jammmin
join:2000-12-14
Upper Marlboro, MD
1 edit | FIOS TV raises prices a by 7.6%
Verizon Communications plans to raise the rates for its most widely distributed Verizon fios TV programming packages by about 7% in January.
Beginning Jan. 1, the price for its 200-channel fios TV Premiere package will increase from $39.95 to $42.99 monthly for new customers in New York, New Jersey, Texas, Massachusetts, California and Florida, Verizon spokesman Cliff Lee said Monday. New customers in Virginia and Maryland will see the price increase go into effect Jan. 14, he added.
Lee said existing fios TV customers will continue to be charged the initial $39.95 monthly price Verizon put in place when it first launched its pay TV service in 2005.
“It’s our way of thanking our customer that initially signed up for us. Most of them are cable converts,” he added.
But existing fios TV customers could eventually see the same price increases, Lee said. Unlike its cable competitors, Verizon charges the same rate for its pay TV service nationwide.
Lee said the price increases in the fios TV Premier package reflect an “increased value for the service,” including the addition of more than 20 channels to the package.
Verizon is also increasing the prices for its basic-cable and premium-channel packages. Its fios TV Local package, which includes local broadcast channels, will increase from $12.95 to $12.99 monthly for new customers in January.
The telephone company is also increasing the rate it charges for premium channels by $1.04 monthly in January. Verizon currently charges $11.95 monthly for a package that includes Starz, Showtime, Encore, The Movie Channel, Flix and Sundance Channel; $14.95 monthly for either HBO or Cinemax; and $24.95 monthly for HBO and Cinemax combined.
Verizon also plans a $3 monthly increase for an adult subscription-video-on-demand product, Lee said.
fios TV customers in Virginia received notices about the price increases last week. Customers in remaining fios TV states will be notified in early December, Lee said. |
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Thespis
I'm not an actor, but I play one on TV.
Premium
join:2004-08-03
Keller, TX | Re: FIOS TV raises prices a by 7%
What's the source for this? |
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jammmin
join:2000-12-14
Upper Marlboro, MD
| reply to jammmin
Its here also. Article says is 7.6%
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»www.multichannel.com/article/CA6···ing+News |
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braclark
join:2006-09-01
Rowley, MA
| reply to jammmin
I think his source is the other thread here that has been going on for 3 days.
»[TV] fios TV price increases as of 1/14/07!! |
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AVITWeb
join:2002-01-11
Trenton, NJ | And what about those of us who COULDN'T sign up and still cant sign up because they are dragging their A$$ installing it?? |
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GeekNJ
Premium
join:2000-09-23
Waldwick, NJ
| reply to jammmin
Re: FIOS TV raises prices a by 7.6%
Cablevisions 1.1% increase makes front page news but nothing (that I noticed) about this 7%+ increase though it was pointed out was published before the CV announcement. Hmmmmmmm.... |
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Cobra9777
Pain Is Just Weakness Leaving The Body
join:2002-09-28
Denton, TX | reply to jammmin
All the more reason to ignore fios TV. Bad offering just got worse. |
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jammmin
join:2000-12-14
Upper Marlboro, MD
| reply to jammmin
7.6% increase is bad PR for Verizon. Now, it looks like every other cable company that increases its prices yearly.
The only consolation is that even with the price increase, fios is still cheaper than cable and similar in price to satellite services. |
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JohnA
Premium
join:2003-09-16
Pittsburgh, PA | reply to GeekNJ
Actually the CV was announced mid-day. The Verizon info didn't get out till after the markets closed on Friday. The market punished them today. |
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DownLow
Nope...I Got Nothing
Premium
join:2001-04-25
Long Island
| reply to jammmin
Heh..it's Verizon after all.
I am not bashing Verizon (well, at least not more than I have already bashed CV),but you had to know this was coming. After all, it's a business. They will do what ever it takes to get into the market (like "underprice"), but at some point, you know they will raise prices.
Now clearly fios is a pretty good deal (opinions vary), but the way I see it, its the law of supply and demand. Sooner or later, Verizon will raise prices to match whatever the incumbent provider has while continuing to offer more value (perceived or not), ie., higher speed Internet, more HD channels, or whatever the consumer thinks adds value. prices only go up (99.999% of the time).
