Verizon Blesses Phone-As-Modem Plans
Verizon Wireless has changed its policy and will now let subscribers use several popular phones as high-speed modems for their laptops, company representatives confirmed Thursday. — The shift represents a major policy change for Verizon …
Context & Ripple Effects
The policy reversal lands weeks after Verizon Wireless pushed into phone-based media with a music service launch in January 2006 — a rollout during which the carrier denied that its MP3 playback limitations had anything to do with broader digital copyright disputes. Taken together, the two moves sketch a carrier testing how much restriction consumers will accept around what its devices can do.
This latest change pulls in the opposite direction: instead of limiting what a handset does, Verizon is widening it, letting the phone stand in for a dedicated data card. That makes the earlier restrictions look like product strategy rather than technical necessity — and hands critics an easy comparison.
First-order effects
- Subscribers on the blessed handsets gain high-speed laptop connectivity through their existing phones, removing the need to buy and carry separate modem hardware from Verizon's own accessory lineup.
Second-order effects
- Handset makers whose phones make Verizon's approved list gain a concrete selling point against rivals left off it, while competing carriers come under pressure to match the policy or explain why their networks stay closed to tethering.
Third-order effects
- If carriers keep arbitrating which devices may touch their networks — blessing some uses and restricting others, as the MP3 dispute showed — the certification decision itself becomes the industry's main competitive and regulatory battleground.
The trend: Mobile carriers are shifting from selling sealed single-purpose devices to managing network access across device categories, with each approval or restriction setting precedent for the next fight over open devices.