Verizon 'Evaluating' Usage-Based Pricing for FiOS, DSL Still Leaving the Door Open to the Idea Tipped by bigdaddy 
We've asked Verizon many times over the years if they have any plans to cap or meter their Verizon FiOS service, and the answer is always "no," though in language that doesn't restrict them from the possibility moving forward. When AT&T unveiled their new caps for DSL and U-Verse we asked again, and Verizon told us that investing in network infrastructure prevents them from needing to. Verizon nudges the needle just a hair further toward caps this week, the company telling the Tampa Bay Tribune that they're "continuing to evaluate" caps for both FiOS and DSL users: "We're continuing to evaluate usage-based pricing for our wireline broadband customers," Verizon officials said in a statement. That applies to both DSL and FiOS fiber service, which Verizon promotes based on its download speeds. "At this point, we've not implemented any usage controls or broadband caps. We'll continue to evaluate what's best to ensure our customers get the highest quality broadband service for the best value," the company said. We're guessing that while Verizon may be keeping an eye on the possibility, there's no change in their position yet -- especially in Florida. Verizon has billing problems in most markets thanks to perpetual system bugs, but they've been particularly bad in parts of Florida the last few years. Some of these customers fled to cable, causing Verizon to try things like giving users personal account managers or eliminating FiOS contracts (something that started in Tampa then went nationwide). The last thing Verizon wants is to drive yet more customers to Florida companies like Bright House Networks who tells the Tribune they have no plans for caps and "aren't even considering them." You can be sure Verizon would like to join the growing number of ISPs trying to offset inevitable TV losses to Internet video by constricting and metering the pipe, but uncapped competition in several key markets (Cablevision in NY in particular) binds their hands. Given that Verizon also has persistent problems billing users accurately under their current simple flat rate model, the idea they'd be able to implement a usage-based billing system without massive problems is borderline fantasy. Granted, that may not stop them from trying someday anyway.
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  baineschile2600 ways to livePremium
join:2008-05-10
Sterling Heights, MI
 ·Comcast
| People dont understand. Its about the money. Verizon is a business, and what matters is the balance sheet. There are a ton of FiOS fans on this site (and rightfully so, its a great product), but didnt you realize that cutting the TV service, and going with internet only would actually affect a companys balance sheet?
It'll be a curious day when they announce their cap limitations. | |
|  |  HBMaru Maru Mori MoriPremium
join:2011-06-21
00000 | Re: People dont understand. I see nothing in VZ's balance sheet to indicate they are hurting. | |
| | | | | Re: People dont understand. None of the Larger incumbents are.
Having Duopoly/Monopoly status tends to do that. | |
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| | | | said by HB:I see nothing in VZ's balance sheet to indicate they are hurting.
That's not the point. A company has to first and foremost make money for its shareholders. If there is a means to make more money or lose less money, they'll do it. | |
| | | | | | Re: People dont understand. said by fifty nine:That's not the point. A company has to first and foremost make money for its shareholders. If there is a means to make more money or lose less money, they'll do it.
Problem is, these companies are not private businesses in the sense that you or I would open our own business.
If your going to be given Duopoly status AND drink from the government trough at the same time, your primary concern should be giving value to customers who are essentially forced to deal with you if they want internet service.
At my last address I had exactly ONE provider offering service to my address, in a MAJOR city. | |
| | | | | | said by fifty nine:said by HB:I see nothing in VZ's balance sheet to indicate they are hurting.
That's not the point. A company has to first and foremost make money for its shareholders. If there is a means to make more money or lose less money, they'll do it. Do you realize how many tens of billions of dollars Verizon has siphoned away from taxpayers with the USF and the '96 Telecom Act's $200 billion in tax breaks?
They're not a real "company". They're a government backed monopoly with absolutely no accountability to the taxpayers. | |
| | | | | HBMaru Maru Mori MoriPremium
join:2011-06-21
00000 Reviews:
 ·Verizon Broadban..
 ·MegaPath
1 edit | Re: People dont understand. Don't forget BA's theft of $2.1B in benefits (according to state Senate testimony of Dr. Lee Selwyn of MIT who analyzed the consequences of the law, "Chapter 30" I think it was called) from PA taxpayers for fiber never deployed. Only a decade later did they finally get it from VZ, formerly known in part as BA, and got it later than a lot of other markets including Texas. | |
| | | | | | patcat88
join:2002-04-05
Jamaica, NY
kudos:1 | Re: People dont understand. That "fiber" was T1/T3/SONET fiber silly rabbit. Not something you can afford. | |
| | | | | | | HBMaru Maru Mori MoriPremium
join:2011-06-21
00000 Reviews:
·Verizon Broadban..
·MegaPath
4 edits | Re: People dont understand. That is simply not true. Neither BA nor later VZ claimed that a T1 or T3 meet Chapter 30 requirements. VZ later claimed that ADSL met Chapter 30 requirements but this was rejected by the Pennsylvania PUC for a number of reasons including that it could not deliver the required symmetrical 1.544Mb and it wasn't universally available. Even if I for a second agreed with you, the T1 still doesn't meet the requirement because it has to be available on all access lines and more importantly must be in service within 72 hours of a customer order which doesn't happen with T1 installs (including mine).
