Verizon’s great FiOS offer to me: Pay $50 extra for slower Internet | Hacker News Reader

Verizon’s great FiOS offer to me: Pay $50 extra for slower Internet

arstechnica.com

38 pointssmacktoward16 comments

Ajit Pai's FCC is among the worst possible outcomes for competition in telecommunications. This won't end until we have a president and FCC chairman who aren't literally trying to remove any semblances of fairness in the market.

My blood boils just thinking about the fucking word "unlimited"

There are folks who even defend it "YOU CANNOT USE A TERABYTE" oh bullshit, baby, I can destroy a terabyte. I bet everyone else does too but instead of labeling it "10TB of TV watching" they label it "cable package," and fuck you over more. It's like text messaging back in the day, it was literally _FREE_ for carriers to implement, and per message data rates were like 6000 times that of a normal 2G packet.

It'd be like your electricity company wanting a cut from the fucking appliance manufacturers you already paid in order to power them "well we have a lot of Frigidaire on our grid and that causes stress... when you add them up its 30% of our grid that seems like an undue burden" Oh, no shit? I paid for something (power) and you having to provide it produces an undue burden? The only undue burden is on me having to tolerate someone thinking I'm so fucking stupid as to believe your lies but! Unfortunately, for me, there are a huge bunch of people who are that stupid... and believe it.

> it was literally _FREE_ for carriers to implement, and per message data rates were like 6000 times that of a normal 2G packet

Similar story to mobile data roaming. It's crazy expensive... until the EU says that's a joke and they must stop. Now you get free data roaming across EU without higher plan prices and somehow operators can still compete on those prices.

Because of the ridiculous handling of spectrum auctions. In Finland all auction profits are invested in a single shared network from which every telecom operator provides services from.

The rest of Europe has made the decision to leave the network up to the Telcos while using the funds of the auction as a tax income stream for government. This means a significant increased operating costs for every operator for which the end consumer pays the price. Both in higher subscription costs and less competition.

Wait until you see the mobile data rates operators in India charge. A GB costs between $0.04 and $0.08. Subscriptions are sold based on 1,2 or 5 GB per day. In Europe 5GB costs a whopping $40.

I hope Starlink will provide the much needed competition in broadband and mobile offerings.

Where in Europe? There's been a couple new providers in the last years, with Iliad I pay about 7 euros for 50GB/month on my phone.

> Ajit Pai's FCC is among the worst possible outcomes for competition in telecommunications.

I disagree. People pronounced doomsday for the internet when the (anti) net neutrality legislation got passed. Doomsday has yet to materialize.

WAT? I'm just like baffled at your response. Doomsday is upon us...

* Data caps are ubiquitous and intentionally stifle any means on consumers sharing content

* The total and complete death of the meaning of unlimited.

* The internet of "channels" is already upon us with content providers have to pay to send their content to their customers even though their customers already pay to access it.

* Prices are not dictated by the market, they're dictated by the monopoly that runs it.

Those monopolies/oligopolies right now are having their cake and eating it too. It's insanity to me, a human, that you are okay with the way things are turning out. Perhaps I'm the misguided one, but it sure smells like Stockholm syndrome to me.

I'm satisfied with the internet that I pay for, and it's relatively inexpensive compared to everything else in my life, well beyond its relative importance. This doesn't even register on the list of things I worry about.

Selfish

Internet access will continue its steady progress of being more available and cheaper, and you have the burden of proving otherwise.

You can look up the CPI: https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CUUR0000SEEE03?output_view=d...

Broadly speaking it seems like consumer prices have decreased (CPI suggests ~25%, but that's probably very general). At the same time we've gotten incredibly better internet service compared to 1997 (how do you even account for the monumental jump over that time period).

If the world is ending, we've got it pretty good.

Internet in many areas are either government sanctioned monopolies or duopolies. Furthermore these ISPs (and cable TV) companies have had legislation passed in many states limiting other internet alternatives like free wifi, even in areas they don’t serve.

https://broadbandnow.com/report/municipal-broadband-roadbloc...

That write-up sounds just like the games that Comcast have been playing for some time. Could it be they learned this from Comcast?

Verizon doesn't give a fuck. They signed a contract to build out a fiber network in NYC, didn't do it, and then told the city to go fuck itself. When a corporation reaches a certain size there is virtually nothing that any individual person, business, city government, or even state government can do.

It's not just Verizon. Spectrum will offer 200mbps at $45/month for 24 months then crank it up to $80/month thereafter. And if you want the fastest speeds, their claimed 940mbps (lol), you must use their modem. And you'll be lucky to get 33% of the speed that you pay for in the best of circumstances.

And if you don't like Spectrum well how about you go fuck yourself? Even in Manhattan, one of the most densely populated areas in the world, there are huge areas where the internet option is Spectrum or DSL.

Verizon is in the process of upgrading from BPON to GPON. Getting the base speed upgrade to 100 MB/s requires using the new network (same fibre, different ONT). I didn't get the upgrade until I moved.

At my previous residence I had Comcast, Verizon and RCN all available. Rotating through them kept my prices in check for many years. Now I have Verizon and Comcast available but I am not sure I can handle the stench of Comcast. I look forward to testing the unbundled pricing when they make it available to existing customers.

Summary: Verizon offering better package to new customers only. Existing customers do not qualify.

Nice.

This reminds me of when I decided to drop from 2 cars down to 1 and my insurance company was going to raise my rates, which made zero sense (I lost the multi car discount).

I'm guessing this is another case of:

> Don't attribute to malice that which can be explained through incompetence.

Maybe someone intentionally made it harder for existing customers, but I'm guessing it was an accident.

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