VZ » Topics » Wireless Offerings

This excerpt taken from the VZ 10-K filed Feb 24, 2009.

Wireless Offerings

We believe that increasing the value of our service offerings to customers will help us to retain our existing customers and those we recently acquired as a result of the Alltel acquisition, as well as attract new customers and increase customer usage, all of which will drive revenue and net income growth.

Wireless Services

Voice services. We offer a variety of postpaid plans for voice services and features with competitive pricing. Specifically, we offer: Nationwide Calling Plans for individual customers, which provide a choice, at varying prices and amounts of minutes of use, including unlimited usage; Nationwide Family SharePlan and other shared-minute plans designed for multiple-user households and small businesses; and Nationwide Business Plans targeted to business accounts with over 100 lines and national accounts with over 1,000 lines.

All of the nationwide postpaid plans we currently offer include, among other things, Mobile to Mobile Calling, which enables a customer to place calls to, or receive calls from, any other Verizon Wireless mobile number without the call time counting against their minute allotment, night and weekend minute allowances, no domestic long distance charges and no domestic roaming charges for calls placed within the customer’s coverage area. In addition, these plans also include access to the Internet through our Mobile Web service for an additional monthly charge per megabytes sent and received. Several of our voice plan offerings include data service features, such as unlimited text, picture, video and instant messaging to any mobile number on any network in the U.S., and our VZ Navigator and V CAST services free of any separate subscription fees. In addition, on February 15, 2009, we began offering our Friends & Family feature, which is available to customers on many of our single-line Nationwide Calling Plans and our multi-line Nationwide Family SharePlans. The feature allows these customers, depending upon their calling plans, to place calls to, and receive calls from, 5 to 10 phone numbers they designate (including domestic landline numbers) without the call time counting against their minute allotment.

We also offer our Verizon Wireless Prepaid service that enables customers to obtain wireless voice services without a long-term contract or credit verification by paying in advance. All of our prepaid plans include Mobile to Mobile Calling. In addition, our prepaid customers can also access certain of our key data services, such as V CAST and VZ Navigator, for additional fees.

Data services. We believe that we are in a strong position to take advantage of the growing demand for wireless data services. Our strategy is to continue to expand our wireless data offerings for both consumer and business customers.

We offer an array of data services and applications, such as:

 

 

Text and Picture Messaging Services. With compatible wireless devices, our text and picture messaging service enables our customers to send and receive text messages, enhanced messages with animations and graphics as well as still pictures, and voice and full-motion video clips with sound. With our premium messaging services, our customers can receive digital content provided by third parties in various categories, including news, sports, entertainment, travel and weather.

 

 

Mobile Broadband. Our Mobile Broadband service, available in substantially all areas covered by our network, enables our customers to access, at broadband speeds through laptop computers, applications such as e-mail, enterprise applications, image downloads and full Internet browsing capabilities. The service is available to our customers at various price points that include data allowances in terms of megabytes or gigabytes.

 

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Consumer-Focused Multimedia Offerings. We provide our retail customers access to music, video, games, news and other content, as well as the Internet, on their handsets. For example, our V CAST service, accessible on many of our handsets, enables our customers to get unlimited access to daily updated videos from leading content providers of news, sports, and entertainment programming for a monthly fee that is in addition to their voice calling plan access charge. We also offer V CAST MobileTV, under an arrangement with Qualcomm’s MediaFLO division, and V CAST Music with Rhapsody, each available on certain of our handsets. V CAST Music with Rhapsody enables our customers to download music either directly to their handsets or to their personal computers, and V CAST MobileTV provides our customers access, in certain of our markets, to television programming, such as news and sports. Our customers can also access our extensive library of handset-downloadable applications through our Get It Now service, such as ringtones, games and productivity tools. In addition, our Mobile Web service enables our customers to access the Internet on their handsets through our VZW Today web portal.

 

 

Business-Focused Offerings. We offer our business customers an extensive variety of services focused on increasing their productivity and lowering their costs. For example, our VZAccess service provides our business customers with solutions for accessing the Internet and their corporate intranets. VZEmail offers a compelling suite of products that enables wireless e-mail across our diverse portfolio of wireless devices. Our Wireless Office suite of services offers our business customers with at least 50 lines of service, calling features traditionally associated with landline/PBX phones, such as abbreviated dialing, through the use of their existing wireless devices.

