Verizon's Quad Play Is Happy to Kick Landlines to the Curb

Verizon Communications is offering a quad-play bundle — wired voice, data, video and wireless services — in certain parts of the country, though customers can turn it into a triple play by dumping their landlines, a move that underscores just how unimportant the landline had become for telecommunications providers. The ability to dump the wireline voice is a big deal, because carriers, including Verizon, have typically been reluctant to promote unbundling wired voice from wired broadband. According to Verizon, its new services are aimed at putting cable competitors on the defensive by offering wireless services they can't currently offer as part of a service bundle, and the pricing is reasonably aggressive.