BA at the time planned first FTTN then later FTTP with 45Mb universal service for both HSI and cable television, the same that then telco peer GTE was running trials on in Cypress, CA.
BA in exchange for promises of this universal fiber deployment got significant deregulation of ILECs in the state and the result was billions in new revenue while failing to deploy the promised fiber. | |
| | | | | | | | patcat88
join:2002-04-05
Jamaica, NY
kudos:1 | Re: People dont understand. said by HB:That is simply not true. Neither BA nor later VZ claimed that a T1 or T3 meet Chapter 30 requirements.
»www.newnetworks.com/Teletruthres···2-04.htm
quote:
"The truth is that Verizon Pennsylvania has consistently delivered on its promises
to deploy a broadband network for its customers under Pennsylvania’s alternative regulation law, Chapter 30:
* Verizon Pennsylvania has invested more than $8 billion and deployed nearly 1.2 million miles of fiber optics in its network over the past nine years while under alternative regulation.
* Broadband capability, at speeds from 1.5 megabits per second to 2.2 gigabits per second, is available to nearly 100 percent of the phone lines in Verizon Pennsylvania’s service area.
2.2gbps in 2004 is SONET | |
| | | | | | | | | HBMaru Maru Mori MoriPremium
join:2011-06-21
00000 Reviews:
·Verizon Broadban..
·MegaPath
4 edits | Re: People dont understand. Wrong, that 1.5Mb is not symmetrical and limited to 12Kft Cu loops. Verizon is talking about ADSL. Even the hyperlink has DSL in the address and the page name is dsl_index.html.
From Dr. Selwynn's Report, which quotes the PA PUC smackdown of VZ's plan with DSL in regards to Chapter 30.
said by Order Rejecting Verizon's 2000 NMP Update :
First, DSL, as Verizon PA currently provides it, is too slow to be considered true broadband service ad defined by Verizon PA in its original NMP. Second, DSL, as Verizon PA currently provides it, can only reach a speed of 1.5 Mbps, the slowest definition of broadband where the customer is located not further than 12,000 feet from the serving wire center. Only a limited number of Verizon PA's residential customer meet this criteria. Third, currently Verizon PA's ADSL can achieve 1.5Mbps in only one direction, the downstream direction. In the upstream direction, it is limited to a maximum of 768 Kbps (0.768 Mbps).
Even today, Verizon's ADSL service is not 1.544Mb symmetrical to all access lines. Even SDSL which is, is limited by loop and not available on all access lines.
BA promised and didn't deliver and until 100% of subs in Verizon's service area have FiOS, so has Verizon.
Even Verizon itself isn't bothering to argue that T1's (which don't fly under Chapter 30 because they can't be up and running within 72 hours of a customer order) meet Chapter 30.
Verizon still argues that ADSL qualifies, which it doesn't because it isn't universally available (by their own admission) and certainly not symmetrical at 1.544Mb which is also required by Chapter 30. In their claims of Chapter 30 greatness, they speak of Verizon High Speed Internet, and even link to the products, which doesn't take you to their T1/T3 offerings, it takes you rightly so to residential broadband offerings, comparing it with cable HSI.
BA took the deregulation, make billions and didn't deploy squat. Only now, a decade later is Verizon FINALLY getting around to it.
And it isn't a mystery. BA actually had all the intentions in the world of doing what GTE was doing, becoming a true competitor of cable MSOs by pushing video, HSI and telephony over a 45Mb pipe to every home. It is what U-Verse and FiOS is today. On no planet was a T1 or T3 the plan to accomplish this nor did BA or VZ attempt to argue it was after the fact. To the contrary VZ is going with ADSL and now FiOS as meeting their Chap 30 commitments. | |
| | | | | | | | | |  rchandraStargate Universe fanPremium
join:2000-11-09
14225-2105 | Re: People dont understand. ummm....forgive my ignorance, please, but what does "synchronous" have anything to do with broadband? I honestly don't care if my broadband is synchronous or async. All I care about is that it's on. is reasonably error-free, and has something exceeding or at least close to the advertised data rates. It just so happens that most HSI media (such as DSL) to my knowledge are sync at all speeds, even IDSL; it's the nature of the protocol. But conceivably carriers could be modulated asynchronously (like Bell 103 modems as a horrible example), and it wouldn't matter--just as long as whatever it is can deliver the bits fast enough.
All "synchronous" means is that every octet does not need extra framing bits, that the timing/clocking comes from the protocol itself (AMI, MFM, Manchester, etc.)
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English is a difficult enough language to interpret correctly when its rules are followed, let alone when a writer chooses not to follow those rules.
