Verizon spinoff offers unlimited wireless service at $40 a month

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Visible offers discount Verizon service, and it's currently iPhone only.
Visible uses Verizon's network to offer discount service. It's currently iPhone only.
Photo: Ed Hardy/Cult of Mac

Verizon Wireless spun off a startup that offers unlimited data, voice, and messages for just $40 a month. The new company, dubbed Visible, is currently only offering this service for unlocked iPhones.

But there is a catch: all data connections are always throttled to 5Mbps, well below what Verizon’s network can provide.

Verizon is a premium service, with some of the highest services fees in the U.S. Its unlimited plan is $75 a month… almost twice what Visible costs.

But Big Red’s customers can expect an average download speed of 17.7 Mbps. Visible’s service uses the same network but is capped at less than a third of the speed. And the maximum resolution for streaming video is 480p.

Discount Verizon service for some

Visible just launched, so the only way to join is by invitation. Those who are already customers can invite friends and loved ones during this “early access program.” There’s no other way to join this discount Verizon service.

And the service is only available on unlocked iPhones. This is because the user needs an application on their phone to connect, and at this point there’s no Android version. That’s going to change eventually, but the company hasn’t yet said when.

Just a few days in, there are no figures on how many subscribers there are, but the company is upbeat. “We have been really, really happy with the customer interest so far,” Visible CEO Miguel Quiroga told CBS News.

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