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Comments on news posted 2014-01-21 09:00:34: Verizon has released the company's fourth quarter earnings, which indicate that big red posted a net income of $7.9 billion on revenues of $31.02 billion. As always most of that money came courtesy of wireless, where Verizon added 1. ..

ansky
join:2009-05-18
West Orange, NJ

ansky

Member

People have no choice

Of course that many people subscribe to 50Mbs or higher. They have no choice. The last time I changed my package to Extreme HD they forced me to upgrade to 50/50, even though I told them I had no need for that speed. Used to have 35/35 and was told "that package is no longer available"

Karl Bode
News Guy
join:2000-03-02

Karl Bode

News Guy

Re: People have no choice

Well and that base 15 Mbps tier is quite intentionally not cheap. $70 unbundled for 15/5 last I checked...

cableties
Premium Member
join:2005-01-27

cableties

Premium Member

Re: People have no choice

15/5 went from $44.99 to $52.99 (actual speed was 25/15).
I called them yesterday after getting $8/mnth increase and they cut me a deal for $56.99/mnth for 50/25. (Quantum internet..only).

Karl Bode
News Guy
join:2000-03-02

Karl Bode

News Guy

Re: People have no choice

Not bad. Where are you?
Millenium
join:2013-10-30

Millenium to Karl Bode

Member

to Karl Bode
Click for full size
Ho Ho Kus, NJ
I grabbed the address of a real estate listing in a fios service area (Ho Ho Kus, NJ) and received the attached price quote. Seems they feel their base price is $74.99 for 15/5.
tmc8080
join:2004-04-24
Brooklyn, NY

tmc8080 to Karl Bode

Member

to Karl Bode
Last time I checked, many cable companies were raising their base stand-alone internet and cancelling promotions on them (for new customers). Now, you only see promotions for dual & triple play-- end of story.
Bengie25
join:2010-04-22
Wisconsin Rapids, WI

1 edit

Bengie25 to Karl Bode

Member

to Karl Bode
Wow, that's expensive. I can get 10/10 for around $40 and 30/30 for $60, and that's unbundled.

That and I don't get issues buffering 4mb/s Netflix or YouTube streams during peak hours on a "75mb" connection.

grydlok
join:2004-01-06
Richmond, VA

grydlok to ansky

Member

to ansky
yeah but the was to inline you with current packages. Outside of the cost increase of package the speed bump was essentially free.

anikbd199117
@qubee.com.bd

anikbd199117

Anon

Re: People have no choice

People have no choice
elefante72
join:2010-12-03
East Amherst, NY

elefante72 to ansky

Member

to ansky
You could have gone "down to 15/5" but Verizon only charges $10 more to go to 50/25, so now many people take advantage. They put a big push onto getting people updated in the 2nd half. When my 25/25 went away I could have gone to 15/5 or 50/25. Since the pricing was the same, oh well. In your case you need to go to 75/35 to get the same upload (yet another $10) if that is in fact a need of yours.

Also Verizon's pricing for FiOS is heavily biased for double play. For instance you can have 50/25 for say $70 or the full prime package, etc for another $20-$30 depending upon your market plus any bennies. In my case free HBO for a year ($20/mo).

If you compare what I get to TWC in my area (UNY) Verizon cost is $40 less and the internet portion far superior (50/25 vs 50/5) AND no modem charges. TWC is pretty much squeezing profits out to jack up the sale price, and let the newcomer deal with their aging infrastructure and capital expenditures.

In fact Verizon is doing the same. They haven't updated their DVR in years (now in 2nd tier) and their apps are horrible. They do however keep moving DSL and copper people to fiber tactically. Verizon wireline issue BY FAR is that they have pensioners (a big operating cost) vs wireless.
FloridaBoy
join:2009-06-22
Bradenton, FL

FloridaBoy

Member

Re: People have no choice

Verizon, in there own earnings report, says that pension funding will be 1.2 billion for all of 2014. That doesnt sound as excessive as you make it seem elefante.
elefante72
join:2010-12-03
East Amherst, NY

elefante72

Member

Re: People have no choice

We'll considering wireline is a 13b business that is a 10pct haircut that wireless doesn't have zip. And funding pensions are different than actual payouts. The only reason gm went bankrupt was to slash pension payouts because they had so woefully funded them. Add airlines etc they all went bankrupt to trim pensions. They are all scumbags if you ask me but the us lets them do it.

I'm not against pensions I'm just saying it is a huge expense that a bean counter would love to excise.

In fact I think pensions are a great creation and foster company and employee loyalty.

