Verizon markets $70/month Gigabit FiOS, not really $70/month or Gigabit

[WMGroomAK]

So Verizon began to rollout their Gigabit FiOS (Fiber Optic Service) yesterday and they already have a couple of issues...  First, they are advertising the service as $70/month for Gigabit service , however in an article on Ars Technica, at roll-out some existing FiOS users who have tried to upgrade have been told that the standard price is actually closer to $200/month.  

 

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/04/verizon-bungles-launch-of-70-gigabit-plan-which-costs-more-than-70/

Quote

The Verizon announcement said the gigabit service would be immediately available to more than 8 million homes and did not say that the $70 price would only be available to certain customers. But it turned out that the $70 price was only for customers who don't have Verizon FiOS service today. Existing customers who tried to upgrade yesterday were told that the standard price was as much as $200 a month.

 

After exchanging many e-mails throughout the day yesterday with a Verizon spokesperson, we now have a better understanding of what went wrong and what should happen next. Verizon promised a "revolutionary speed and a revolutionary price." But there's more than one price.

 

The $70 price (plus router charges and other fees) is available for new customers, who can order the plan online now. Existing customers should be able to upgrade starting April 30, but they'll have to pay more than $70. Instead of providing a standard price to all existing customers, Verizon said it will charge different prices depending on what service plan and price each customer has today. Existing customers who already pay for 750Mbps, the previous top speed tier, should get the speed upgrade and a bill decrease to $80.

To make this more complicated, it appears that Verizon wants existing customers to wait until at least April 30 before swapping.  As the article points out, 

 

Quote

Despite the fact that Verizon immediately made the $70 gigabit plan available to new customers, it said the online ordering system for existing customers doesn't support upgrading to the new plans "because of updates we still need to make to the IT systems." Even the Verizon spokesperson we talked to wasn't aware of this fact until late yesterday afternoon, after many customers tried and failed to upgrade. Nothing in the Verizon announcement had indicated that existing customers should wait before trying to upgrade.

 

Existing customers who spoke to customer service reps yesterday should have been told about the delay until April 30 and advised to wait, Verizon told us.

 

But one customer who chatted with a Verizon rep online was given an estimated bill that showed a standard price of $200 for gigabit service. The estimate said that price would be lowered to about $170 through a "contract discount" and "agreement incentive" for the first 24 months. Confusingly, the 24 months seems to only last 13 months:

So, what is the real price of this service?  It seems to be based off what service you have right now and what you pay...  

 

Quote

Another customer said he was told by a Verizon rep, "Your location qualifies for our FiOS Gigabit Connection (Up to 940/880 Mbps). The monthly cost for this plan is $189.99/mo." The Verizon rep then investigated further and found that existing customers couldn't order the speed upgrade just yet, and that the customer should "come back online after [a] few days and we will be able to check the exact price."

 

There is no "exact price" that applies to all existing customers, it turns out.

 

"For existing customers, the specific price a customer pays to upgrade depends on what their current pricing is," a Verizon spokesperson told us. "A 150Mbps customer, for example, could upgrade to a gigabit connection for $20 more a month."

 

Standalone 150Mbps service usually costs $75 a month, so customers who upgrade to gigabit from this plan would pay $95 a month, Verizon said. But customers on other plans might see higher or lower prices if they try to upgrade to gigabit.

Honestly, reading the article, it seems like there is a lot of miscommunication about the pricing and it is unsure if you are able to get the $70/month plan, whether it will stay at that discounted rate or whether after the first year or second year it will jump to $200/month.  In addition there appear to be the typical hidden costs of equipment charges.  

 

As for the speeds you can expect (if you are in a service area that Verizon offers FiOS), you are looking at 750 Mbps to 940 Mbps downstream and 750 Mbps to 880 Mbps upstream speeds.  So not quite Gbps speeds, but fairly close.  

 

I guess, good going Verizon on making a confusing scheme to launch a service...  Seems like some of these details should have been clearer, but this also seems like typical business for ISPs at the moment.

