Verizon "Mobile Web" service currently down

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
data posts

Heavy users are still going to need the 5GB monthly postpaid option (and really, let's be honest, a lot of us need well more than 5GB), but the occasional "crap, I really have to grab that spreadsheet off the intranet" moment might be well-served by Verizon's new prepaid data option announced today. "Occasional" really is the key word here, because it's not cheap -- $15 per day for 75MB, $30 per week for 250MB, or $50 per month for 500MB -- but hey, we guess we've gotta get Big Red used to the idea of offering a la carte data for a while before it becomes affordable to the masses. In the meantime, it'll be offered bundled with a USB760 modem (pictured) in Verizon and Best Buy locations starting on November 16.
Nokia makes out its just-announced RD-3 data modem to be the dream of every road warrior: global GSM / EDGE, global HSPA, global LTE -- a twenty-plus year heritage of technologies in the GSM family tree compressed into a single device, powerful enough to get you service from a dusty GPRS cell site in some of the world's harshest landscapes or Verizon's LTE trials in Boston and Seattle just the same. The only problem is that you can't have it. The RD-3 is instead being reserved for carriers and infrastructure firms building out LTE networks around the globe as they march toward commercial availability in 2010, at which point Nokia (and others) will presumably have newer, better modems available for us lay folk to enjoy. In the meanwhile, though, it's alright: go ahead and drool.
We've been seeing a lot of reports of Verizon data services being down today, possibly limited to BlackBerrys (which, ironically, are probably used in mission critical situations more than most other devices). What's the status out there in the field? Anyone see any issues?
It's not every day that you see a USB data card launch that can accept Memory Stick Micro M2 cards, so we wanted to call out this little puppy on Rogers. As you might imagine from the unusual memory card support, it comes to us from our good friends at Sony Ericsson -- and not to fret, because the MD400g takes plain ol' microSD cards, too, all the way up to 8GB. It's got integrated GPS, supports up to 7.2Mbps down, and can roam globally on 2G and 3G networks; add in that wild red and white paintjob, and you've got a winner on your hands -- especially when you consider that it's free on a three-year contract.
If you find the idea of 5 gigabytes of wireless data positively disgusting and excessive, perhaps this is a little more to your liking: Sprint has now introduced its ridiculously-named "