 

 

Location-Based Services. We offer several location-based services targeted to consumer and business customers. For example, our VZ Navigator application enables customers to obtain audible turn-by-turn directions to their destinations, locate points of interest and access other location-related information by using VZ Navigator-capable handsets. Our Chaperone service provides Family SharePlan customers with the ability to locate the wireless device of other Family SharePlan customers in their plan by accessing the Internet via a computer or by using a Chaperone-enabled mobile wireless device. In addition, the Child Zone feature lets the customer set location boundaries on a family member’s wireless device and sends an alert to the customer when the device enters and leaves these boundaries. Field Force Manager, targeted to our business customers, is a location-based mobile resource management tool that provides businesses with the ability to locate, monitor and communicate with their mobile field workers.

 

 

Telematics Services. Telematics generally involves the integration of wireless services into private and commercial vehicles, often incorporating both a voice and data capability. Telematics services include navigation assistance, roadside and emergency notification services, concierge services and stolen vehicle tracking. We support telematics services for some of the largest automotive Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), and we are currently the national provider of wireless service for General Motors’ OnStar. We do not currently include telematics customers in our company’s customer count.

 

 

Telemetry Services. Telemetry generally refers to services that are characterized by machine-to-machine interactions that do not include a voice component. With telemetry services, data transmissions are used by customers to monitor stationary equipment, such as residential and commercial security systems, and for the remote monitoring of control equipment in a wide variety of industries.

Global Services

We offer a variety of global services solutions, available using certain of the wireless devices we sell, targeted to the needs of our customers ranging from our multinational business accounts to our consumer customers who occasionally travel outside of the U.S. Through roaming arrangements with certain wireless service providers outside of the U.S., this suite of solutions, including GlobalAccess and GlobalEmail, currently gives customers voice service in more than 215 destinations worldwide and data access on their laptop computers equipped with our GSM PC cards and certain of our BlackBerry smartphones in more than 170 destinations worldwide.

Wireless Devices

We believe that our status in the U.S. wireless industry has enabled us to become a wireless service provider of choice for wireless device manufacturers and has helped us to develop exclusive wireless device offers for our customers and branded handsets that complement our focus on high-quality service and an optimal user experience. The handsets that we offer are predominantly EV-DO enabled. In addition, certain of these handsets have HTML-browsing capability. We refer to these handsets as “smartphones.” We offer smartphones from RIM, Palm, Samsung and Motorola, and we have GSM-enabled smartphones that operate on GSM networks outside of the U.S. We also offer several smartphones that include touch-screens, such as the Blackberry Storm, Samsung Omnia, LG Voyager and LG Dare.

Our customers can access the Internet wirelessly at broadband speeds on their computers via data cards that we offer, using EV-DO-enabled handsets with connector cables, and on certain OEM laptop computers with embedded EV-DO Mobile Broadband modules.

All of the handsets that we offer comply with the FCC’s E-911 requirements. The majority of our handsets are also Bluetooth compatible.

 

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Suppliers

We purchase wireless devices and accessory products from a number of manufacturers, with the substantial majority of our purchases made from LG InfoComm, Samsung, Motorola, RIM, Palm, PCD, Pantech, HTC and Nokia. A key component of all wireless handsets is the chipset, which contains the “intelligence” of the handset. Most of our handset suppliers rely on Qualcomm for manufacturing and supplying CDMA-1XRTT and EV-DO chipsets. We do, however, sell handsets that include chipsets provided by an alternative chipset vendor, VIA Telecom.

We depend upon a number of key suppliers and, if any of them fail to fulfill their obligations to us, we may not be able to provide services or maintain and upgrade our network. In January 2009, one of our suppliers – Nortel Networks Inc., a U.S. subsidiary of Nortel Networks Corp. (Nortel) – and certain other U.S. subsidiaries of Nortel filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the United States. In addition, Nortel and certain of its non-U.S. subsidiaries filed for similar relief in the courts of Canada and the United Kingdom. Although we can provide no assurances, we do not believe that this bankruptcy will have a material adverse impact on our ability to operate our network or on our business.