[PlayStation 2]

Sounds like AT&T.

[MorganO]

1 hour ago, WMGroomAK said:

-snip-

the ISP market in the US sounds like a complete shit show compared to the UK 

and these seems down to the downright atrocious reglations or the lack there of for the isps?

 

 

just one of very few reasons america doesnt appeal to me  

[Scruffy90]

I had this convo with Verizon about an hour or two ago (theyre all seemingly lost too), since my apt qualifies. This is what they told me:
-70/mo (internet only) or 80/mo bundled

- since I was an existing fios customer, I would have to pay 180/mo. I've also been told to wait until next monday before new pricing scheme would take affect.

- My 100/100 has dropped to about 50/mo in my neighborhood. 

 

It's been a headache dealing with this. To my understanding, at least in NYC, is that pricing are dropping across the board. Their standard non promo pricing is 10-15 more than their promo pricing (at least based on the little info I could find on their site.) Their reps dont know anymore than we do supposedly

[Mr.Meerkat]

If this happened in the UK, Ofcom would probably fuck em up  

 

I mean Ofcom basically ordered BT and BT openreach to split into two different companies (so BT wouldn't have such a big say in the UK's telecomm infastructure as they are the only company with more or less landline coverage/lines everwhere) plus they blocked O2 and three from merging (with the EU commission)...I actually wanted them to merge as O2 has best 2G coverage (and its 2G that's usable for webbage), best 4G coverage (although its the slowest) while 3G has the best and fastest 3G coverage...

 

Best 2G+3G+4G coverage= ??  

[The Benjamins]

I live in a city, Baltimore county,  and I wish I had options for ISPs in my area. I can get Comcast 200/10 or Verizon 30/5 what a great selection :^).

[Teddy07]

Even $70 a month seems a lot. Maybe it is a good deal in the US.

[The Benjamins]

Just now, Teddy07 said:

Even $70 a month seems a lot. Maybe it is a good deal in the US.

most cable internet is 100-200 DL 10-20 UL for $80 in the US.

[Eaglerino]

58 minutes ago, KOMTechAndGaming said:

the ISP market in the US sounds like a complete shit show compared to the UK 

and these seems down to the downright atrocious reglations or the lack there of for the isps?

 

 

just one of very few reasons america doesnt appeal to me  

Because regulation here is based off people choice and not the government meddling in everything. Unfortunately Verizon would be one of the better choices for many people

 

But America is a huge freaking country compared to UK. If you go difference places, like the midwest where I live, I have gigabit for $100 a month with MidContinent and there's no data caps or contracts required. Just sad we can't have that over the rest of the country

[JAKEBAB]

So they are punishing loyal high speed users for new low ones? Wtf!

[Teddy07]

2 minutes ago, The Benjamins said:

most cable internet is 100-200 DL 10-20 UL for $80 in the US.

Yeah same shit here in Germany, only that the regular speed is ~50-100 down. Up depends if you use kable or an telecom provider but still not bad.

 

Best i can order is 400 download and 25 upload for 45 €. At least an good improvement over the 100 download max. speed a few years ago.

[Nowak]

17 minutes ago, The Benjamins said:

I live in a city, Baltimore county,  and I wish I had options for ISPs in my area. I can get Comcast 200/10 or Verizon 30/5 what a great selection :^).

I live in a city in southern Massachusetts, and much like the rest of the state, my only "options" are Comcast or Verizon DSL. Only a handful of cities and towns in the state have other options.

 

It'd be nice to have options, right Ajit Pai?

[Trixanity]

It's weird how little American companies care for existing customers. You'd think customer satisfaction and retention would be a priority. Guess the lack of choice gives them the opportunity to fuck with their customers every chance they get.

 

Glad that mine tries to keep me around instead of finding ways to piss me off.

