Verizon to charge $20 per month for iPhone personal hotspot

One of the features touted during the Verizon iPhone announcement was the inclusion of Personal Hotspot. This allows you to use the iPhone as a Wi-Fi router, which in turn lets you connect up to five other devices to your Verizon data connection. The one thing they left out, though, was price. Today, Verizon filled in that gap with the announcement that the iPhone personal hotspot feature will cost $20 per month. That's in addition to your calling and data plans. No bid surprise there though, as that's the same price they charge on all their other smartphones with the same feature. The nice thing about this, though, is that when compared to AT&T, Verizon gives you more value for the dollar. AT&T only allows Bluetooth and USB tethering, and only to one device at a time. Further, you don't get any additional data for your $20. With the Wi-Fi hotpsot, you get up to five devices at once, and you also get a dedicated 2 GB of data specifically for tethering. Each gigabyte over the limit will cost an additional $20.

Are you planning on picking up the Verizon iPhone?