Jeopardy! replies and randomcaps REALLY suck! | |
| | | | | | | | | | HBMaru Maru Mori MoriPremium
join:2011-06-21
00000
1 edit | Re: People dont understand. Sorry, I meant symmetrical, fixed.  | |
| | | | | | | | | | rchandraStargate Universe fanPremium
join:2000-11-09
14225-2105
1 edit | Re: People dont understand. OK, thank you. As I said I plead ignorance as I've not looked up that law. And I have to wonder why these regulators are so concerned with the minutia of signalling protocols. I just wanted to be sure you (and/or the regulators) haven't confused "synchronous" with "symmetric." 1.544 Mbit/s sounds like a DS-1, which happens to be both symmetric (speeds) and synchronous.
Also, damn, skippy! I don't have 1.544 Mbit/s upstream! No, mine is more like only 1, with actual throughput in tests at around 950Kbit/s. But I'm fairly happy with the burstable 15M down (bursts up to about 25) from TWC.
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English is a difficult enough language to interpret correctly when its rules are followed, let alone when a writer chooses not to follow those rules.
Jeopardy! replies and randomcaps REALLY suck! | |
| | | | | | | | | | HBMaru Maru Mori MoriPremium
join:2011-06-21
00000 Reviews:
·Verizon Broadban..
·MegaPath
| Re: People dont understand. What the PUC wanted was T1 speeds as a minimum at residential prices. What BA at the time wanted was to be what AT&T and Verizon are today, MSOs raking in tons of dough selling HSI, telephony and video services. And they weren't the only telco looking to get in the video biz. Dating back to 1987, GTE was running a FTTH trial in Cerritos, CA (I thought it was Cypress, CA, but finally found an old LA Times article about it).
The big talk at the time when comparing the new all fiber GTE system with traditional coax was said by LA Times :
There will be no difference in the type of services offered by the two systems. Besides movie and sports channels, residents throughout the city will eventually receive "interactive" features such as home banking and shopping, stock market data and electronic mail, city officials said.
Of course this predated the modern web by a good 7 years or so but telcos like GTE and BA were looking ahead to build out the infrastructure to support it and were hitting up gov't for tax breaks and rule changes to make the deployment more affordable for them. | |
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| | | | | | | | | | Re: People dont understand. said by HB:And I fail to see how this would accomplish that. That's probably why you're not an exec at the company.
quote:
Bandwidth is far cheaper than losing HSI-upsold (to higher tiers) subs.
If VZ's content and pricing were FAR superior, sure, they can "get away" with this kind of action but in my neck of the woods FiOS is merely average. Everyone here does 15Mb for $50 or 25Mb for $60. And VZ's competitors here are cheaper in video and telephony.
FiOS isn't hybrid fiber-coax. VZ doesn't have channel constraints cable does (no channel saturation like cable). VZ users aren't suffering and won't suffer due to some user on the street being a webhog.
If this were cable, I could see the fiscal sense, sort of. Cable network topology is such where there could be channel allocation problems and the MSO doesn't want to throw more channels at HSI.
It simply doesn't cost VZ any more to provide 500GB to a sub vs 100GB and the single loss of a sub would wipe out the savings gained from the hundreds of others. They would give up $15 to save $1.
IOW, capping would make or save $0 for VZ. If the capping is excessive enough to generate overage revenues, customers simply flee for their competitors who don't and cable runs the reverse of web-hog ads.
Companies make decisions which anger customers, but the stock price and earnings tell the true story. Customers aren't the most important thing to any company. Shareholders and investors are. | |
| | | | | | | | Re: People dont understand. Take away customers and you have no company... for long. Customers are a company's most important investors--the ones that actually keep the company in business. | |
| | | | | | | patcat88
join:2002-04-05
Jamaica, NY
kudos:1 | Re: People dont understand. When you are a chain store/monopoly, you are immuned to boycotts. | |
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| | | | | HBMaru Maru Mori MoriPremium
join:2011-06-21
00000 | You haven't shown how it would accomplish that either. Neither have the suits at VZ. | |
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| | |  danclan
join:2005-11-01
Midlothian, VA | said by fifty nine:said by HB:I see nothing in VZ's balance sheet to indicate they are hurting.
That's not the point. A company has to first and foremost make money for its shareholders. If there is a means to make more money or lose less money, they'll do it. Does it?
The primary goal is to create wealth not necessarily money. One can do both and one does not preclude nor eliminate the other. | |
| | | | | HBMaru Maru Mori MoriPremium
join:2011-06-21
00000 | Re: People dont understand. True, it isn't what you make, it is what you keep. | |
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1 edit | You mean, "A company has to first and foremost make increasingly more money for its shareholders."
The problem is that you have to "grow" and make more than you did last quarter. Except, the consumer isn't making more than they did last quarter, they're making less and less. Eventually there will be a point on the graph where things collapse. | |
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| | | | | Re: People dont understand. I do understand. I dropped the Triple play for double play because:
-Verizon kept changing channel line up
-the HD channels moved to Xtreme group "forcing" you to that package (History HD, SciFi...)
-Channel content changed not to my liking (SyFy crap, more HSN channels, ...)
-Price increase to package
-Power-hungry, noisey, unreliable DVR/STB.
-Stupid, loud, infomercial proliferation. Grill Daddy, Snuggy, Upside-down Tomato, lisping-chef with magic-vacuum lids,....
