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We knew it was too good to be true.  We knew Verizon couldn’t keep it’s mitts off the phone and tweak something to make it less fun. The good news is unlike most of Verizon’s disabled phone, this one can be fixed by throwing money at it.  $15 per month to be exact.

Thanks to the geniuses at Verizon, if you wish to access Exchange mail on your Droid phone you’ll need to cough up another $15 per month.  This is the case for accessing work email on a Microsoft Exchange server as well as accessing GMail via the Exchange platform.  If this seems a bit harsh to you, you’re spot-on.

Verizon’s response to criticism on this is to point out Droid is designed as a non-corporate phone.  A consumer oriented phone like this, isn’t expected to go into Exchange servers, or so the thinking goes.  Tilting the phone as a non-business phone is odd to me.  Horse hockey is what I say.

From InfoWorld: “Verizon offers three data plans for Droid customers: $30 month on top of your voice plan’s rate for non-Exchange usage, $45 per month on top of your voice plan’s rate for Exchange usage, and $50 per month total cost for a data-only plan (whether or not you use it to access Exchange). Verizon spokeswoman Brenda Raney notes that the requirement to get the $45 “smartphone plan” for corporate e-mail usage applies to any smartphone, such as the BlackBerry—not just to the Droid.”

Contrast that with AT&T’s iPhone and BlackBerry smartphone plan that adds $30 on top of voice and includes Exchange access.  AT&T does have a business plan that mirrors Verizon’s at $45 per month.

While realizing it’s tough being a carrier these days, profiling data is a bad idea.  Data costs the same whether it is a movie streaming, Exchange email or surfing the net.  Verizon should not penalize users based on what data they consume.  Maybe, it’s just $15 a month but it bugs me.  How about you?

Read: [InfoWorld]