Interpreting Verizon's contract buzzwords

I recently upgraded my phone to a new iPhone 6+. It's great, but that's not the point of this article. In reading through the contract information, both before and after signing, I became aware of the fact that my contract has a lot of buzzwords that are not clearly defined.

In Googling for the definitions, I found that it is very hard to find definitions for most of these. As a service to my readers, here are all the line items from my contract, and the best explanation I've found so far for them. Some come from Verizon or from user-forum discussions I ran across. Some are based on my own intuition and understanding of wireless technology.

Corrections are welcome and will help to make the list more complete. I don't promise that it's all correct, but I hope people with specific knowledge will be able to help me improve it and make it correct.

Updated on June 4, 2015, based on reader comments. Thanks much!

Updated on April 1, 2019, based on the receipt we got when we upgraded one of our phones last July.

Line item	Meaning
Line Number	My phone number, so I know which line is being described
UPGRADE FEE	Verizon charges a $30 fee per line to upgrade to a new phone if you buy it with a 2-year contract. I guess this lets them charge more for the phone while advertising the same price as everybody else.
MORE Everything Unlimited Talk, Text & 6GB	The contract we had at the time this line was present. We were paying for 6GB of shared data, unlimited talk and texting
THE NEW VERIZON PLAN XL 16GB $90	The contract we have now. We're paying for 16GB of shared data, unlimited talk and texting
Monthly Line Access	The fixed charge per line ($40 for each of our three smartphones)
Text Messaging Pay Per Message  - - - - TXT MSG W PER MSG CHARGES  - - - - TEXT MESSAGING	Text messaging support. On the web site, it's listed as "Pay As You Go ($0.20 per message)." The price is misleading - it only applies for texts that go over your plan's allowance and our plan is unlimited.
INTL FROM US MESSAGING $0	Unlimited text messaging from the US to other countries
INTLMESSAGES WHILE IN US $0	No charge to receive international text messages while in the US
MOBILE HOT SPOT TRIGGER $0	Mobile hot-spot allows you to configure your mobile phone as a Wi-Fi internet access point. There is generally no charge for this on a metered plan, since hot-spot bandwidth comes out of your monthly allowance. It may be limited or an additional charge when used with unlimited data plans.
4G Mobile Hotspot Provisioning	The 4G version of mobile hot-spot capability
RTR/UC TRIGGER ALP $0	"ALP" means "Account Level Provisioning" - a billing model where there is no primary line, but an "account" charge, and individual line charges. In my case, $80/mo for the 6GB "more everything" plan, and $40 per line for each phone on the contract. "RTR" is "Real-Time Reporting", which lets you see your usage on the web site and to get real-time alerts as usage passes thresholds (e.g. 75% of data used). Based on a comment from reader Henry Shen (see below), "UC" means usage control. I assume, therefore, that "UC TRIGGER" is describing the mechanism that allows various external factors to affect what a device can and can not do. For instance, to allow a kid's phone to lose data service after reaching a configured limit, or not allowing a line to make non-emergency calls between midnight and 6:00am every day.
RTR/UC TRIGGER VP 2.0	Not sure how this differs from "RTR/UC TRIGGER ALP", but when we bought a new phone last year, it had this instead of that, so it's probably a newer version of the same thing
EMAIL TRIGGER ALP $0	According to reader Henry Shen (see comment below), this means that their server will send an e-mail whenever there is a change to the ALP calling plan.
DATA PROVISION ALP	There is a data-plan provisioned on an "ALP" contract.
Streamlined Billing	The paper bill contains a summary of usage. Detailed usage is available from the web site. Alternatively, you could sign up for detailed billing, which would include details of every call and text message, for an additional fee.
Message Waiting Indicator	I think this lets your phone display an icon to let you know when your voice mail box has unread messages. I don't think iPhones use this, because of the visual voice mail.
Decline Equipment Protection	This appears on two of our phones - we didn't pay for them to replace the phone if it gets damaged. Verizon won't help if repairs are needed out of the warranty period.
Total Equipment Coverage  - - - - TOTAL MOBILE PROTECTION $13	This is on the third phone - Verizon will replace it if it gets damaged out of the warranty period.
Caller ID	The phone will display the number of incoming calls.
BUSY TRANSFER	I believe this means calls are automatically transferred to voice mail if the line is busy at the time.