IF it hurts their books, maybe they should understand why folks don't want to pay over $100+/month for crap-o-vision that changes monthly. Same goes with cable. And if content costs that much, someone needs to negotiate better.
I don't care for Hulu+, and frankly any show that I "have" to watch, I will over friends. If sports events, I buy a beer or two at sports bar and enjoy the company. Much cheaper and more fun!
Any other entertainment I get through Netflix (which is getting snipped at for their smart and clever model-deliver entertainment over the web at "reasonable" subscription model).
Speaking of, at another FiOS home owner's house, I showed him BBR and did a speed test. He was paying for the double play (phone and internet for $65/mth). He has cable tv for some sports packages and might flip to Fios's HD package when the missus ok's it. Anyway, he pays for 15/5 Fios and the Freedom phone service. Speedtest showed consistent 25/25. Good for him!
(I think that speed is the $75 or $79/mnth package).
I doubt they will cap. But if they do, you know its the 5% that use 90% of the bandwidth 
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Splat | |
| | | | The first comment on this thread is why America will soon fall behind even Canada or Australia in first world net rankings.
You're right. Maybe I don't understand. Maybe I don't understand why instead of gouging customers, a corporation with almost unlimited funds doesn't strive to push a faster, more reliable product and push to get it to as many people as possible and potentially spark this mythical "competition" that everyone pretends exists.
Nah. Gouging customers is easier. Gone are the days when companies actually gave a damn what the population thought of them. | |
| |  AlcoholPremium
join:2003-05-26
Climax, MI
kudos:3
·Comcast
| Verizon has a shitty marketing team. If they weren't afraid of having to cap in the future, they could advertize the hell out of their unlimited bandwidth "Use as much as you can unlike comcast and AT&T".
But they're too scared that they'll have to cap in the future and they'd look like hypocrites.
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I found the key to success but somebody changed the lock. | |
| | | HBMaru Maru Mori MoriPremium
join:2011-06-21
00000 | Re: People dont understand. ..which is why their PR idiots should STFU or at most say we have no plans for that. | |
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| | Something else to worry about I like my FiOS service because it works and I don't think about it, other than some in home network changes/improvements. If Verizon implements the caps that's another thing I will have to monitor and track (unless the caps are high). | |
| | | | Re: Something else to worry about said by caps620:I like my FiOS service because it works and I don't think about it, other than some in home network changes/improvements. If Verizon implements the caps that's another thing I will have to monitor and track (unless the caps are high).
Good for you but everyone is stuck on dsl or cable BS monopoly! | |
| | | | Agree - Might call now to cancel. Just to make a statement | |
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| | No reason to cap Fiber Carriers have always screamed last mile capacity problems to justify Caps.
Wonder what excuse Verizon will come up with for capping a fiber service?
Hopefully Google will also offer their Gigabit connection at the 50 dollar price point uncapped here in Kansas City. | |
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See 11 replies to this post | |
HBMaru Maru Mori MoriPremium
join:2011-06-21
00000 Reviews:
·Verizon Broadban..
·MegaPath
| Adoption rates are slow as it is, why anger nerds who pay $$ VZ was hoping for far higher subscriber growth, but cable is easily holding its own thanks to seemingly perpetual $99 triple play deals, etc. There is no justification to cap fiber (or even DSL) and can only hurt their bottom line as it doesn't actually cost them but pennies per GB to deliver data.
Most people don't "need" 50Mb and at lot of servers people connect to can even offer up 50Mb if users had it. And with VZ raising HSI pricing since inception they're merely competitive at this point. In my area, the prices are the same or higher than cable for the same DL tier and their telephony costs (which I imagine most people bundle with VZ HSI) are far higher.
Nerds LOVE FiOS, but most people aren't nerds and are well served by the cheap bottom tier 10-20Mb services which cable also offers. The "nerds" are the ones willing to be upsold to the $65+/mo premium HSI tiers, while again, it only costs pennies per GB to deliver the data to them (and they have the bandwidth to easily do it as well). Why disuade them by removing the benefit? If they're going to have capped service, they'll downgrade to a slower tier or go to a different provider who is cheaper. And for what? Lose $15/mo (upgrade) to save $1/mo in bandwidth costs and what other revenue do they lose when the sub ends up jumping ship completely?
Why remove one of the very few competitive advantages FiOS has? More importantly, why even talk about it? | |
| | | | rtfm
join:2005-07-09
Washington, DC Reviews:
·XO COMMUNICATIONS
| Re: Adoption rates are slow as it is, why anger nerds who pay $$ said by HB:VZ was hoping for far higher subscriber growth, but cable is easily holding its own thanks to seemingly perpetual $99 triple play deals, etc. Not that long ago a well-placed insider told me their "take rate" was far higher than they'd anticipated; so much so they were retrofitting 32:1 splitters to replace full 16:1 units. | |
| | | | | Re: Adoption rates are slow as it is, why anger nerds who pay $$ Not true as their customer numbers show this. | |
| | | |  BHNtechXpertBHN StaffPremium,VIP
join:2006-02-16
Saint Petersburg, FL
kudos:82 | Re: Adoption rates are slow as it is, why anger nerds who pay $$ said by hottboiinnc:Not true as their customer numbers show this.