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mjwedeking
join:2006-02-26
Murrieta, CA
| reply to jammmin
I can understand Verizon raising prices, but not right now. I have had other cable/satellite providers and have never had the techs out to my house this many times. I have never had to look though forums to figure out why there are so many problems with the system. I have never had a dvr miss this many shows and have to buy them online. |
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Ulmo
join:2005-09-22
San Jose, CA
 ·Comcast
 ·SONIC.NET
| said by mjwedeking  :I can understand Verizon raising prices, but not right now. I have had other cable/satellite providers and have never had the techs out to my house this many times. I have never had to look though forums to figure out why there are so many problems with the system. I have never had a dvr miss this many shows and have to buy them online. This is why I don't understand why biggies don't use TiVO or spend some time making a very good DVR like TiVO (fast (instant response), not buggy, has lots of guide and recording features). |
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SD6
join:2005-03-26
| reply to mjwedeking
said by mjwedeking :I can understand Verizon raising prices, but not right now. I guess this signals we are coming up on the beginning of the end of Phase I.
The size of speculative build-out of fios network is winding down.
They got some big TV wins -
1) Just got NJ statewide franchise
2) CA statewide franchise
3) TX statewide franchise
4) most of Delaware (that's desireable)
5) all of MD suburbs
6) most of Northern VA + franchise reform for rest of state
7) Philly suburbs
Only small wins are left in near term. They slow down now with big PR and regulatory campaigns, and claiming how competition will reduce prices xx%, etc. Legislative and political cycles are starting over again and typically have 2 year spans.
Phase II begins in 2007 - VZ will be busy sending resources where they have TV franchises and/or know they will get quicker ROI. Regions that haven't seen fios activity yet, are unlikely to see a break out of heavy activity any time soon, deployments will be much smaller in scale. Phase II is a big, multi-year, building and transition period still with plenty of CAPEX, just more emphasis on potential for short term returns.
The biggest question left unanswered for 2007/Phase II for most most forum members? - will VZ attempt to raise prices/squeeze more out of their naked ISP service? My guess is not too much, at least until they really are ready to push people into triple play and TV service has to become larger and more mature for that to happen. |
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PGHammer
join:2003-06-09
Accokeek, MD
clubs:
·Comcast
| reply to Cobra9777
Consider that the increase is $3.04 per month (that's absolute dollars). The reason the increase *looks* large on a percentage basis is because fios TV already costs less than their competition (primarily cable). VZ has also added new channels to fios TV in the past few weeks (see several postings here in this forum regarding new additions). New content *costs money*. Since just about *all* the new content is being added to fios Premier (that's their baseline service, by the way), naturally, the price VZ charges *for* that serrvice will go up. (Business Economics 101.) I'm a former Comcast employee (and current Comcast customer) that at least has a solid understanding of business math.
Current price for fios Premier: $39.95/month
New price: $42.99/month |
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GeekNJ
Premium
join:2000-09-23
Waldwick, NJ
| said by PGHammer : New content *costs money*. Since just about *all* the new content is being added to fios Premier (that's their baseline service, by the way), naturally, the price VZ charges *for* that serrvice will go up. (Business Economics 101.) I'm a former Comcast employee (and current Comcast customer) that at least has a solid understanding of business math. Current price for fios Premier: $39.95/month New price: $42.99/month But in Business Economics, besides Math, don't they talk about the competition and pricing. You say it's cheaper but it's been shown here, through a very detailed spreadsheet comparing Cablevision to fios TV that in cases it's actually more expensive to switch to fios.
The most important factor in getting folks to switch, which is Verizon's entire goal here since they have no existing customers, is that potential customers need to see a significant value for switching. A couple dollars each month isn't going to do it for someone that has been with a company for years. No one is going to switch for $3/mo and despite what many think, consumers don't care at all whether the service comes over fiber optic cables. It's all mumbo jumbo to them.
Your 80 percentile subscribers care solely about cost and content. 10% only about content and 10% only about cost. for those 80% it's not worth anyone's time to switch for $3/mo.
This is Verizon's problem and this is economics 101.