My company gives practically squat for retirement, so in essence I am just a glorified 1099 employee because my medical goes through my wife who has a pension (for now at least)

In fact the primary reason we still live in ny is because of her great job. The taxes kill us.
Sahrin
join:2004-05-15
Houston, TX

Sahrin to ansky

Member

to ansky
I pay $76 a month for my 24/3 from AT&T. So while I respect your right to make your own choices, I piss on disinterest in faster speeds.
LeslieHarney
join:2000-04-30
Brooklyn, NY

LeslieHarney to ansky

Member

to ansky
no one in there right mind needs that kind of speed to surf the internet. This is another attempt for corps to control your internet. Next they will block domain names they feel is not acceptable. so we used to pay 30-40 per month for the internet.
what is is NOW. 75 buck, 100, 150. totally insane
LeslieHarney

LeslieHarney to ansky

Member

to ansky
we need lower prices for people that are not doctors and lawyers just to get the damn internet. at least twc has a 15 dollar plan. where is verizon 15 dollar plan?
McBane
join:2008-08-22
Wylie, TX

1 recommendation

McBane

Member

It's still overpriced

All the speed tiers should come down a notch. The higher tiers cost as much as a car payment which just isn't right.

PhoenixDown
FIOS is Awesome
Premium Member
join:2003-06-08
Fresh Meadows, NY

PhoenixDown

Premium Member

Re: It's still overpriced

Your kidding right? FIOS offers the best bang for the buck in broadband internet.

And those higher Tiers are not every day residential users.

PapaMidnight
join:2009-01-13
Baltimore, MD

2 recommendations

PapaMidnight

Member

Re: It's still overpriced

said by PhoenixDown:

Your kidding right? FIOS offers the best bang for the buck in broadband internet.

And those higher Tiers are not every day residential users.

Negating the fact that services like Utopia and Google Fiber far exceed the cost-to-value ratio of services like Verizon FiOS (and that's just on the domestic front), the argument that of "every day residential users" flew out the window the moment Netflix introduced instant streaming (and it became available on numerous devices) in HD, and games started totaling several dozen GB in download sizes.
elefante72
join:2010-12-03
East Amherst, NY

elefante72

Member

Re: It's still overpriced

Google can cherry pick neighborhoods and deployed a lower-cost infrastructure than Verizon so their capital costs are much lower (due to later deployment). Also no one knows if they are profitable as a "provider", not counting ad generation. Also they have "thousands" of users not millions. You can't tell me giving away nexus 7 tablets is profitable. Google hasn't been around long enough to have stranded CPE, so wait until that happens and see how that affects their cost models.

Utopia has like 11k subs and had to increase bonds from 20-30 years so they are not long for the world. They are a pimple. The lease-ownership model of the "CPE" makes sense, but what if the thing breaks? I don't know, but this is similar to a utility model which I believe is good.

Verizon has over 6m subs, so when you talk on that level and the fact that they have to "eat" the cost of stranded ONT that costs money along with franchise agreements and all the freebies that communities milk out of them. Someone has to pay that cost...
Bengie25
join:2010-04-22
Wisconsin Rapids, WI

Bengie25

Member

Re: It's still overpriced

The more customers you have, the less the cost per customer. I fail to see how having 6m customers suddenly makes anything more expensive per customer.
waycoolphil
join:2000-09-22
Cathedral City, CA

waycoolphil to PhoenixDown

Member

to PhoenixDown
At my lake house I get 30down/4up for $30/month from Charter with no contract. It's their slowest speed. Much bigger bang!
Crookshanks
join:2008-02-04
Binghamton, NY

Crookshanks

Member

Share Everything is in the eye of the beholder....

.... some people can save a fair amount of money with it, usually those who have a ton of devices with low overall data usage. This is more people than you think, of the more than three dozen smartphones I manage at work we've only got three users who regularly exceed 1GB. Five of my users never go over 100MB.

Bundle those five users on a 1GB Share Everything and price it against the cheapest old plan:

5 x $40 line fee = $200
1GB data = $50
Total: $250

700 talk/text family share + 4 line fees: $129.95
5 x $30/2GB data feature: $150
Total: $279.95

$30/mo is $360/yr, which is real money.

Of course, some will lose a ton of money with it. Their own webpage tells me that it would be about $60 more than my current plan. Some people would pay even more than that, particularly those with single/two devices and high data usage.

The good news is that the old individual/family share plans are still available, if you ask for them. So says the rumor on Howard Forums anyway. They aren't advertised but allegedly you can still get them as new business.
AmericanMan
Premium Member
join:2013-12-28
united state

AmericanMan

Premium Member

Re: Share Everything is in the eye of the beholder....

That reminds me, I oughta cancel my $5/month Mobile Web on our Verizon Nationwide Plan. We don't have smartphones so we are on an old grandfathered "no data" plan that gives us a great deal.

Downside is, we can't have smartphones on that plan, but that's not a big deal, since I have an Internet on the Go Prepaid Mifi that I combine with my iPod for Internet.
caps620
join:2009-01-18
Central NJ

caps620

Member

Re: Share Everything is in the eye of the beholder....

said by AmericanMan:

That reminds me, I oughta cancel my $5/month Mobile Web on our Verizon Nationwide Plan. We don't have smartphones so we are on an old grandfathered "no data" plan that gives us a great deal.

Downside is, we can't have smartphones on that plan, but that's not a big deal, since I have an Internet on the Go Prepaid Mifi that I combine with my iPod for Internet.

