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HarryH3
Premium Member
join:2005-02-21

HarryH3

Premium Member

Is Verizon actively trying to end their landline business?

I currently have a bundle with Verizon that includes their Freedom Essentials calling plan and 3MB DSL service. Verizon says that my area cannot support any speed faster than 3MB (and I seriously doubt that will ever change). The price of the bundle has crept up from $50/mo to $75/mo.

The local cable co is offering 15MB internet and an unlimited calling plan that includes all the goodies that the Freedom Essentials plan includes, for $55/mo ($30 for internet, $25-for-life for phone service).

I called Verizon this AM to see what, if any, options that might have available. No hope for faster net and they'll let me keep my phone service for "only" $59.99 per month. Is someone at Verizon smoking crack? They seriously must not want land line customers any more with pricing like that.

Does anyone out there have a better deal for phone-only with Verizon? The service works fine, but the price is way out of whack.
drjunky9
join:2005-09-14
Taneytown, MD

drjunky9

Member

Not sure what you are trying to ask here. Is it possible to get cheaper phone only packages from Verizon? Sure, but they come with limitations. Check your phone book and they should have information about flat rate and economy plans, but they have pretty severe limitations (for example, Economy call service is about 6 bucks before taxes but you get charged 10 cents for each call, good if you only receive calls)

Now if you are asking, why don't they upgrade the lines or push out FIOS, then yeah, Verizon is likely really gearing for LTE because that would mean higher $ return and not having to pay people to maintain old copper lines, etc.

Honestly, I don't get a lot of calls and I just use a cell phone and dropped the land line years ago because all my relatives use Verizon so mobile to mobile is free.
HarryH3
Premium Member
join:2005-02-21

HarryH3

Premium Member

I was just wondering if Verizon had any decent pricing in other parts of the country. In this day and age, $60 per month for landline service seems pretty extreme. The cable company is offering an equivalent service for $25 per month.
drjunky9
join:2005-09-14
Taneytown, MD

drjunky9

Member

I would agree that it is pretty extreme. They do have ~$50 packages which is "Freedom something" and I think it goes up from there. Now take into account the FIOS pricing (I have a friend who has it, so I popped their address into Verizon.com)

Internet only 15/5 - $75
Phone only - $50
Both of the above - $75
Triple play cheapest tier - $80

What does all this say? Who knows. I can only guess this means they have more overhead with copper (maybe due to maintenance or whatever) and I bet if Verizon could get out of it completely and go completely wireless, they'd love it. They already sold off a bunch of markets so that tells you they are like any corporation, trying to watch their bottom line and make as much money as possible. I don't fault them for this, but it certainly does hurt when you can't get any real competition to help get better services and lower prices.

Jodokast96
Stupid people piss me off.
Premium Member
join:2005-11-23
NJ

Jodokast96 to HarryH3

Premium Member

to HarryH3
This is why I finally left Verizon for pretty much everything. I had two phone lines, both with regional toll calling, and a separate LD company. They were dinging me for $72/month. Add to that the $35/month for DSL and I'm at $105/month. I added internet to my Comcast service for an extra $20/month for the next 2 years ($45 after that) and ported my main phone number over to my AT&T cell service for $10. I kept the second phone line with VZ for faxing for $20/month.

So $105 - $50 = me ahead by $55/month, and with 4x faster internet. Even after the promotion ends, I'm still ahead by $30, and can probably swing another deal from Comcast to increase the savings.
HarryH3
Premium Member
join:2005-02-21

1 recommendation

HarryH3

Premium Member

Well, to close out this thread, Verizon lost yet another landline customer. The copper pairs coming to my house are now unplugged at the NID. Our internet and phone are now traveling across coax. I must say, 15MB download speed ROCKS!!!

I guess the times are a changing. In the 90's I had 3 phone lines for home, work and dial-up. In the early 00's I had 2 lines, voice and dial-up, at least until the day DSL finally became available at our address. We've only required 1 line since then.

I would have even kept the voice line if the price was reasonable. But $60/month just seems insane in this day and age. I've also called and begged Verizon for years to make faster download speeds available here, but it seems to have fallen on deaf ears.

Adios Verizon...