Sorry boinc...actually the numbers do support it. The only reason Verizon has been able to make any gains at all recently is because they are litterally throwing everything but the kitchen sink at new subs but post initial new customer offer retention for Verizon has been shockingly bad (actually not shocking at all but it reads well..).
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"I can’t give you a surefire formula for success, but I can give you a formula for failure: try to please everybody all the time."
~ Herbert Bayard Swope | |
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| rtfm
join:2005-07-09
Washington, DC Reviews:
·XO COMMUNICATIONS
| said by HB:Why remove one of the very few competitive advantages FiOS has? More importantly, why even talk about it? Never attribute sage, single-voice, forward-thinking to Verizontal management. This are, after all, the same gang that spent many many million$ putting ISDN generics into every CO; then priced the service to discourage anyone from ordering it for residential use. Guess what, few did! (To quote Homer Simpson "Doh!")
As the Suits squeeze business sector middle-managers, some are going to think A, B or C may win them some points... and launch a test balloon or two.
Further, like the guy with tennis shoes; you don't need to be Superman, just need to be faster than the other guy. With AT&T, Comcast et.al falling over themselves to limit usage; how hard is it for Verizontal to look better? | |
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| | patcat88
join:2002-04-05
Jamaica, NY
kudos:1 | Re: They use to call it fraud! Good we can do that. Now your firewalled, no incoming connections, no unsolicited traffic. If you want to run a "server", upgrade to Business Grade cable internet for an extra $100 per month. | |
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| | Caps are inevitable... ... but not because of any network traffic issues or anything. They're inevitable because the companies are looking at all of the money they could make from caps and overages*. Since when have big companies been able to resist the lure of more money?
* In some cases, like FIOS right now, non-capped competition will help slow the introduction of caps. Still, they'll keep trying to figure out how to introduce caps while not causing massive user defections to their competitors. In the markets where the competition is capped or where there is no competition? Say hello to the caps!
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-Jason Levine | |
| | | | Re: Caps are inevitable... It is inevitable that an industry progressively demands more money from customers, but customers could stop these plans dead with a boycott. Imagine one day where only 1/3 of customers call up to cancel service. Losing connectivity might seem unpleasant, but if the ISPs didn't relent before the day came, they would within a week. Capitalism is a negotiation, and if you just sit by you aren't getting screwed over by your opponent, but by yourself. | |
| | | | | Re: Caps are inevitable... said by Wilsdom:It is inevitable that an industry progressively demands more money from customers, but customers could stop these plans dead with a boycott. Imagine one day where only 1/3 of customers call up to cancel service. Losing connectivity might seem unpleasant, but if the ISPs didn't relent before the day came, they would within a week. Capitalism is a negotiation, and if you just sit by you aren't getting screwed over by your opponent, but by yourself.
Capitalism is NOT a "negotiation". Where the devil did you come up with that idiotic rationalization? Capitalism is competition, of which there is none. | |
| | | | danclan
join:2005-11-01
Midlothian, VA | Re: Caps are inevitable... said by sonicmerlin:said by Wilsdom:It is inevitable that an industry progressively demands more money from customers, but customers could stop these plans dead with a boycott. Imagine one day where only 1/3 of customers call up to cancel service. Losing connectivity might seem unpleasant, but if the ISPs didn't relent before the day came, they would within a week. Capitalism is a negotiation, and if you just sit by you aren't getting screwed over by your opponent, but by yourself.
Capitalism is NOT a "negotiation". Where the devil did you come up with that idiotic rationalization? Capitalism is competition, of which there is none. with true capitalism... competition comes negotiation...the two are required for capitalism to exist. | |
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| | | | The problem is that customers want broadband. In a healthy market, they could go to one of a series of ISPs to get it. If one company decided to cap, customers could vote with their wallets and leave for the other ISPs. The capping ISP would suffer and the non-capping ISPs would benefit.
The market we have today, though, says that you either need to put up with whatever your local ISP demands or you go without service. This isn't a healthy choice of options. (And "going without" isn't a viable option for most people.)
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-Jason Levine | |
| | | rchandraStargate Universe fanPremium
join:2000-11-09
14225-2105 | These days, that's about like shutting off your electricity. Humankind did fine for many centuries without it, but in modern society we use electric to keep our food (and other things) stored cold and to run our furnaces, at minimum. Lots of homes have fireplaces which could be used for heat, and one could conceivably rely on canned and dried goods for foods. Many could also have their water shut off because they are near some body of water (in my case, Lake Erie) or could capture rainwater, or drill a well, but relatively few do without municipal water supply (and sewer).
Likewise, we start to feel like we aren't fully part of society if we aren't connected to the Internet. It has become close to a necessity of modern life.
--
English is a difficult enough language to interpret correctly when its rules are followed, let alone when a writer chooses not to follow those rules.