I'm also on an old family plan with no data, 4 phones. My daughter wanted a smart phone, I was able to add it for and extra $30 per month for 2GB, that's it (besides the $50 for the phone and 2 yr. contract).
AmericanMan
Premium Member
join:2013-12-28
united state

AmericanMan

Premium Member

Re: Share Everything is in the eye of the beholder....

Wow that's pretty good! We've asked time and time again if we could get smartphones and the answer has always been "no". They even limit the type of "feature" phones we're eligible to get now.

Many of them are worse than the old LG enV2 that I have now.
caps620
join:2009-01-18
Central NJ

caps620

Member

Re: Share Everything is in the eye of the beholder....

said by AmericanMan:

Wow that's pretty good! We've asked time and time again if we could get smartphones and the answer has always been "no". They even limit the type of "feature" phones we're eligible to get now.

Many of them are worse than the old LG enV2 that I have now.

I did the change online, give that a try it may work for you.

EDIT: That's not what I did, my mistake ............ I was a Sam's Club member at the time so I went through their website to do the change.

qwerty123
@comcast.net

qwerty123

Anon

Actiontec Gen 2 Routers Limit WiFi Speeds

Most people who leave the default VZ security of WEP don't realize that it limits their wireless speeds to 20/20 (wireless G speeds) even though they have new wireless N gear clients and have wireless N selected on the Actiontec. They need to log into their Actiontec routers, change the security from WEP to WPA2 and re-establish all their wireless clients. After making the changes to WPA2, the 15/5 tier is now 24.5/5, where it was 20/5 before. The 50/25 tier on WEP was 20/20, on WPA2 it is now 40/35. It's still slower on wireless than using ethernet, but it's still much better. VZ wouldn't budge on the $99 charge for their new Gen 3 router or the $5.99 S&H fee either so we downgraded back to the 15/5 tier and are happy until our contract is up in a year. Does anyone know how of a way to simply swap a Gen 2 router for a Gen 3 router at no charge?
brad152
join:2006-07-27
Chicago, IL

1 recommendation

brad152

Member

Re: Actiontec Gen 2 Routers Limit WiFi Speeds

Actiontec routers are generally slow at handling WiFi in my experience. Why not just disable the WiFi in the unit itself and buy a nice WiFi router standalone?

Zenit_IIfx
The system is the solution
Premium Member
join:2012-05-07
Purcellville, VA
·Comcast XFINITY

Zenit_IIfx

Premium Member

Hey VZ

VZ, what about the rest of your users? How many are stuck at 1 or 3mbps due to your consistent refusal to upgrade the rest of your infrastructure?

Its pretty sad my county has to force you to meet your contractual obligation to deploy FIOS in this town. The CO has the equipment, your wiring up the wealthy subdivisions on the outskirts, while leaving the town to Comcast.

The funny thing? The town has a high income on average, and most of the lines are overhead. Subdivisions are underground, but mine already has fiber trunk and conduit from the Bell Atlantic days getting ready for the future that will -never- happen.

2 of my friends ditched VZ DSL for Comcast HSI in the past months. They are very happy with getting fast service from a company that actually maintains its infrastructure. Meanwhile, VZ is taping trash bags to bell system era equipment to solve water leaks. Lots of the splice cases up on the poles were made by Western Electric with the post-1969 Bell logo, so that dates the telephone lines to 70-84 era.

Regarding wireless profits, VZ on average is the most expensive wireless carrier. AT&T took that crown for a short while, but I think VZ is back on top with highest average wireless bill.
Millenium
join:2013-10-30

Millenium

Member

Selling

This headline reminds of previous articles about Verizon selling off large, older copper systems - which would seem to play a role in their percentages.

anonome
@verizon.net

anonome

Anon

Well, you know what they say...

"In for a penny pound, in for a pound plus a penny more." (Verizon has slower, but not that much cheaper speeds.)
FloridaBoy
join:2009-06-22
Bradenton, FL

FloridaBoy

Member

Really interesting

Actually, one of the things that really caught my eye was that there were only 1 million copper customers in Fios areas left. Makes me wonder what is happening with all that old copper plant.
BiggA
Premium Member
join:2005-11-23
Central CT
·Frontier FiberOp..
Asus RT-AC68

BiggA

Premium Member

Still the best, but not by as much

They used to blow the competition out of the water. Now cable has come creeping up on them. They need to increase the speeds at the (sort of) reasonable price points. Right now the fastest you can get without pay an arm and a leg *IF* you subscribe to cable through FIOS is 75/35. They should up that to 150/50 or something like that.
mikev
Premium Member
join:2002-05-04
Leesburg, VA
·Verizon FiOS
(Software) pfSense
Panasonic KX-TGP600

mikev

Premium Member

I'd be part of that statistic, if I could...

Would love to upgrade my speed to 50Mbps or faster, but the fastest I can get is 30/5 (which comes out to be 28/5; I actually had it for a month). Instead, I pay a little less for the 20/5 option and get 25/5.

I wonder when Verizon will realize all us original BPON MDU FiOS users need to be upgraded to new equipment so they can make more money from us.