14 DAY TRIAL // As of today, the 15th of April 2008, Verizon Wireless offers new nationwide messaging plans to its subscribers, enabling them to send an unlimited number of messages from their mobile devices.
While some users might not see the need of an unlimited message plan, as long as unlimited voice plans exist, some others actually need only this type of plans. For example, the hearing impaired users obviously communicate easier by sending text messages than by calling, which is actually the reason why Verizon came up with these plans.
There are three new messaging plans from the V carrier: for "consumer devices" (meaning average cell phones), for BlackBerries and for PDAs / Smartphones. The first plan, for consumer devices, comes for $34.00 per month and offers unlimited text, picture and video messaging, unlimited IM and Web access / data usage, as well as a per-minute voice rate of $0.40. This plan can also be "upgraded" with the option of adding email access, for another $5.0 per month. The other two plans are the same, except the fact that they also offer unlimited email, Web browsing and a per-minute voice rate of $0.25, all for a monthly fee of $54.99.
Neither of the three national messaging plans requires an "accompanying voice plan" and, although they're targeted for the hearing impaired customers, it doesn't mean that subscribers who don't have hearing disabilities cannot use them.
Robert Miller, vice president of marketing for Verizon Wireless, declared about the carrier's new offers: "We developed these messaging plans in response to feedback from our customers. We have a growing number of customers, particularly from the deaf or hard of hearing community, who are using their wireless phones to communicate via messaging. Our Nationwide Messaging plans offer an affordable solution for customers who primarily use messaging to communicate, giving them more choices to only pay for services they need."