Verizon Struggles to Add Contract Customers

Verizon Communications Inc.’s (VZ) first-quarter earnings plunged, hurt by a health-care-related charge, as more wireless customers shunned the practice of signing a long-term contract.

Verizon Wireless’s usual bread-and-butter—so-called post-paid subscribers willing to spend more each month and stick with the service–failed to show up during the period. For the first time, the carrier had to rely on reseller partners who sign up lower-end prepaid customers to offset a 67% decline in the number of new contract customers.

The struggles of the country’s largest wireless carrier underscore a growing dilemma facing an industry traditionally dependent on adding lucrative contract customers.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Must-Reads from other Websites

Panos Mourdoukoutas

Why Apple Should Buy China’s Xiaomi

Paul Graham

What I Didn’t Say

Benjamin Bratton

We Need to Talk About TED

Mat Honan

I, Glasshole: My Year With Google Glass

Chris Ware

All Together Now

Corey S. Powell and Laurie Gwen Shapiro

The Sculpture on the Moon

About Voices

Along with original content and posts from across the Dow Jones network, this section of AllThingsD includes Must-Reads From Other Websites — pieces we’ve read, discussions we’ve followed, stuff we like. Six posts from external sites are included here each weekday, but we only run the headlines. We link to the original sites for the rest. These posts are explicitly labeled, so it’s clear that the content comes from other websites, and for clarity’s sake, all outside posts run against a pink background.

We also solicit original full-length posts and accept some unsolicited submissions.

Read more »