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Verizon Television The Almighty Buck Wireless Networking Technology

Verizon Will Finally Sell You TV Without a Contract (cnn.com) 44

Posted by BeauHD from the cutting-the-crap dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNN: Verizon is changing the way it sells its internet and cable packages as customers are increasingly seeking ways to cut the costly cord. The company is eliminating bundles and contracts, Verizon announced Thursday. Instead, it will sell its Fios TV and internet services separately. Long-term contracts are also being trashed in favor of charging customers month-to-month. That is similar to how streaming services charge customers. Verizon is calling the new offers "Mix and Match on Fios." There are now three internet packages and five Fios TV packages. Notably, Verizon will continue selling Google's YouTube TV for $49.99 per month as a TV option under an agreement the two companies signed last year. A home telephone package will also be sold for $20 per month. The new bundle-free packages offer more price transparency for customers, Verizon claims. Not all surcharges are going away though. "Verizon will continue charging a $15 monthly fee for routers in some of its internet packages and a $12 set-top monthly fee in most of its Fios TV packages," the report adds. "But other fees it previously charged, including for regional sports networks, will now be included in the total Fios TV price."
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Verizon Will Finally Sell You TV Without a Contract More

Verizon Will Finally Sell You TV Without a Contract

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  • There is this thing called streaming. Verizon selling TV doesn't seem all that relevant.

    • There is this thing called streaming. Verizon selling TV doesn't seem all that relevant.

      Rolling out MoCA is not exactly a cheap undertaking. Verizon is similar to Shaw here in Canada the costs of getting the bandwidth distributed equally over the existing infrastructure is not chump change. So we see pay tv and we pay for cable access to watch what was TV stations. Then we have the problem with the way people associate tv channels with "stations" which in reality do not by and large exist in great numbers any more. Digital broadcast tv that you don't pay for is dying and what is replacing it i

  • Too bad it's not available in so many markets.... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by King_TJ ( 85913 ) on Thursday January 09, 2020 @10:08PM (#59605362) Journal

    Every time I hear about FiOS, I'm wondering if it's just of so much interest because people still hold out hope for more fiber based services like it?

    Because as someone from the midwest who now lives in Maryland? I've never been able to get FiOS in the midwest, and could only get it up here for a couple years when we rented a townhouse in a city that had it. Where I'm at now, Verizon said they'd never bring it here because our terrain is too hilly. Supposedly, a few people have it just outside of the main part of town. But so many areas out here are still just served by Comcast, and FiOS isn't available.

    They spend a ton on TV commercials telling people to get it, but they spend zero on expanding the service to any new areas. In fact, I heard Verizon really wants to find a buyer to sell it off to, so it can concentrate more on wireless services.

    • ... expanding the service to any new areas. In fact, I heard Verizon really wants to find a buyer to sell it off to, so it can concentrate more on wireless services.

      Really? I would love to hear more about this. Are there any links that you could share?

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Holi ( 250190 )
        Considering Verizon ended the FIOS expansion 10 years and stopped expanding existing markets 5 years after, it would not surprise me they want to sell. New subscribers are down like 60%.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by bobby ( 109046 )

          I'm in a Verizon FIOS area- been here for more than 10 years.

          About a year ago there were some large unmarked trucks with people pulling wire up on utility poles from a large spool. I stopped and asked one of the workers and he said it was Comcast pulling fiber. Hmmm.

          I haven't heard anything more about it, so I wonder if Comcast is deploying fiber and somehow able to keep it mostly secret?

          I've been favoring land-based connectivity for speed, reliability, and lower cost, but I'm strongly considering ditchin

    • >"They spend a ton on TV commercials telling people to get it, but they spend zero on expanding the service to any new areas."

      Yep. Where I live, they didn't even bother rolling out FIOS to the whole city. Just a small fraction, apparently designed to hit just some of the more "affluent" areas. That was many years ago, and I don't think it has ever changed. All the rest are stuck with Cox or nothing. Zero choice for 30 years now, and still counting. At least we have one choice, and their Internet is

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by ccham ( 162985 )

      Verizon builds out only in new high end subdivisions to limit installation costs. They seem to also be arbitrary in the selecting areas, but it is likely about roll out subsidy allocation.

