One time I asked an T-Mobile sales rep about their prepaid options. He told me prepaid was for people with bad credit who couldn't get a contract. -_- Another time I asked an AT&T store employee about buying an Android without a data plan. He told me that they don't sell them without data plans because without the plan it wouldn't work. -_- Sometimes I want to walk into such a store and say "look, I'm 30x as tech savvy as you. Give me the hottest Android you have, hold the contract, with a side of 25 gb prepaid data."

That's basically what I said at the T-Mobile store and I didn't have any problems from them over it (and my credit's fine -- I just don't want to be stuck with a contract after my experience with Verizon.). And the relatively nice thing there is that they give a discount on the monthly rate if you pay for the phone upfront, although their prices are still way more than the Virgin Mobile prices mentioned above. Depending on how long you keep the phone, the extra you would pay while on contract can add up to significantly more than the cost of the phone.

When the snow melts, the contaminants are going to go into the river anyway, so why does it make sense to ban dumping the snow in the river?

Anyway, in my thermodynamics class back in college, one problem we were given was to calculate how much energy it would take to melt all the snow across the campus. The thermodynamics does not work to the advantage of economically getting rid of the snow using flamethrowers.

Can you hear me now?

And that's what I plan to do after the contract expires in August, but the article is about Verizon after all. Plus, considering the nature of the telecom business, how can you be sure that that deal you're being offered is going to stay the same, or that the company that's offering it isn't going to be bought out by a company like Verizon? When I signed my current contract, it was with a different company that during that time was bought out by Verizon.

The ISP could charge a flat rate for everyone, and the power users who go over 250 GB can be charged 10c for each additional gigabyte.

Are you kidding? This is Verizon we're talking about. I'm currently have a phone with them (a cheap phone) and was recently looking into their data plans. Their non-"unlimited" plan is $10/month, and beyond a limit of 25 MB (not GB, MB) the price is $1/MB (again, not GB, MB). Somehow I think any new non-unlimited plan of theirs would be a lot more expensive than what you're thinking of.