Verizon may be trying to kill off all unlimited data plans even for “grandfathered” customers.  This move will force existing and new customers to sign up for a tiered “data share” plan on its 4G LTE network.

These $30-a-month unlimited data plans  may go through a forced upgrade to a new tiered system very soon. Certainly there may be legal ramifications for the company as a result of this proposed action. Although the company always stated that it reserved the right to change their policy in the future.

Last July, Verizon eliminated its unlimited data plan for smartphone users.

AT&T still has some unlimited data customers within their network on “grandfathered” plans. Their method to force these customers to switch was to slow down service to these specific customers–making the plan less attractive. Although an angry customer sued AT&T in small claims court and won. AT&T stopped the practice of slowing down service–with a few exceptions it seems. One exception being customers who exceed their data usage of 3GB per month.

According to an article by Business Week, Google is considering creating a mobile payment service that would allow a tap-and-go type experience for the cell phone. The B.W. report is unconfirmed and the two sources remain anonymous.

The technology is based on near-field communication technology (NFC), which is a short-range high frequency wireless  exchange of data.

Currently, there is a race for NFC technology, which is may account for about 30% of the projected $1.13 trillion market for world-wide, mobile payments by 2014. Among the competitors in NFC technology are Verizon, AT&T and Ebay.

Source: BW, January 4, 201

The NYTimes reports that this could be the final “nail in the coffin” for the desktop office application. Google recently announced that it is providing Microsoft users a way to move their docs from Office into Google Docs without having to leave their desktop application. Convenience is key here. Google is trying to remove any reason to not abandon the old Office application for the cloud. Microsoft is aware of the problem posed by it’s rival to their core business–hence the push towards the Office 365 cloud functionality.