Earlier in the month Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam touched on the subject of doing away with long term agreements. McAdam had said Verizon would consider such a move if it was something that customers began asking for. Basically, he didn’t give much more than an acknowledgment.
Needless to say, since then it looks like a Change.org petition has launched on that very subject. The petition was started by Mike Beauchamp and is simply asking Verizon to “get rid of contracts for wireless service.” The petition launched about 11 days after those comments from Lowell McAdam. Since it has launched, the petition has attracted a little more than 60,000 signatures.
While that seems to be a decent number in such a short time frame, we suspect it will need to grow significantly before a carrier (the size) of Verizon will begin to pay attention. In fact, in speaking with CNN, Beauchamp said that he has yet to hear from Verizon on the matter. Basically, if you want to help further this discussion with Verizon, a signature on the petition may help.
On the flip side though, while the contract portion remains the same for those looking for discounted (subsidized) phones, Verizon did recently announce an upcoming change that may benefit those looking to go contract free. This is the device payment plan which will allow users to make payments over a 12 month period. The device payment plan will begin on April 21.
[via CNN]
