Why am I paying more for DSL than other people pay for FIOS?

[TheTenthDoctor]

This seems like a shady business practice by verizon, charging me more for DSL (2 MBPS) than it charges other customers for FIOS (200 MBPS).  What incentive does Verizon have to EVER bring me FIOS when it can charge me more for lower speeds?  If I had ANY other choice I'd switch companies.  But there are LITERALLY zero choices for me.  So Verizon continues to get more for less.  

[jonjones1]

Although it is crazy, you must remember that companies will bleed you dry until there is competition. In your situation verizon will eventually discontinue copper and dsl will be no more. The good news is that will be replaced by fiber (Fios)

you could check out satellite internet services that are 10-20 times faster than dsl and are available to everyone. Viastat and others charge one rate now with no overage fees. Just google satellite internet and look for the plan that best serves you.

[TheTenthDoctor]

Unfortunately, I live off the road too far for verizon to ever consider bringing Fios into my area.  I contacted Xfinity about switching, and they want to charge $8,000(!!) to bring service to my house.  I feel so stuck between a rock and a hard place.  And Sattelite internet does not meet my needs remotely.  They have extremely low data caps, I might as well just switch to Sprint and get their Unlimited* plan and use hotspot.  But even then it's not nearly enough data.  And who knows what their speeds are.  

So I'm stuck paying $50/month for 2 mbps.  If I ever get the chance to move, I'm definitely moving somewhere that Comcast nor Verizon are the choice for high speed internet. 

*Not actually unlimited.  But then again neither is Verizon's.  And theirs is less limited.

[jonjones1]

The new satellite services have done away with data caps. However for remote access I just cannot say. I don’t believe DSL is a service that allows it.

yeah move to a place that has truly high speed and hopefully you will like the change.

best of luck 

[smith6612]

Satellite still has video throttling, AUPs and 600+ms latency. That can be worse than DSL especially if the OP relies on real time applications. Plus, the speeds satellite providers say they offer aren't always what comes through either. You might see 25Mbps on a speed test... but when you go to run a test that can combat compression, caching, and proxies, you get more like 4Mbps. Maybe Starlink and other LEO satellite connections will be more promising, but for more, DSL may still be the better choice. OP may need to ask Verizon about whether their circuit can actually do more than 2Mbps. OP may be on an old plan, but hopefully OP isn't on a long line OR really old DSL equipment which is capped at 3Mbps.

[jonjones1]

The option of satellite internet is much better for day to day usage. Viastat and another service I seen on tv has been offering a reasonable price with much higher speeds than any DSL connection.

as you aware Verizon by phasing out old copper lines which DSL runs on is actually pushing the customers off their service. In areas where this copper retirement is taking place some are being switched to higher speed fiber optic which makes the loss bareable .

[MonkeyMo1]

They'll bottleneck you, though, if you use up your data, even if you're only one week into the month. So, say you have a 20mbps plan, you'll be back at 1-1.5mbps (namely as per Hugh's as that's what we primarily have in my location).

On top of that, if you live somewhere that gets lots of snow and ice, Satellite can be pretty difficult and dangerous to maintain.

[dtaylo05]

Correct, Satellite, although free of "data caps" still throttle you to abhorrent speeds, on top of high latency, regardless of their claims. All in the fine print.

As I stated in another post, Verizon jacked my bill up to $80 a month now for 2.5mbps down/0.5 up.

It is astonishing that this is allowed. Shame on Verizon for this practice. Claims about it costing more to maintain copper is just absurd. Customers shouldn't have to pay more because you failed to maintain it in the first place. If my bill went up with the excuse that they are offsetting some cost of deploying fiber optic to the area, then I'd gladly pay without hesitation.

Verizon - what do you plan to do for your DSL customers? Continue to jack up prices and bleed us dry?

What is more infuriating is seeing where FiOS is in some areas. "It won't come to rural areas" yet I've seen it in areas with lower housing density than where I am now.

[jonjones1]

You are in a catch-22 in that Verizon wants to get out of the copper and into fibre optics.

in some states such as New York they are somewhat in a catch 22 with state regulators.

they have to maintain the lines until they can actually go with fibre optics.

a good case in point is if you wanted to get a Verizon fibre optic phone service, they come to your house and if possible install Fios digital phone. (I don’t use them for phone or tv) 

at my mother in laws home they took her off copper and placed her on the newer technology. However she said it does not function as her old service and they actually are charging her much more money.  However Verizon has tried to have her leave charter cable for Verizon Fios offering a two year price of $79.99 for the phone and Fios internet. They also wrote her offering her tv service as well. For the combo package she would save money just on what her phone costs. But if she took the triple play it would still be $200 less a month then she pays with Spectrum. But that is none of my business.

your other concern could be to contact your state regulators about Verizon’s pricing on a lesser technology. They are raising the rates to get rid of copper customers that are in the way of progress. It’s simply a business decision.