[HalGameGuru]

When you have closed the market off to new competitors customer service and retention arent big issues. People believe America to be a "free market" or at least openly competitive. America is none of these things and hasn't been since the early 1800's. The market is not open, free, nor competitive for most big ticket and infrastructure industries. And it's unlikely the government will give up what control it has, nor that the big corporations who benefit from it will put up too much of a fuss.

[N3v3r3nding_N3wb]

2 hours ago, KOMTechAndGaming said:

the ISP market in the US sounds like a complete shit show compared to the UK 

and these seems down to the downright atrocious reglations or the lack there of for the isps?

 

 

just one of very few reasons america doesnt appeal to me  

There are regulations, most of them are just horrendously anti-consumer.

[MorganO]

1 hour ago, N3v3r3nding_N3wb said:

There are regulations, most of them are just horrendously anti-consumer.

rip, and i guess the monoplies suck ass

[Thony]

3 hours ago, Teddy07 said:

Even $70 a month seems a lot. Maybe it is a good deal in the US.

The smaller the country is and the smaller the minimum wage the cheaper the internet is. I think Romania has extremely cheap internet. Those countries are also doing much better in laying down fiber. US monopoly (Comcast and Verizon) dont want to invest in new infrastructure (hundreds of millions of dollars to replace copper pipes). US is so corrupted....

[Sakkura]

4 hours ago, Mr.Meerkat said:

If this happened in the UK, Ofcom would probably fuck em up  

 

I mean Ofcom basically ordered BT and BT openreach to split into two different companies (so BT wouldn't have such a big say in the UK's telecomm infastructure as they are the only company with more or less landline coverage/lines everwhere) plus they blocked O2 and three from merging (with the EU commission)...I actually wanted them to merge as O2 has best 2G coverage (and its 2G that's usable for webbage), best 4G coverage (although its the slowest) while 3G has the best and fastest 3G coverage...

 

Best 2G+3G+4G coverage= ??  

Funny thing is, the same happened to Bell/AT&T in the US. But then times changed...

[WMGroomAK]

3 minutes ago, Thony said:

The smaller the country is and the smaller the minimum wage the cheaper the internet is. I think Romania has extremely cheap internet. Those countries are also doing much better in laying down fiber. US monopoly (Comcast and Verizon) dont want to invest in new infrastructure (hundreds of millions of dollars to replace copper pipes). US is so corrupted....

Where I'm at, we don't have Verizon or Comcast so the highest level Internet plan is 1 Gbps down/ 50 Mbps Up for $175.00/month, capped at 1 TB of data usage.  After that they reduce speeds to 10 Mbps Down and charge $10/100 GB of data.

[vanished]

lol

@Daring "sometimes"  

[Nowak]

Just now, Ryan_Vickers said:

lol

@Daring "sometimes"  

It's not like internet in Canada is much better :3c

 

Cellphone-like data caps for home internet wewwwww

[vanished]

Just now, Daring said:

It's not like internet in Canada is much better :3c

 

Cellphone-like data caps for home internet wewwwww

Yeah, it's not the best, but at least when they lie, it's saying there's restrictions that there actually aren't, instead of the other way around  

[N3v3r3nding_N3wb]

3 hours ago, KOMTechAndGaming said:

rip, and i guess the monoplies suck ass

Yeah, and our moron, corrupt politicians support the monopolies either because they're paid to, or because they're told that it's good for the consumers and don't question it.

 

If enough of us wrote to our representatives, it might change, but of course organizing/motivating that many people is nearly impossible.

[HelplmChoking]

Pretty sure they would be shit on by our government if someone in NZ tried that crap... 

But why not just cancel your plan, then a week later sign up as a new customer?

[Misanthrope]

26 minutes ago, Rangaman42 said:

Pretty sure they would be shit on by our government if someone in NZ tried that crap... 

But why not just cancel your plan, then a week later sign up as a new customer?

Not sure what they charge for early termination fees. If it's 200 or 300 bucks is probably worth pursuing. 

 

If it's any more than that probably not worth it.