Jeopardy! replies and randomcaps REALLY suck! | |
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| | Dear Verizon, The day you institute caps (aka stealing service that's already been paid for) and/or metered billing (aka paying extra for the "privilege" of being robbed), that's the day I cancel any and all services from you [again]. Neither my usage nor any other customer's usage costs you extra to provide over and above any customer's usage--great or small, and only a fool would accept such behavior on your [or any ISP's] part. | |
| | AlcoholPremium
join:2003-05-26
Climax, MI
kudos:3 Reviews:
·Comcast
| Re: Dear Verizon, said by ZeddicusToo :The day you institute caps (aka stealing service that's already been paid for) and/or metered billing (aka paying extra for the "privilege" of being robbed), that's the day I cancel any and all services from you [again]. Neither my usage nor any other customer's usage costs you extra to provide over and above any customer's usage--great or small, and only a fool would accept such behavior on your [or any ISP's] part.
July 7th is when you cancel Verizon wireless.
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I found the key to success but somebody changed the lock. | |
| | | | | Re: Dear Verizon, I already canceled my "Verizon" wireless--back when they bought Alltel (aka my former cell provider). Anyway, this is about residential Internet service, not [Verizon] wireless data plans. | |
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| | Careful Verizon Verizon needs to be careful here. Implementing caps when there is no congestion to back up the (shaky) need for implementing usage based pricing could backfire on them.
AT&T doing this is understandable as they are truly incompetent. But VZ doing this is an obvious money grab.
As far as I'm concerned, both of these companies should have no comment with the gross overpricing of TXT messaging we users allow them to continue to abuse. | |
| | openbox9Premium
join:2004-01-26
japan
kudos:2 | Re: Careful Verizon And as long as you consumers allow yourselves to be abused, why would you thing that these evil money-grabbing corporations won't take more and more? What do you expect to backfire on VZ? | |
| | BHNtechXpertBHN StaffPremium,VIP
join:2006-02-16
Saint Petersburg, FL
kudos:82 | said by axiomatic:Verizon needs to be careful here. Implementing caps when there is no congestion to back up the (shaky) need for implementing usage based pricing could backfire on them.
AT&T doing this is understandable as they are truly incompetent. But VZ doing this is an obvious money grab.
As far as I'm concerned, both of these companies should have no comment with the gross overpricing of TXT messaging we users allow them to continue to abuse.
Yes they do...I absolutely dare them to try and use the congestion excuse...actually I would like it if they do but no doubt they will come up with some lame telco doublespeak reason for it...they always do. Classic Verizon...
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"I can’t give you a surefire formula for success, but I can give you a formula for failure: try to please everybody all the time."
~ Herbert Bayard Swope | |
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| | Caps If FiOS caps due to loss of 'cable' revenue, I'll have to offset that increased cost somehow. Methinks I will drop some or all TV, since it is much lower value to me than internet. Wait a minute, that would mean "TV" a la carte, more or less, wouldn't it | |
|  PathfinderDazed ConfusedPremium
join:2000-03-26
Mount Vernon, NY | The sky is falling! Must be a slow news day. It's time to roll out the "Verizon May Cap" headline.
Of course it its being evaluated. Every company, even Cablevision (gasp) is probably evaluating capping.
Wake me when i is fact. | |
| | | DSLR-We've asked Verizon many times Why do you keep embedding that in there head lol...don't ask and just maybe they will forget about it. | |
| Reviews:
 ·ooma
·Optimum Online
 ·Verizon FiOS
| ... on the heels of FREE upload upgrades This comes on the heels of FREE upgraded tiers for Comcast internet... Sure, any day now customers are going to line up for a hard caps & overages with AT&T's service in the overlaping areas.. as if it were the Iphone!
Imagine if you could buy gas at 25 cents per gallon, but couldn't travel more than 5 miles from your home. For many people that's fine and dandy if you live in a big city. For everyone else, that's FUBAR! If AT&T leads, then the others follow.. the same kind of scenario.. only it will be $10 a gallon and the same rules apply! | |
| | | | Re: ... on the heels of FREE upload upgrades Imagine... the thing is, it doesn't cost any more to "go 500 miles" than it does to "go 5 miles"--well, talking about Internet usage here, not cars (which burn up non-reusable resources and wear out roads on the way). Networking infrastructure cost nothing extra to use once you've installed it and turned it on; the existing monthly fee already pays for any and all maintenance and usage, no matter how much usage to which a customer puts it. You've paid for it, so you should be able to use it just as much as any other customer--first come, first serve. Caps are a marketing and PR tool; they have nothing to do with network management. | |
| | | Reviews:
·ooma
·Optimum Online
·Verizon FiOS
| Re: ... on the heels of FREE upload upgrades This is the road many companies are traveling down:
Comcast, Time Warner, AT&T, 99% of the Canadian Telecom/Cablecom & wireless, 90% of USA wireless-- Including Verizon Wireless.
