Verizon Wireless Turns up the Heat

Verizon Wireless is making changes. They are adding more services for use in their wireless network and cutting a deal with AOL.

The carrier introduced a $30-per-month plan that gives smartphone users “an unlimited data allowance” for e-mail and the mobile Internet. The plan supports as many as 10 personal e-mail accounts from providers such as Yahoo Inc., AOL L.L.C. and Microsoft Corp.’s Windows Live, and is available on three devices: the HTC Corp. SMT5800, the UTStarcom XV6800 and the Motorola Inc.’s Q9m.

Other devices will be added “within the next few months,” Verizon Wireless said in a prepared statement. The carrier previously charged $45 per month for unlimited Web access from smartphones.

The carrier also rolled out a mobile e-mail service for small and medium-sized businesses. Hosted VZEmail Services, as the offering is dubbed, is powered by Microsoft’s Exchange Server and gives users the ability to synch e-mail messages automatically to Windows Mobile-enabled devices as well as synchronizing calendars, contacts and tasks.

and…

Verizon Wireless has tapped AOL L.L.C.’s Platform-A as a “major advertising provider” of its online and mobile Internet destinations.

The operator said it will use Platform-A’s sales force as well as its technology to deliver display, mobile and video ad services. The deal grants Platform-A exclusive rights to guarantee placement within the carrier’s network; other sales partners will sell on a blind-network basis, which means marketers will have no control over where their ads will run.

The deal extends the carrier’s relationship with Third Screen Media, the mobile ad-serving platform AOL acquired a year ago for an undisclosed sum.

Most interesting is the AOL relationship. Wonder if Yahoo was aware of this possible relationship?

Compliments of RCR. Full articles here and here.