Jay, I have no interest in paying for 450 anytime minutes. In fact, I would be fine with just unlimited Verizon to Verizon and like 100 anytime minutes (if that). yet I'm forced to pay for the minutes.

Bundles are the nature of the industry Jay, they always have been. First it was with minutes, and then it was with Texting, and now with data.

Look at the history... they started bundling minutes, people complained about "paying for more than I need." and then they went "hey, I have 200 minutes... I might as well use them." and suddenly we have people clamoring for cheaper unlimited plans.

With Texting, it was a Short Message Service, a quick note to send if you would be late, or if you were thinking of someone, and then they started with these texting bundles (not required, but pushed pretty hard. And now you have people running up 50k+ texts a month easily.

Now you have data, just a year before Verizon's 4g goes mainstream (which looks like it will support VOIP) so Verizon draws a line and says "These phones are for talking and basic texting" and "these phones can do more. So people complain (Ironically using the internet to do so).. what do you think a few years from here will look like?

I don't agree with the way the mandatory data happened, or with some of the phones it's on. But pushing/requiring a feature is a industry standard and one that's been very sucessful for them in the past. The more I study this change, and read reactions from Customer and people I still know in the industry, the more I think that this will be a win for Verizon, and other carriers once they follow suit.

IMO, I think they should've just stopped making non "enhanced media devices" and let the current devices sell out. Then replace with more enhanced media devices, or basic phones. Oh, and keep the option for family data too. But I don't run the company, so it's not my rules.