Apparently shutting down competition and manipulating markets & marketshare is a common practice among many corporations who have a new business model of greed (versus supply/demand and competition). Banks and Energy (from the oil companies to your local gas station, to your power company) are just the earliest examples of how lob-sided our consumer protection laws have become. The number of companies who still have a glimer of morality is dying by the day. While it will not be next year, or the year after that, WE WILL be down that anti-trust road with telecom & cablecom. Last time there only was MA Bell, now cable companies will come along for the ride.
Caps were put in place to curtail unlimited usage which far exceeds the normal customer usage. Yes, there are customers who when given the chance will max out their connection (upload and download) for more than 20 hours a day during the whole month because it's unlimited. On a cablemodem service that compromises network integrity due to the nature of the provisioning for maximum usage. Residential terms of service have evolved from best effort and "up-to" to 250gb soft cap (comcast & cable companies) to hard cap (AT&T) and overages. When the pendulum swings too far this evolves to pay more and get less while maximizing revenue per subscriber. This is what will get anti-trust started because alot of these networks were built on the backs of taxpayer subsidies! | |
| | | | | | Re: ... on the heels of FREE upload upgrades The fact that a cable modem "network" [node] is not a "real" network is beside the point. Provisioning is not relevant. When I say caps, I don't just mean usage caps but speed caps as well. Regardless, the "network" is still FIFO. How much a customer used his/her connection 2 hours ago or 2 days ago has no effect on any other customer's ability to use his/her connection "now". And at any point in time every customer has just as much right to use the connection that he/she has paid for as any other customer. Past usage is irrelevant, especially when much of that usage has occurred at times of low network/node utilization. If ISPs really wanted well-managed networks, then they'd allow all customers to use the native speed of the network segment instead of slowing them down; but, as we know, that's not the major concern of ISPs--making more money is, and selling speed tiers is how they do it [for now]. And now they--some/many, if not all [yet]--also [will] want you to pay extra for that which you've already paid for (UBB), as well as simply stealing that service back from you (caps). This is what competition is supposed to control... if there actually were any competition [in all areas]. However, as useful as Internet access can be, it is not a necessity (except for a handful of people). I can take it or leave it myself. | |
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| | patcat88
join:2002-04-05
Jamaica, NY
kudos:1 | But we tagged on the CEO's Maybach onto the mortgage for that $1million dollar Cisco router. | |
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| | | said by tmc8080:Imagine if you could buy gas at 25 cents per gallon, but couldn't travel more than 5 miles from your home. For many people that's fine and dandy if you live in a big city. For everyone else, that's FUBAR! If AT&T leads, then the others follow.. the same kind of scenario.. only it will be $10 a gallon and the same rules apply!
Yeah, $0.25/gal if you are within 5 miles, $10/gal if you go past that. | |
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| | If they want to INCREASE TV revenue Why doesn't FIOS offer a TRUE a-la carte tv selection. I mean, look at the pipe they CAN provide. If you could choose ANY ABC/CBS/NBC/FOX/UPN station in the country (and each station could set their own rates), I'm sure the BIG 5 would be in the $1-2/month range. Then let people pick whatever channels they want in a true a-la carte fashion. Hell, If I has FIOS, I'd probably only get about 20 channels total, and have a 'TV' bill in the $30/month range. The channels I get would get a true paying sub, so screw ups like syfy might go back to being good if they were dropped, and other channels wouldn't have to worry about neilsen ratings as much, because they could go to the advertisers and say 'hey, we have 20m people who pay FOR US, and charge approriate rates. Everyone wins. The problem of course, is you will need to change the law to FORCE unbundling, and that I suspect would cause 80% of the channels in the US to fail, because noone would pay for it (hell, I'd GET HSN, if they PAID me to get it, but I sure as hell won't pay for it). Again, FIOS is probably the only infrastructure capable of this, but they payoffs could be huge. Verizions 'programming' fees would be a straight line cost based on subs, good channels would get more advertising money, and customers would get huge price breaks on their channel lineups. If the greedy NFL network WANTS to charge $20 bucks a month, then they 'may' succeed, but probably wont.
--
Remember 1 in 4 people are retarded. 25% of Americans are Republican. Coincidence? I don't think so. | |
| | openbox9Premium
join:2004-01-26
japan
kudos:2 | Re: If they want to INCREASE TV revenue Too bad this fantasy land isn't really in VZ's control. Furthermore, I don't see how you think that à la carte will increase revenue. It would most certainly decrease the content distributor's revenue. | |
| | | | | Re: If they want to INCREASE TV revenue said by openbox9:Too bad this fantasy land isn't really in VZ's control. Furthermore, I don't see how you think that à la carte will increase revenue. It would most certainly decrease the content distributor's revenue.
I'm not sure that is accurate.
I currently don't use Cable because I'm forced to pay for channels I don't want.
If I could purchase only the channels or shows I wished, then I would seriously consider signing up.
But for now pirating is the only way to accomplish this. | |
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| patcat88
join:2002-04-05
Jamaica, NY
kudos:1 | Because selling exclusive franchise rights to born to fail business models is the easiest pyramid scheme in the USA. It gets even better when your franchisers then resell their exclusive territory and sell franchises to smaller investors.