      They then almost immediately sell it to Frontier that just manages the network and nothing physical. Frontier does 90% of maintenance through contractors that are always over allocated and over worked.

      Fios is usually never buried deep. If your neighbor plants a new tree or one grows the wrong way, expect multiple attem

    • Never got Verizon FiOS here either. We were suppose to, but Verizon sold their FiOS service to Frontier. Frontier never expanded. They're barely maintaining the service as it is.

      We finally got AT&T Uverse last summer.... about 15 years after AT&T started marketing it to us with all their snail mail adverts.

      Verizon said they'd never bring it here because our terrain is too hilly.

      Translation: We don't want to compete with the incumbent broadband provider in your area.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Nidi62 ( 1525137 )

        We finally got AT&T Uverse last summer.... about 15 years after AT&T started marketing it to us with all their snail mail adverts.

        Around here, uverse was even worse than Comcrap. First of all their on demand selection was almost non-existent. And the install tech gave us their wireless receivers for some of the rooms and those regularly lost connection. And when we went back to comcast, found out uverse had put their unremovable wall box over the cable outlet in our living room so the comcast tech had to drill and run a new cable from the box through our wall. Plus with comcast we only have 2 boxes and use the xfinity app on 2 rok

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Holi ( 250190 )
      The FIOS rollout ended in 2010.

    • Rumor has it that Verizon rolled out just enough FiOS to become a provider and get those sweet sweet government subsidies. Then once they pocketed those *billions* they stopped with new installs. After all Verizon is formerly Bell Atlantic so they went from a baby bell phone company to a broadband and cell giant.

      Are there any new FiOS installs being done?

      I'm lucky enough to have FiOS and the service is quite good, $39.99 contract free for a 100/100 connection.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by King_TJ ( 85913 )

        That's *exactly* what I'd heard too -- but it's hard to find a quotable source for that in any reputable news type web site, so I didn't bring that part up.

        As someone else said here, the FiOS rollout officially ended back around 2010. I think the dslreports web forums used to have all the details on which areas it was rolling out to, as it went -- so might still be a good historical reference for that?

        They went on for probably 5 years or so after that, completing the installation in areas they'd started ea

  • No TV here (Score:3)

    by speedlaw ( 878924 ) on Thursday January 09, 2020 @10:20PM (#59605384) Homepage
    Verizon fios-ed my town and while they did, someone decided to not provide any further TV....so we get fios broadband and telephone, but not TV. If you want TV you need to subscribe to cable, or OTA. Bizarre, but the surrounding towns have fios TV, and we don't. Corporate is unmoved, we just got bit at the cusp of their decision.

  • TV is cancer (Score:2, Interesting)

    by RitchCraft ( 6454710 )
    I cut the cord over 20 years ago. TV was horrible then and I can't imagine it's gotten any better since. My kids were all born after I cut the cord and never got bombarded with ads or the utter filth shown on TV. At Xmas my children were always grateful for everything they received. I never heard "I want this", "I want that", I want...I want..." because they were not bombarded with TV telling them they needed that crap. Television is cancer. Get rid of it, you and your family will be so much happier in the

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Nidi62 ( 1525137 )

      I cut the cord over 20 years ago. TV was horrible then and I can't imagine it's gotten any better since. My kids were all born after I cut the cord and never got bombarded with ads or the utter filth shown on TV. At Xmas my children were always grateful for everything they received. I never heard "I want this", "I want that", I want...I want..." because they were not bombarded with TV telling them they needed that crap. Television is cancer. Get rid of it, you and your family will be so much happier in the long run. Imagine not knowing who the Kardashians are and not caring in the least.

      I grew up with TV, and and to this day prefer to have the TV on for background noise even if I'm not paying attention. I am not at all materialistic, and while I have a general idea of who the Kardashians are I still don't care. I enjoy reading and have fought off numerous attempts from my wife to trim down my book collection (I thought it was already trimmed down nicely; it's not like I have multiple copies of some books.......any more). My anecdote cancels out your anecdote.

      • No, your anecdote describes being ignorant of the known psychological effects of exposure to content. You think it doesn't affect you, because you were told it doesn't affect you, and you don't look it up, because books are for collecting, not reading.

