Will the service be free to activate or will there be a monthly fee? Article only says US calls are free. good deal as long as they don't add some kind of monthly fee
No monthly fee now, but you never know with VZW..
I'm going to bet that you'll at least have to have a plan on VZW. While I'd be very surprised if they charged extra for Wifi calling, you won't just be able to keep using a phone over Wifi with a VZW number after cancelling your actual plan.
While I agree with Jeffrey that this is great for folks who live/work in areas with spotty coverage, I also think it's quite a sham. They keep playing around with pricing on data and now their plans offer unlimited minutes and messages by default. So, if you have good coverage, I would never use Wifi calling. Why should I help alleviate some congestion on their network when I've got as many minutes as I can possibly use each month?
Also, while (again) I think this is great for folks who wouldn't otherwise be able to count on a good signal for calls, I hope this isn't their way of saving money that they'd otherwise spend on expanding their coverage areas. Seems like a good excuse to me to not worry about putting up more towers. "Well, we've got a very robust network everywhere else. You're free to make wifi calls when you're at home where our signals just don't quite reach you."
Not to mention, folks who have a metered connection to the internet from their ISP. Suddenly, you've got no bandwidth left for streaming, surfing, etc, because someone in your house is always on the phone, using wifi, and it's taking up your allotted data from your ISP. (I don't know exactly how wifi calling will impact data caps. I'm sure video calls will have a larger effect.)
Still, I'm not saying I think this is a horrible thing. Just playing devil's advocate and pointing out that, while this will be quite helpful to some customers, others may not find it to be so great.
