone users on AT&T, but your perfect plans for an "all is good" Verizon iPhone transition and experience may be splashed with a bit of disappointed just yet. It's certainly a wait and see scenario, but what do you think about Verizon's choice of secrecy on what may be a very important piece of the puzzle?

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