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The Internet Verizon Businesses Communications Network The Almighty Buck

Verizon's $70 Gigabit Internet Is Half the Price of Older 750Mbps Tier (arstechnica.com) 67

Posted by BeauHD from the new-and-improved dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Verizon is now selling what it calls "FiOS Gigabit Connection" for $69.99 a month in a change that boosts top broadband speeds and makes lower prices available to many Internet subscribers. Actual bandwidth will be a bit lower than a gigabit per second, with "downloads as fast as 940Mbps and uploads as fast as 880Mbps," Verizon's announcement today said. The gigabit service is available in most of Verizon's FiOS territory, specifically to "over 8 million homes in parts of the New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Richmond, Va., Hampton Roads, Va., Boston, Providence and Washington, D.C. areas," Verizon said. Just three months ago, Verizon boosted its top speeds from 500Mbps to 750Mbps. The standalone 750Mbps Internet service cost $150 a month, more than twice the price of the new gigabit tier. Existing customers who bought that 750Mbps plan "will automatically receive FiOS Gigabit Connection and will see their bills lowered," Verizon said. It's not clear whether they will get their price lowered all the way to $70. It's important to note that the $70 price is only available to new customers, and it's a promotional rate that will "increase after promo period." Additionally, Verizon will charge you a $10 per month router charge unless you pay $150 for the Verizon router, plus other taxes and fees.
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Verizon's $70 Gigabit Internet Is Half the Price of Older 750Mbps Tier More

Verizon's $70 Gigabit Internet Is Half the Price of Older 750Mbps Tier

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  • It's not $70/mo (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 24, 2017 @05:05PM (#54294667)

    "$70" is only the temporary promotional price, plus taxes and fees and other random charges they feel like making up and adding separately to the advertised price.

    Advertisement of internet access pricing is bullshit across the industry and I'm sick of it.

    • This should be modded up even higher. When I see a price from Verizon (or really any internet carrier, RCN is especially notorious for this) I don't trust it. That leads to lack of trust in the company. So then why move to their service when they will bump up the price, tack on random fees, charge me to rent hardware I could buy for cheaper... and the list goes on.

  • I can't believe, this is happening without the FCC or a similar government organization mandating it — driven simply by the KKKorporate greed and the fear of competition...

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      FCC be damned - the FBI should be investigating this for fraud. $69.99? That's fraud - plain and simple. $69.99 does not equal $69.99+$10+$some undisclosed non-insignificant amount after the first few months that they wont even disclose in their slashvertisement. It's going to be well over $100 once all the invisible fees kick in that they can't even be bothered to tell you about.

    • Actually, mi, with a government mandate I had it f (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 24, 2017 @05:38PM (#54294905)

      But I live in Chattanooga, where the government owned and controlled utility started providing fiber about a decade ago.

      We got gig speed for 70 bucks in 2012.

      Thanks government, thanks.

  • They charge you for owning a router that connects to it? Isn't having a router and plugging stuff into it kind of the point of having the service?

    That's like the phone company charging you rent if you rent a phone, and charging you rent if you plug your own phone in.

    • I like how some companies put a power switch on your set top box that lights a really bright blue LED.. and when you are done, you turn it off. and ... in theory save power!! Check yours. Mine draws 40W when its running with the blue LED. and when I turn it off. it draws 39.9999W.. so that LED is off. the rest of it is on. Tmes 4 set top boxes, it adds up. Plus.. is it possible that my STB is the wireless access point advertised on TV? I heard of 10,000 access points in the area, and wonder if its the set t
    • It's a "because we can" charge. Most huge ISPs have them. Their chief use seems to be letting them legally quote lower prices than they otherwise would be able to.

    • Kind of like the satellite and cable TV providers charging you rent for the device necessary to decode the signal. Dish will charge you the same amount whether you own the receiver or they provide the receiver. Still trying to figure out that one.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dgatwood ( 11270 )

        It makes it easier to drop support for older equipment if they can just provide you a replacement rental unit. Over the long haul, the cost savings might actually add up to more than the cost of the hardware.

    • That's like the phone company charging you rent if you rent a phone, and charging you rent if you plug your own phone in.

      Maybe you are new here, but Verizon is the phone company.

      The rental fee is for a verizon supplied router, usually 10/month. Unless you are lucky and still have the deal where they provide it free of charge, which they used to do years ago.

    • Well they charge you a rental fee for a router (including a Wifi), or they let you purchase it for $150. In abstract, I think that's totally reasonable.

      The problem is, they won't let you just supply your own router or operate without a router. You have to rent or buy their router. If you just want the Internet (not phone or TV), you can replace their router with your own once service is installed, but they still force you to purchase their router.

    • They charge you for owning a router that connects to it?

      No. The summary says, "Verizon will charge you a $10 per month router charge unless you pay $150 for the Verizon router." So, you can pay $10/month to "rent" it indefinitely, or you can pay $150 to buy it once. This setup is pretty common for cable and DSL providers in my area and presumably througout the US, though the option to buy your own is usually not as clearly advertised (especially for cable, in my experience), probably so they can keep making money off you long after you've paid off what an outrig

  • Suspicious (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Gravis Zero ( 934156 ) on Monday April 24, 2017 @05:22PM (#54294803)

    I get the feeling that they want people to switch out of their old contracts to a new one because the new contract is missing any mention of privacy. Someone should compare the terms of the contracts as this may be the start of them selling your info.

    • I get the feeling that they want people to switch out of their old contracts to a new one because the new contract is missing any mention of privacy. Someone should compare the terms of the contracts as this may be the start of them selling your info.

      They're selling your info regardless of what any "contract" says.

  • This is still FOUR times as much as I pay for gigabit/tv/phone package.

  • I don't have Verizon myself but I've worked at lot at houses where Verizon forces you to use their crap router, the wireless on them is not nearly as good as most other major brands and a lot of the functionality like port forwarding etc doesn't seem to work properly. They say you can't replace it because if you do the program guide on their cable boxes doesn't work.

    It's really a bad situation and Verizon tech support doesn't have a clue how to fix things or be helpful in any way.

  • My big question would be What is the data cap?

  • We have Comcast at 25 Mbps. My friend has it at 200 Mbps for the same price. Comcast offers up to 2 Gbps at my house. My estimate is that we'd be fine with about 15 Mbps but Comcast nor Fairpoint (DSL) offer that. I don't think that it makes a difference on performance on what speed they offer you (to a point) - it probably costs them the same amount.

  • lot of fucking good if they don't service your area, excuse me state, no scratch that quarter of the country

  • I can't see that as being anything but false advertising. +/- 5% would be one thing, but -6% can't be called gigabit.
  • This is the same crap we always get, with a "New and Improved" sticker pasted on the front.
    In this case, it's more of the same we got from Comcast a couple of years ago. Remember that? "Gigabit Internet for $70 / month"?
    Right.
    For two customers in Philadelphia.
    In the same building.
    Eventually.
    Unless you are offering the service to at least the majority of your existing customers, just shut the hell up.

    I'm talking to you, Mr. ISP

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