        It isn't that the TV is in the background, it is that you've descended so deep into TV-land that you can no longer differentiate it from reality.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Nidi62 ( 1525137 )

          No, your anecdote describes being ignorant of the known psychological effects of exposure to content. You think it doesn't affect you, because you were told it doesn't affect you, and you don't look it up, because books are for collecting, not reading.

          It isn't that the TV is in the background, it is that you've descended so deep into TV-land that you can no longer differentiate it from reality.

          Uh, what? NOt sure where you're going with the "books are for collecting, not reading" bit, I've read most of the books I own multiple times. I just like having noise in the background and prefer having a TV on to radio/music. Even if I am playing video games on my computer I prefer to have the TV on (that honestly half the reason I stopped playing console games and went strictly PC) even though I'm not paying attention to it at all.

    • Imagine not knowing who the Kardashians are and not caring in the least.

      I only watch PBS, so I might be wrong about this, but aren't the Kardashians a social media driven phenomenon?

      • No idea? Have heard mention of them by other people and they sound absolutely bat-shit crazy. That's the kind of filth I choose to ignore.

    • I resisted cable for a long time. Of course I loved it when I was a kid and my parents were paying for it, but I couldn't see spending money on it myself.

      Then I got an apartment with free cable and after I moved out I was hooked for maybe 20 years. I paid for it at every place I lived since then.

      There's not much that I miss about cutting the cord. I did have to go to Pirate Bay to see the last season of Breaking Bad. Sorry about that, but that is literally the only thing I've pirated as a result of no l

  • And how is any kind of streaming or TV service worth $50 a month?

  • I don't want their TV. If I want TV I can get 99.9% of what I want for free from the antenna on my roof. But I can't even remember the last time I watched TV except to flip through the channels to see if there was something I wanted to watch. There was a time I would have paid for real a la carte cable, but that time is past.

    What I want is reliable and inexpensive broadband. (Every so often Comcast will just hang for 15-20 minutes.) I can get FIOS where I live, but there doesn't seem to be a way to buy j

    • Fios isnâ(TM)t any better in that regard. Mine goes out all the time. Seems like at least 2x/month. If I kept track of it, I would not be at all surprised if it is at least 1x/week.

      Most recently: Tuesday (3 days ago).

    • Oh..I do have Fios internet only though (since 2013). I pay $80/month for (supposed) gigabit service. Not sure why you cannot get just that. Are you sure?

    • (Every so often Comcast will just hang for 15-20 minutes.)

      This is unlikely, except to whatever extent you consider your rented modem to be "Comcast."

      Most people with this problem are using Comcast's wifi and the wifi hangs periodically for whatever reason. If they were to plug ethernet into the back of the modem they would find that they have service.

      There are also ~ 5 min complete disruptions that happen late night or early morning, those are caused by modem firmware updates (because of the public wifi they sell and deliver over your service).

      If you use your own

  • Cool (Score:3)

    by Holi ( 250190 ) on Friday January 10, 2020 @08:45AM (#59606090)
    Does this mean I can get my ONT provisioned for ethernet instead of coax?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by nbvb ( 32836 )

      That's an easy thing to do -- just call the FSC and ask. They'll do it on the spot.

      1-888-553-1555

    • Can confirm what nbvb said.

      Some reps may try to talk you out of it, some insist that you're going to be sacrificing performance if you go that route (?!?), but most won't give you a hard time, and it only takes a minute. If you get unlucky on your first call, just call back and get a better rep.

  • They charge $15/month for a router and a $12 set up fee? That is a rip off, plain and simple. I live in a semi-rural area and my internet service is fixed wireless. My service provider charged me nothing for set up and gave me a router for free, with no monthly charges. I bought my own wireless switch because I wasn't in love with the one they gave me, and they had no issue with me connecting it. I routinely get 120mb/s which might be slow if I were a gamer but it's just fine for streaming and working from

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Anil ( 7001 )

      The 12$ a month is the "set top" fee for TV signal converting. Not a set up fee. No TV, no fee. It is still too much, because that doesn't even include the DVR. You can replace the set top box with a DVR but it is more expensive.

      To be fair about the 15$ a month, you can just buy you own router and use it (they might charge you 3$ instead), and you can also buy their router outright for 200$ (I think that's the price, haven't checked recently). Can probably get something cheaper (or better) that can do

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