Verizon

It’s phone season. New flagship phones are coming imminently. But here’s Verizon trying to fake-FOMO potential upgraders like me into a “deal” on last year’s handset. Repeatedly. This is like the fourth or fifth notification I’ve received.

The Information reports that Disney, seeking a “strategic partner” for ESPN, has had talks with Verizon. This is a bad idea: mobile carriers are historically terrible at distributing content and software, because their only distribution idea is installing bloatware on midrange Android phones. You will recall that the entire thesis of the AT&T / Time Warner merger was distributing bloatware on midrange Android phones, a “vision deal” which produced a grayscale 4:3 Snyder Cut before collapsing into the arms of David Zaslav.

Wireless carriers haven’t been able to monetize 5G, and telecom companies are in crisis. Sean Kinney at RCR Wireless bears the bad news in a new report from an industry event:

The optimism around 5G as some sort of panacea to any sort of business problem is giving way to disillusionment. Cost pressure is mounting, headcount reductions are happening, and outright cynicism is in the offing. This raises a question: if operators, for whatever reason, cannot leverage 5G to grow revenues and deliver innovation, do they drop the pretense and face the harsh reality that connectivity is a commodity and should be sold as such? 

Guess we can look forward to even more creative new ways for carriers to charge us more!

I wish this twelve-year-old Portlandia bit about buying a phone plan wasn’t still so on the nose, but it sure is.

Case in point: Verizon’s current unlimited plans. They’re so confusing that one retail employee had to make their own cheat sheet so their team could decipher them. Never change, wireless carriers.

Even if you don’t have an Xbox, the Bluetooth + USB-C equipped Xbox Elite 2 Core is one of the most comfortable, capable pads you can buy. If you’ve got the magic coupon in your Verizon Up— I didn’t — you can snag it for half-off at $64.99.

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