Escaping To A Warmer Climate This Winter? Verizon Wireless Helps You Stay Connected

BASKING RIDGE, NJ — It's that time again for winter snowbirds to escape the cold, grey weather and flock to warmer climates. Verizon Wireless has continued its ongoing network investments and enhancements to ensure that customers relocating for the winter can turn to the nation's most reliable wireless voice and data network to stay connected from their warm-weather destinations across the U.S. this winter.

Recent network enhancements have increased network coverage and calling capacity for Verizon Wireless customers at popular snowbird destinations, including the addition of Evolution-Data Optimized (EV-DO) technology to serve the communities near Dahlonega and Athens, Georgia.

For those traveling from the Georgia state line south, the company installed five new sites in North Florida along the Interstate 75 corridor to enhance coverage to the junction at Interstate 10 in Hamilton County. New sites also have been activated to serve popular destinations such as Jacksonville, Orlando, Lakeland, Daytona Beach, Punta Gorda Isles and Downtown Miami.

In North Carolina, new cell sites were added on Harkers Island and in Wilmington; and in South Carolina, new cell sites were added in Charleston, Greenville, Myrtle Beach and Seabrook Island. Additionally, in the Southwest, a new cell site was added in Sun City West, Arizona.

Winter travelers and retirees can also take advantage of Verizon Wireless products and services to make the annual pilgrimage easier this winter.

• Streamlined Service: New customers who add a line this winter outside their home areas can now share minutes across all areas of the country; receive just one invoice for those lines; and activate new lines of service on their existing Verizon Wireless account from wherever they are, in the chilly north or the balmy south.
• BroadbandAccess: To stay in touch with friends and family from their winter homes, customers can access the Internet and e-mail using their PCs or Macs^® with Verizon Wireless PC cards.
• Nationwide 65 Plus Plans: Nationwide 65 Plus is designed to meet the needs of customers ages 65 and older while providing an easy way to stay in touch with friends and family. Customers can select from two plan options: Nationwide 65 Plus Single Line Plan, which includes 200 anytime minutes and 500 Night and Weekend minutes for $29.99 monthly access, or the Nationwide 65 Plus Two Line Plan that includes 450 shared anytime minutes and 1,000 shared Night and Weekend minutes for $59.99 monthly access.
• VZ Navigator^SM: Snowbirds can find their way in new territories with VZ Navigator, which transforms Verizon Wireless handsets into GPS-enabled navigation devices. VZ Navigator gives customers visual and audible directions, locates popular destinations and maps locations. VZ Navigator is available for $9.99 unlimited monthly access or $2.99 one-day use on select Get It Now^®-capable phones.

Verizon Wireless' wireless broadband network is based on EV-DO Revision A technology with average download speeds of 600 kilobits per second (kbps) to 1.4 megabits per second and average upload speeds of 500-800 kbps*. With these speeds, a customer can typically download a 1 Megabyte e-mail attachment in about eight seconds and upload the same-sized file in less than 13 seconds.

Verizon Wireless is committed to delivering outstanding customer satisfaction and providing a positive wireless experience. Verizon Wireless has invested more than $40 billion since it was formed — more than $5 billion on average every year and more than $6.6 billion last year — to increase the coverage and capacity of its national network and to add new services.

For more information about Verizon Wireless products and services, visit a Verizon Wireless Communications Store, call 1-800-2 JOIN IN or go to www.verizonwireless.com.  

*Speed claim based on stationary tests with 5 MB FTP data files w/o compression. Actual throughput speed varies.

About Verizon Wireless
Verizon Wireless operates the nation's most reliable wireless voice and data network, serving 63.7 million customers. The largest U.S. wireless company and largest wireless data provider, based on revenues, Verizon Wireless is headquartered in Basking Ridge, N.J., with 68,000 employees nationwide. The company is a joint venture of Verizon Communications (NYSE: VZ) and Vodafone (NYSE and LSE: VOD). Find more information on the Web at www.verizonwireless.com. To preview and request broadcast-quality video footage and high-resolution stills of Verizon Wireless operations, log on to the Verizon Wireless Multimedia Library at www.verizonwireless.com/multimedia.  

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