By Gearlog talked with Verizon HQ to clarify the much debated extra $15 for Exchange confusion. The official response was good.
The bottom line is this: For personal accounts, the 30$ data plan includes everything – including Exchange. Business accounts have $45 data plans – and they too include Exchange.
So there you have it. The price depends solely on whether or not you’ve got a personal or a business account. There’s no “extra” for Exchange. The confusion could be blamed on a couple things. For example, the wording in the last quote we saw:
“Verizon offers three data plans for Droid customers: $30 month on top of your voice plan’s rate for non-Exchange usage, $45 per month on top of your voice plan’s rate for Exchange usage, and $50 per month total cost for a data-only plan (whether or not you use it to access Exchange). Verizon spokeswoman Brenda Raney notes that the requirement to get the $45 “smartphone plan” for corporate e-mail usage applies to any smartphone, such as the BlackBerry — not just to the Droid. “The Droid is primarily a consumer phone,” Raney adds.”
..could perhaps (clearly?) be taken a couple different ways. It’s still confusing to re-read that. I think the word “corporate” should have been used more and “exchange usage/non-exchange usage” less.
So big thanks go out to GearLog for getting the facts straight from VZW HQ on this one.
[Thanks resno!]
“$30 month on top of your voice plan’s rate for non-Exchange usage”. Still kinda confusing.
Bah, nevermind. Didn’t read through the article.
One less thing for people to complain about.
It’s as simple as visiting the VerizonWireless.com website and looking at the plans and features. If you’re going to use exchange then email will be PUSHED to your phone by the Exchange email server, constantly using data. Therefore VZW wants exchange users (primarily business accounts) to add the unlimited data feature to their plan at the cost of 45$/mo. On the other hand, the other plan that can still be applied to a non-corporate account is the 30$/mo (there’s your “15$ extra”) but does not include unlimited data therefore it is not recommended for a phone that will be CONSTANTLY syncing with an Exchange email server.
Heh, they’ve cleared it up, sort of. The problem is that they’re still using two different definitions of Exchange. Exchange support on the consumer plan means you can use it, but you or your company have to provide your own Exchange server. On the business plan, Verizon themselves host the Exchange server you connect to. THAT is what the $15/month pays for. What they really need to do with this is list the Exchange fee completely separate from the data plan, because you’re not paying for more data, but rather a hosting service for a particular kind of data.
Nexeo: Also, I think part of the confusion from whether or not there was going to be a new plan. Like the new ETF fee being introduced. It’s important to remember that there will be no new plans introduced to accommodate the Droid. It will be treated the same way all smartphones currently on VZW are.
Thanks it’s as clear as mud now…
Seems VZW is really quieting the crowds who are complaining. Its a big positive move in my books.
Just so I have it straight. I can use the Droid for my work e-mail using POP3? And also my GMAIL? Anyone?
pfft, 5GB is a ton of data anyway. combined, my Exchange acct and gmail acct are less than 1GB, and that’s over 3 or 4 years of stuff. i’ll take the $30, thankyouverymuch
This article says that there is a $50 data only plan. So I can get a data only plan for my droid and just use google voice for calls and texting?
@Anthony Yes. You get to use with an unlimited number of email accounts, POP3, Gmail, etc etc.
@ferlin Again, yes. I’m curious to see how that would work (usability and quality and such), but I guess we’ll find out soon enough. :-D
Nexeo, unless you’re constantly getting videos in your email your not going to go over any data usage in the plan (forget the fact Verizon does not list a cap on the website). For instance I have the $30 plan for the Storm. My email gets pushed (whether its pop3 or exchange means nothing) basically as soon as it gets in. Guess how many times I’ve gone over some data usage? Wait, I haven’t. The problem with data limits comes with tethering (5gb limit). Thats the money grubbing charge. The $45 is for BES or BIS etc syncing as they seem to view it as a form of tethering.
Anthony, The $30 plan they’ll force on you is fine for pop3 email, unlimited.
Reading all this about pricing I have a question. We have a family plan and will be adding two Droids when my son and I upgrade. Will I be adding one $30 data plan to my family plan or is it two $30 data plans, one for each phone?
Sometime earlier this year, Verizon only had an expensive unlimited data plan. Then, they introduced one for $30 that was unlimited except that they said they wouldn’t support Exchange push.
I called them up, and asked about it, and asked how they were going to be blocking push email, and they couldn’t answer.
So I switched to the cheap data plan and enabled push. It worked. It worked perfectly for 6 months until I switched to T-Mobile for the G1. Don’t buy the expensive one unless you’re a sucker.
Goddammit why is this so confusing to people? For corporate users, it depends on the way your Admins configure Exchange and what they do and don’t allow. Technically only the $30 plan is required for Exchange but your company may vary… And therefore, may require the $45 plan.
@Toby
Let me simplify that. If you are buying this phone as a consumer, just get the $30 data plan. If you are unable to connect to your company’s Exchange server, call your company’s IT department. They should be able to tell you whether your data plan is the problem or not, though I’m highly doubtful it will be.
Zaggs: During my previous job as a network administrator, I got emails constantly through exchange. Server and network hardware monitoring emails, messages from coworkers, etc. Also, I do constantly stream media through Pandora and youtube. If you’re someone like me who will be taking full advantage of the phone (Droid) and the awesome 3G network VZW provides then you’ll probably need the unlimited plan. I like to stream everything at the highest quality, because I can. It is certainly possible to break 5gb in one month, but not everyone will do it. I was simply saying that there isn’t a direct 15$ charge simply for accessing Exchange and explaining where the idea of the charge actually comes from.
VZW will charge $30 per phone or (Droid) for the data packages. That is how it works with the blackberries my fiance and I have now. VZW will keep it the same for Droids.
Maybe Gearlog can ask why Verizon will be shafting everyone with raised Early Termination Fees – increasing from $175 to $350!!! FU verizon!!! I’ll stick with GSM where at least I can pull the SIM and move where I want.
I was suspicious when I first saw this. Exchange will appear to the Verizon network as just HTTPS traffic between the device and the company’s Exchange server. It would not be very easy for Verizon to isolate that data on their network and allow/disallow based on your data plan.
They could of course enable/disable the feature in the Android 2.0 firmware but I believe Google wrote the Exchange code (and licensed Activesync from Microsoft) so I doubt they’d be to happy to see Verizon do that. Not to mention that Exchange support is part of the Android 2.0 SDK so firmware hackers would have no problem at all adding it back in.
Jay
Can someone confirm data usage caps on all these plans? Web site seemed to imply 5G cap and expensive overage on all but $50 plan.
Just picked up the Droid in-store, and got a $30 plan using Exchange even on a corporate account (no forcing or even questioning of usage for $45 by rep). Being a corporate account, the $100 was instant (even in-store).
Doesn’t matter, Verizon is still ran by a bunch of dumb monkeys. DAM YOU DIRTY APES!!!