Coldstone Creamery cough cough | |
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| | Better not! I'll cancel after the first increased bill! ETF be damned! | |
|  viperpa33sWhy Me?Premium
join:2002-12-20
Bradenton, FL | Would be happy to go back I got Verizon Fios because I wanted a change from Brighthouse. I would be more than happy to go back to Brighthouse if Verizon decides to go to usage based billing. Speed does matter but there are other things that matter as well. I am not under contract with Verizon, so I can cancel anytime.
Edit: I do hope a Verizon rep reads this. If Verizon truly cares about it's customers, they would think twice about going to usage based billing. | |
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| | DSL Cap/Meter to Encourage FiOS Take? Caps make no sense for FiOS. Considering most of their speed tiers are now no faster in download speed than DOCSIS 3 cable in their markets, caps I would think are a signal that Verizon may want to kill FiOS off.
We all know Wall Street has been seething to do that for some time. Investing in one's network, providing a superior product and letting customers take advantage of it are three of the deadly Wall Street sins.
I really wish these providers would stop being so subversive when it comes to their caps and overages. Come out and say in your ad we're getting the oh-so-great 250GB of usage or whatever the number is. Of course then, the casual users might realize the theft that's occurred and might actually start questioning their overlords.
If it's so good for us, let us know about it!
I would think it's more likely to cap and overage DSL to use it as a tool to get people off it and on to FiOS. VZ would like to do away with copper altogether if it could. For the people who can't afford FiOS or will never be wired for it, well, nobody cares about them. | |
| | | I've been saying this for YEARS now that VZ would be doing this. Yet others keep claiming otherwise. Proof that they were just waiting for other large companies to move in first. | |
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See 7 replies to this post | |
elray
join:2000-12-16
Santa Monica, CA | Incredible Not one person here gets it.
Just as VZ has dramatically dropped the price of their DSL/voice bundles, the purpose of pursuing UBB for Fios isn't to create the populists' mythical profit-by-overage or protect their Pay-TV product, but to enable them to sell Fios *cheaper* to households that aren't going to ante up $60+ a month, while not cannibalizing their existing subscriber base. | |
| | | | Re: Incredible said by elray:Not one person here gets it.
...to sell Fios *cheaper* ...
Nope, and no one--here, or anywhere--ever will get that. (I think you need to wake up now. That Vz smoke and mirrors act has put you to sleep.) | |
| | | |  VanPremium
join:2009-07-08
New Orleans, LA | said by elray:Not one person here gets it.
Just as VZ has dramatically dropped the price of their DSL/voice bundles, the purpose of pursuing UBB for Fios isn't to create the populists' mythical profit-by-overage or protect their Pay-TV product, but to enable them to sell Fios *cheaper* to households that aren't going to ante up $60+ a month, while not cannibalizing their existing subscriber base.
My goodness you are gullible. What actual facts or even history do you have to support this? Anything? Ever? For any ISP? | |
| | | elray
join:2000-12-16
Santa Monica, CA
1 edit | Re: Incredible said by Van:said by elray:Not one person here gets it.
Just as VZ has dramatically dropped the price of their DSL/voice bundles, the purpose of pursuing UBB for Fios isn't to create the populists' mythical profit-by-overage or protect their Pay-TV product, but to enable them to sell Fios *cheaper* to households that aren't going to ante up $60+ a month, while not cannibalizing their existing subscriber base.
My goodness you are gullible. What actual facts or even history do you have to support this? Anything? Ever? For any ISP? How many people clamor to keep a service that "overcharges" them, besides those who buy stuff from that firm in Cupertino?
ISP charges have been declining, in real, and adjusted, and per-byte terms, dramatically, since the rollout of DSL over a decade ago. Pick any major ISP, any state, and compare, before you claim otherwise.
Twice in the past five years, Verizon has shown its business savvy, and gutted its copper product pricing - today's double-play bundles are half what they cost just a year ago. No, they haven't yet clued in on where to position a lower-price FIOS product, but if history is any guide, they will.
UPDATE: It turns out Verizon *IS* offering FIOS for a copper price - $19.99 for 3/1 on a 1-year bundle. | |
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| | ...Hold Your Horses... ATT's residential cap overages have yet to show up on anyone's billing statements...
Until the customers start to get hit with actual overage fees, the pipe dream of residential UBB from the main telcos is still only an idea on paper. | |
| decifal
join:2007-03-10
Bon Aqua, TN
kudos:1 Reviews:
·Verizon Broadban..
| haves I figured the "have mines" would eventually be bitten. And believe you me, you will be.. I guess that move to the "city" really doesn't help that much when it boils down to the very fine point of a communication based product that can make or break a nation with innovation or there lack of due to greed...
But its hard to preach that point of view to someone with their head soo high in to the cloud of smugness | |
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They use to call it fraud!
Any ISP that cannot clearly define what the customer is paying for, payload or payload plus overhead should be prohibited from implementing metered billing. There is also the matter of unsolicited data downloads like advertising being added to a customers monthly data allocation without their knowledge. After all junk faxes have been prohibited because the customer pays for ink, paper and the use of their FAX line. Same should apply to broadband.
