
Verizon’s great FiOS offer to me: Pay $50 extra for slower Internet - smacktoward
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/01/verizons-great-fios-offer-to-me-pay-50-extra-for-slower-internet/
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rubyn00bie
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.

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viraptor
> 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.

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lowdose
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.

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notlukesky
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...](https://broadbandnow.com/report/municipal-broadband-roadblocks/)

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

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hurricanetc
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.

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jakedata
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.

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

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beatgammit
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.