Conference Calling	Allows you to conference multiple calls together.
CALL DELIVERY	Verizon describes it only as "The way in which wireless calls are made and received". I think this means the line can receive voice calls. I'm not sure, but I would assume that data-only devices (like a tablet, MiFi or USB dongle) don't have this item and therefore can't receive calls, even though they (I'm told) have a phone number assigned to them.
Call Waiting	Allows you to be notified when a call comes in while talking on another call, giving you an opportunity to switch to it and later switch back.
No Answer / Busy Transfer	I believe this means calls are automatically transferred to voice mail if the call is not answered quickly enough.
Call Forwarding	Allows incoming calls to be immediately forwarded to another number.
Data Roaming USA & Canada	Data-roaming is included for Canada without an international data plan. Canadian data is billed by usage and has no bundled data. It appears that some people may have the line "USA ONLY NO ROAM", which means roaming outside of the US will fail (so you'll have no coverage in other countries, instead of having coverage at the expensive roaming rates.)
INCLUDE CANADA/MEXICO	Canada and Mexico are included as a part of the domestic calling plan and are treated like the US for billing purposes.
Pay Per Message	Text messages will be billed. But it's meaningless here because the our plan includes unlimited text messages.
DYNAMIC-PRIVATE IP	The phone is getting a dynamic private IP address. Dynamic means it may change (hopefully only when joining and leaving the wireless data network.) Private means the address is not visible to the internet but is translated to a different address by the router(s) used to connect the phone to the internet.
4G INTERNET ACCESS	I believe this means the phone's 4G/LTE data will be routed to the internet.
4G APPLICATION ACCESS	I'm not sure what this means. I would assume that applications access the 4G network using the internet access. Maybe it refers to special Verizon apps that don't go through the internet, like those that run on non-smart phones.
PICTURE MESSAGE PROVISIONING	MMS messages (text messages with image/audio/video attachments) are supported.
SHARE NAME ID	Allows you to pick the name displayed on Caller ID boxes when receiving your calls. Without this, Verizon Wireless calls all appear as "WIRELESS CALLER". Note that this text only seems to be available to land-line caller ID devices, not to mobile phones.
RTR FOR ALP	See VZW Community thread. This stands for "Real-Time Reporting for Account Level Pricing" and refers to the fact that usage is immediately reported on-demand (via the web site) and that you can get alerts when you approach the limits of what you've paid for.
4G PROVISIONING $0	Another line referring to 4G data (included in contract.)
EMAIL ACCESS PDA $0	This will allow e-mail access. I'm not sure why this isn't just a part of the normal internet access.
FamilyBase	FamilyBase is the old name for "Smart Family". a feature that allows a parent to monitor and restrict a child's phone, for a $5 monthly fee.
FAMILYBASE 2ND PARENT $0.00	You can have multiple parents (without restrictions) on a FamilyBase, but only one pays the monthly fee. This item appears on the "second parent" line.
Usage Controls Provisioning  - - - - VZ SMART FAMILY UC PROV $0	Usage limits have been configured (via FamilyBase/Smart Family) for this line. In my case, I've restricted my daughter's data usage to 5GB per month.
FamilyBase Child  - - - - VZ SMART FAMILY CHILD $0	See above for FamilyBase/Smart Family. This appears on your children's lines
VISUAL VOICEMAIL SPEC	Visual voice mail allows you to selectively play and delete voice mail messages with a graphical interface. "SPEC" might mean "special", if the iPhone does this differently from other smart phones (I don't know about this.)
ACCESS - ADVANCED CALLING	Advanced Calling is Verizon's buzzword for Voice-over-LTE (VoLTE)
HD Voice	Higher quality voice calls when using VoLTE (voice over LTE) to call another phone that has VoLTE and HD Voice enabled
ACCESS - HD VOICE	I'm not sure how this differs from the "HD Voice" line, above.
Embedded SIM	This indicates that Verizon included a SIM card with the order.
Shipping Fee	This one is obvious. The shipping charge to deliver my new phone (it was free)
VERIZON CLOUD 5GB FREE	Verizon Cloud is a service where you can back-up your phone's content to a Verizon server. This was a special promotion granting a free 5GB of storage.
VERIZON PLAN 2.0 ENTITLEMENT	Not sure. I assume it's a catch-all for the service plan I'm subscribing to.
INTL SERVICE ENABLED LITE	Not sure. I assume it means the phone can roam internationally, but only with basic services.