Why does Verizon hate its customers?

I am a good Verizon customer. I buy lots of their stuff and pay my bill on time each month. So why do they hate me?

I currently have an unlimited data plan for my laptop EVDO modem, a fat voice and text message plan for my phone, and even have my Tahoe's OnStar tied into my plan as an additional line. Total monthly charges: $262.92. That's right. $262.92.

About a year ago, I upgraded from my classic Blackberry 7290 to the 8830 world phone, with built in GPS. I thought it would be a great time to upgrade since that 7290 was getting long in the tooth. The 8830 was a logical upgrade, and it would allow me to use Google Maps when I travel rather than packing my Garmin GPS for the rental car. One gizmo to tote, and I have everything I need - email, voice, data and GPS. Verizon advertised the 8830 in Spring 2007 as GPS enabled, so what more could I ask for. Buy the 8830, load google maps, and get going. WRONG!

The 8830 has GPS, it's true. But Verizon disables it for all applications except the 911-locator service and their VZNavigator application, which they will charge you $9.95 a month to use. It's a crappy application in my opinion, but that's not the point. The point is that they've marketed the 8830 as having GPS and nav abilities, but in effect broken my phone by only allowing me to use that feature if I pay $9.95 a month, and even then only if I use their crappy application.

Being the crafty, outside-the-box kind of guy that I am, I bought a B-Speech Keychain Bluetooth GPS Receiver, thinking I'd just tote that keyfob-sized gadget with me, pair it via bluetooth to my 8830 and get rolling on some Google Maps. WRONG! Verizon has once again crippled the handset by disabling the GPS pairing function on the 8830 (although it supports just about every other pairing feature - headsets, filesystem, etc).

I'm not the only person lamenting this move by Verizon to monetize everything they can, even if it means taking away choice from their customers and ticking us off.

It's more of a hassle to move my handset and car's voice and data than it is to just take my Garmin GPS with me, but I'm quickly approaching a level of frustration that will cause me to make the move just to make a point with Verizon. So let's see how the math adds up. Verizon is willing to lose $262.92 * 12 = $3155.04 / yr revenue when I move to some other provider, just by trying to blackmail me into paying $9.95*12= $119.40 per year to use a feature that Research In Motion put in the handset by default!


So Verizon, how long will you hold my 8830's GPS hostage, even knowing that I will never pay you to use it? Is it worth over $3000 a year in revenue from me to you, knowing that you will lose me as a customer forever, and I will spread the word to my employees, colleagues and friends that you hate your customers?

I'm a good customer... so why do you hate me?


Update 5/3/08
After some tinkering, and thanks to some good work by the folks over at forums.crackberry.com, I now have a way to get Google Maps to work with my B-speech keychain GPS, despite all of Verizon's attempts to thwart me. It goes like this:

1. Power-on your Bspeech GPS
2. Pair the blackberry to the Bspeech GPS (should show upas GPS20C or similar)
3. Connect to the Bspeech GPS
4. Fire up the Blackberry Maps application that came with the blackberry.
   
5. From within Blackberry MAPS:
1. pull up the menu using the blackberry menu button on your 8830
2. select "Start GPS Navigation"
3. wait until the GPS has found the satellites and is returning location information
6. Now, hit the red phone button to exit back to the main blackberry menu screen, but leaving the Blackberry Maps application runnin
7. Fire up Google Maps
8. Google Maps should indicate your current location "within 3 meters", having found the now active GPS

Periodically, the GPS connection gets stupid and I have to "Stop GPS Navigation" and then "Start GPS Navigation" from within Blackberry Maps, but this thing effectively works.