This excerpt taken from the VZ 10-K filed Feb 28, 2008.

Wireless Offerings

 

We believe that increasing the value of our service offerings to customers will help us to retain our existing customers, attract new customers and increase customer usage, all of which will, in turn, drive revenue and net income growth.

 

Our service packages are designed around key customer groups, from the young adult market to multinational business accounts. We tailor our wireless services, which include both voice and data offerings, and postpaid and prepaid pricing options, to the needs of these customers.

 

Wireless Services

 

Voice services. We offer a variety of packages for voice services with features and competitive pricing plans that are predominantly offered on a postpaid basis with a contract term. Specifically, we offer our Nationwide Calling Plans, which provide a choice in amounts of bundled minutes together with no roaming or long distance charges for calls on our preferred network; family/small group and shared minute plans for multiple-user households and small businesses; and plans targeted to business accounts with over 100 lines and national accounts with over 1,000 lines. In addition, we offer a national prepaid product that enables individuals to obtain wireless voice services without a long-term contract by paying in advance.

 

Data services. We believe that we are in a strong position to take advantage of the growing demand for wireless data services. Our strategy is to continue to expand our wireless data, messaging and multi-media offerings for both consumer and business customers.

 

We offer an array of data transmission and content services, such as:

 

 

NationalAccess/BroadbandAccess. We offer our NationalAccess service, which enables applications such as e-mail, enterprise applications, image downloads and full browsing capabilities for laptop computer users. In addition, in areas where our network provides EV-DO coverage, we offer our BroadbandAccess service, which provides faster speeds on those applications and enables the provisioning of enhanced data applications that can operate at broadband speeds.

 

 

Text and Picture Messaging. With compatible wireless devices, our customers can send and receive text messages, as well as still pictures and full-motion video clips with sound.

 

 

V CAST. Our V CAST Video service enables customers to access daily-updated videos from leading content providers of news, weather, sports and entertainment programming in areas covered by our EV-DO network. Our V CAST Music service enables customers to download music either directly to their V CAST Music-enabled handsets or to their personal computers. In addition, our V CAST MobileTV service provides customers in select markets the ability to access television programming such as news, sports, music and comedy through the use of TV-enabled handsets.

 

 

Get It Now. Our Get It Now service enables our customers to download hundreds of applications to their handsets, including ringtones, games and wallpaper images.

 

 

Mobile Web. Our Mobile Web service offers our customers access to content on the Internet through our portal, such as web-based e-mail, news, weather and sports and the ability to bookmark their favorite sites for access to their preferred content.

 

 

VZ Navigator. Our VZ Navigator service enables customers to obtain audible turn-by-turn directions to their destinations, locate various points of interest and access other location-related information by using VZ Navigator-capable wireless devices.

 

 

Wireless Business Solutions – VZOffice. Through our suite of VZOffice services, we provide enterprise customers with solutions for accessing the Internet and their corporate intranet, which allow for optimized wireless access to the customer’s corporate applications or databases. VZEmail, included as part of our VZOffice services, offers a compelling suite of products that enables wireless e-mail across our diverse portfolio of wireless devices.

 

 

Wireless Office. Our Wireless Office suite of services offers our wireless business customers, through the use of their existing wireless devices, calling features traditionally associated with landline/PBX phones, such as abbreviated dialing.

 

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Global Services

 

We offer a host of global solutions, available on certain of the wireless devices we offer, including GlobalAccess and GlobalEmail. This suite of solutions gives customers voice service in more than 185 destinations worldwide and data access in more than 100 destinations worldwide.

 

Wireless Devices

 

We are a service provider of choice for wireless device manufacturers which helps us develop exclusive offers for our customers, as well as branded wireless devices that complement our focus on a high-quality customer experience. The wireless devices that we offer are predominantly EV-DO enabled, and all of them are compatible with our 1XRTT network. In addition, all of the handsets that we offer are headphone/earphone compatible and, compliant with the FCC’s E-911 requirements, through their GPS functionality.

 

EXCERPTS ON THIS PAGE:

10-K
Feb 24, 2009
10-K
Feb 28, 2008
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