They've earned it..

They've earned it if their extra revenues are from data. They have WELL over 90% of their network upgraded to 3G (EVDO). (It's probably a little lower than 90% now, they just bought Alltel who did not have as high a % EVDO installed yet..) The EVDO footprint was already larger than AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint's current 3G footprints put together BEFORE they bought Alltel, and Alltel covers a ton of the rural west with EVDO. I can ride from here in the midwest over 900 miles to the east coast and get EVDO in all but about 10 miles of that.

I get over 1mbps almost all the time, when it does slow down it only slows to about 768kbps.. (and EVDO Rev A cards are faster than the Rev 0 card I have). Streaming music? Heh, I can stream full-sized youtube videos. I won't name names, but another large carrier here is having severe 3G capacity problems.. VZW's kept on top of it. They're gaining customers because of this, and since they have their network in order they can feel free to roll out new data-consuming services without worrying if they'll collapse the network.

Ironically for being the biggest CDMA provider in the US, at the rate Verizon's been rolling out upgrades they will probably have substantial LTE (the successor to GSM and UMTS) rolled out several years ahead of AT&T (the USs largest GSM provider.)

Verizon not that well known

I work for Verizon in the UK and the amount of times people say "Who!" when I tell them the name of my employer. I think it is because we have NO residential business in EMEA that even Americans may not realise just how truly large the Verizon network actualy is

</American praise mode>

Go Verizon, Woo Hoo, Yeah, Right on, Yeah, High five, Good Job!

</American praise mode>

Seriously, great news on the profits, my bonus is coming up in a month along with my pay review, they can hardly trumpet what a marvelous success they are and not give me a full bonus and pay rise can they.........

Yes but

What my dear friend at Verizon fails to understand (and I also work in Reading) is that Verizon Business (our arm in the UK) fell by 2.3% in the last quarter and 10% year on year.

Not so good for UK employees or our bonus in Feb :(