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PGHammer
join:2003-06-09
Accokeek, MD
clubs:
·Comcast
1 edit | You keep saying that in some cases that CV is cheaper than fios TV. About the *only* cases where that is so is the purely analog (no digital services, no STBs) customer that also does not subscribe to any pay-TV channels, or where the customer has six or more TVs (and a large number need STBs, especially digital or HD STBs). That isn't a purely pricing decision; that's not even *mostly* a pricing decision. The reason for the reticence in this case is that the CV customer doesn't have a STB (for whatever reason) and doesn't want one. (fios TV has fewer analog channels than any cable provider; so this is indeed an issue for lower-end customers.) VZ wouldn't be able to get those customers unless they gave the STBs away (and in some cases not even then). But then, this isn't VZ's target customer. The case of the *large number of TVs* customer would primarily focus on price (not content), and the issue here is STB lease rates (not programming prices). The savings on programming pricing is washed out by the increased STB lease rates; however, as much as VZ would love to be able to lower the STB lease rates, they simply aren't large *enough* at present to be able to command the deeper discounts that a CV (let alone a Comcast) gets from Motorola for STBs. Not even satellite TV is competitive in this situation (in fact, they go out of their way to avoid it). However, how many customers (even of CV or Comcast) fall into this situation? |
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GeekNJ
Premium
join:2000-09-23
Waldwick, NJ
| I'm only reporting what the comparison shows and I don't know where you get "the *only* case that is so is the purely analog". In fact, your assumption is not even remotely correct as the difference where CV was $3 less was with ioSilver and multiple boxes in comparison to the equivalent fios packages.
Download the spreadsheet someone posted and put in your own numbers. I have posted mine multiple times and fios was $3 more expensive at the lower "premier" tier and CV was a couple dollars more expensive at the highest end tier. if you want to look at "pure analog", CV would blow away fios since you get so much more without a STB.
I only have CV cable and not Comcast, TW, etc so I don't know how their pricing compares, but download the spreadsheet and see for yourself.
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ProFiOSDude
Premium
join:2005-05-27
Chesapeake, VA
| reply to GeekNJ
I am not much on math (when they started using letters, I was lost). What is the cost per channel/per service? Wouldn't that be the true gauge of cost? If I offer 200 channels in my basic package for $40 a month, that equates to 20 cents/channel. If my competitor offers 150 channels for $35 a month, that's 23 cents/channel. So, on a per-channel, basis, my offering is better than my competitors. I know "value" places weights on different types of offerings, and that is something my brain does not EVEN want to try and figure out. I also don't know how many channels each offers, but it seems to me that's where the price comparison should start...
PFD |
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GeekNJ
Premium
join:2000-09-23
Waldwick, NJ
| said by ProfiosDude :I am not much on math (when they started using letters, I was lost). What is the cost per channel/per service? Wouldn't that be the true gauge of cost? No, the true gauge of cost is how much I pay.
What you are describing is a part of what would be considered value. Value is the cost vs benefit of something. Value for cable TV is probably made up of the number of channels and actual channels that I want to have. If they provide 200 channels and 190 of them are ones I'd never watch (religion, shopping, etc) then there's only 10 channels of value to me. The total number of channels offered is irrelevant.
said by ProfiosDude :If I offer 200 channels in my basic package for $40 a month, that equates to 20 cents/channel. If my competitor offers 150 channels for $35 a month, that's 23 cents/channel. So, on a per-channel, basis, my offering is better than my competitors. I know "value" places weights on different types of offerings, and that is something my brain does not EVEN want to try and figure out. I also don't know how many channels each offers, but it seems to me that's where the price comparison should start... I compared DirecTV vs Cablevision 2 or 3 years ago. It was a better value for me to get Cablevision. There were more channels I wanted to watch and were willing to pay for on CV then the same channels I'd get for the same cost on DirecTV.
But for the average subscriber, in order to change, there needs to be something significant.
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MPScan
Premium
join:2001-08-24
Boston, MA
| reply to jammmin
Here in my area, I was paying $49.80 to Comcast for basic cable, no digital, and no STB. That game me channels 1-99.
I am now paying $34.95 ($39.95 - $5.00 bundle discount because of phone) + $3.95 for a regular STB to receive hundreds of channels that were unavailable to me because I did not have a box with Comcast. Add in the ~$2.50 fees with VZ and you get:
Comcast: $49.80 (channels 1-99)
VZ: $41.40 (channels 1-299)
You do the math. |
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