Verizon is putting the final touches on it’s new plans and for the most part if you want any type of phone that does more than dial a number you WILL buy a data plan. Overall Verizon says this will average out for most users so the monthly cost are about the same yet they also admit they see the revenue per user continuing to rise.

In what is the final act for PACE Airlines Judge Thomas Waldrep has entered PACE into involuntary Bankruptcy. On December 2, 2009 multiple creditors filed a petition to start the liquidation of PACE Airlines almost a year and half after PACE stopped paying it’s lease agreement with Smith Reynolds Airport. Interesting enough nobody representing PACE Airlines showed up at the December hearing.

We posted back on October 27th that it had been reported that CEO William Rodgers had signed away any interest in the company. What information was available appeared to point to Lee Booth had taken various assets and was likely setting up shop in Burlington however that is about all that was known or maybe rumored would be better. It appears the attorney appointed by the courts to handle this case is as much in the dark as everyone else as he was quoted as saying, “I will examine corporate officers under oath to determine the ownership.” Edwin Allman III who was appointed as Trustee further went on to say if he can recover any assets the legal fees will be paid first then creditors with the 400 or so employees owed back pay “would be pretty high up" the list of creditors”. While I would like to think he is right I have enough experience with things like this to know employee back pay will be considered  unsecured debt while the multiple companies owed $10 million or more will likely be seen as secured debt  and secured debt always gets paid first.

Of course there are still charges against William Rodgers for failure to pay insurance premiums while months later the N.C. Labor Department is still “investigating” the failure to pay wages.

My last comment on this is at what point is the Airport Commission called to the carpet on allowing PACE to go a year without paying it’s lease obligations? Remember the Airport Commission is also in hot water for allowing it’s contractor in charge of runway expansions per a 1997 Grant to not pay it’s subcontractors. I’ve not heard or seen anything else on this and the Journal certainly hasn’t covered this.

Reports and rumors are coming out that Verizon will be releasing multiple new phones in the upcoming months. From the much anticipated iPhone to more Android based phones it looks like Verizon has finally decided it’s time to upgrade their less than unique phone lineup.

The latest rumor to show up is all about a new Android phone from Motorola called the Devour. Basically it appears to be a slightly less advance version of the Motorola Droid so expect to see pricing be slightly lower although it will run Android 2.1.

It also appears HTC will be releasing an update for the Eris to push it to Android 2.0 or 2.1. Of course how quickly Verizon will make the update available is anyone’s guess. If your wondering why running Android 2.x is such a big deal it has several major updates such as supporting multiple Exchange accounts as well as a browser update.

Of course with CES coming up there’s always a lot of news and rumors about new products and not to be outdone Palm is rumored to have a new Palm Pre Plus ready for Verizon. This will be a slightly larger and newer version of the Palm Pre.

Lastly will there be an iPhone for Verizon? It was a given last year but as the year ended most had cast doubts on Verizon’s iPhone plans. There are those however that still see an iPhone in Verizon’s future probably sometime in the summer as Apples releases it’s newest version of the huge successful iPhone. With little to go on the belief is the new iPhones will be smaller, have a 5MP camera, be built by AsusTek vs. Hon Hai which makes the current models, use a Qualcomm hybrid CDMA/WCDMA chip that allows multiple cell carrier signal types  and show up mid year.

Of course let’s not forget to warn anyone looking at Verizon for a new phone they have enacted a new $350 cancellation fee on their “Smartphone” line so if your thinking of buying now and switching if and when they release an iPhone you may want to change those plans.

Word is Dell will keep the Winston-Salem plant open for a few more months allowing around 400 workers a little more breathing room. No further information is out there as of yet but I’m sure we will see local leaders take all the credit somehow.

Dell has informed the state that it believes it met the requirements during it’s years of operating in North Carolina and will not repay those monies. Governor Bev Purdue and other state representatives have said Dell would be forced to repay all the incentive money they were given however Dell has claimed some $6 million is covered in the agreements and will not be repaid. The Governor’s Office has released a “corrected” statement saying Dell may be able to keep some North Carolina taxpayer money.

Animated map showing unemployment rates growing across the nation.

The North Carolina Department of Transportation, Office of The Inspector General has informed Smith Reynolds Airport that it is in breach of it’s grant agreement for runway improvements. Smith Reynolds received a grant back in 1997 for those improvements and contracted Mainline Contractors out of Raleigh which reportedly was not keeping up with payments to sub-contractors and subsequently filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy.

The airport and it’s Director, Larry Scantlin, were informed of the pending investigation on August 17th with a formal letter from the Department of Transportation in which Richard Walls, Director of Aviation, states:

That notice goes on to state that if the airport cannot address the above issues the “Department will take legal action.” On Tuesday it appears the Office of the Inspector has judged that the airport is at fault and it appears this means the airport will be forced to repay grant money, pay subcontractors for unpaid work or a combination of the two. Tom McKim, the chairman of the Airport Commission of Forsyth County disagrees with the state report and said:

"Obviously we disagree with (the report), and we believe that our contract with Mainline satisfied our obligation under the grant," McKim said. "The efforts we made to monitor what Mainline did with respect to payments were also adequate."  JournalNow

Here’s an early Christmas present for all those going in and out of Greensboro, Piedmont Triad Airport, FREE Wifi courtesy of Google. Unlike the typical $10 or more per day to get that twenty minutes of browsing before your flight you will be able to check that last email all thanks to Google. On top of this if your flying Virgin America, probably not for most of us, you will also be able to browse the Internet on any flight.

Word of warning as I’ve posted here before on using public WiFi:

• Always use a software firewall, XP’s built in Firewall will suffice
• Do not browse any site where you will enter private data unless that site is SSL, even then there is a risk of a man in the middle attack
• NEVER send private data via email, on a Public WiFi or not!
• Always assume your browsing is monitored when on a Public WiFi