[MonkeyMo1]

Hi,

I was wondering what peoples' opinions were of this, and if they may have a solution for it:

Where I live, we can only get about 1-1.5mbps. Lately, it's been hovering between, .3mbps and .5mbps, though it just went back up to 1.5mbps after a week. On top of that, our internet is down more often than it's up, with no ping to the provider with accumulation time probably being around a few hours to several hours a day.

We pay $54 for our net, $3.5 for "services & equipment," and $21 for "fees & other charges."

Meanwhile, I've found out that someone who gets 400mbps pays $60, and someone who gets 200mbps pays $40 - as per Verizon's website, I'm sure there are additional hidden charges in that, that they don't advertise.

When I brought it up to them, they said they could only give me an $8 discount... even though I'd still be paying more than someone who gets 200mbps. I've considered changing companies, but we really don't have many options. (My town just got fibre optics, but another company expects us to pay $1500 for installation, + $100 a month for 50mbps internet alone, phone not included, which is a no-go.) There are about two that I'm thinking about that's about $40 $ as opposed to Verizon's $54+ (not including satellite, which is more common in my area but we don't want to deal with climbing on the roof in winter), but it's still on the pricey side considering 200mbps costs the same amount.

What are your thoughts and do you have any suggestions?

[jonjones1]

Your situation is Verizon either is not available for Fios services or they are available but have not built out to your neighborhood or don’t plan on offering it in your area.

normally there is a cable company that offers way more speed than what you are paying for dsl service. And although you posted another satellite statement at another thread the cost today for those services are pretty much competitive just look at what viastat and others out there are offering.

when Verizon gets rid of your copper they will offer fibre optics to there customers, it is just a wait game.

google your options for your area and see what can be done.

I have read that Verizon and t-mobile are offering home internet at reasonable prices.

go to http://www.dslreports.com and view what others have said about their services.

It is free to join.

[dexman]

To expand on what jon said....in municipalities where Verizon is allowed to offer FiOS, the company will cherry-pick the exact locations where fiber will be installed. If the company feels that it will not be able to recoup costs, an area will be bypassed and homes/businesses will continue to be offered service via legacy copper. 

I fought Verizon over a similar situation. FiOS has ben available in my town since 2007. I have the service @ home and have been very happy. The church I attend is six blocks away from the house and Verizon won't offer it.

The utilities in the area are all underground. Besides the church, the block has an empty house (used in the past as doctor & dentist offices) and a CVS pharmacy (before that the property was a Buick/Pontiac/GMC dealership).

Verizon, Comcast & RCN all decided to skip over the block and not install fiber/coaxial cable respectively underneath the street along our side. The church was limited to 7/768 DSL via Verizon copper.

Once the pandemic hit, like many churches, we resorted to remote Zoom broadcasts with an eye to continuing Zoom once we were able to return. The problem is.....Zoom doesn't work well with 7/768.

Comcast offered to service the building via a roundabout way. and we agreed to go ahead with their offer. Now we have 200/20, which is much more conducive to conferencing. I did specify that the church's two telephone lines would remain with Verizon as the service reliability has been impeccable. We did make two concessions to keep the monthly outlay about the same as it was when Verizon was the sole provider.

I guess the upshot is, look around, see what is available now, decide what your budget will allow and act accordingly. Chances are Verizon will not make FiOS available to your area, opting to go with a 5G OTA delivery method instead at some point in the future.  🤔

[dtaylo05]

I'm beyond frustrated with Verizon on this exact same issue.

I've tried contacting corporate officials over this to no avail. Verizon just keeps ignoring any requests for assistance here.

We have DSL - and a growing population. The CLLI was actually so overwhelmed they had a waiting list that "spanned years" according to Verizon Customer Service. I had to fight to get the previous homeowner's account transferred to my name so I could keep the service - otherwise if they cancelled it, the slot would go to someone else on the waiting list. To make matters worse, Verizon "transposed" an account number and randomly disconnected my service one day, forcing me to have to fight with them for over a week to get service restored (again, because the CLLI is overbooked - they tried to put me on the waiting list), only to have them jack the price up $20 a month.

Fast forward to this year - I'm notified that my bill is going up again. Another $10 a month. Now I'm paying $80/month for DSL speeds of 2.5mbps down/ 0.5 up. Verizon's reasoning for the price increase? Because the "cost of maintaining the infrastructure has increased".  This is quite an excuse considering they have done zero maintenance on this infrastructure here in 20+ years. I have photographs of the telephone boxes at the end of my road, hanging wide open, doors flapping in the breeze, totally exposed to the elements, as the tangled, aged wire loops get rained on, snowed on, and on and on. Why should we have to pay extra to offset their failure to maintain the infrastructure in the first place? And why aren't these increased costs going to actually maintaining the crumbling infrastructure here?

I've heard every excuse from Verizon - "its the wiring in your house" - wrong, I've actually run tests from the box on the house - straight from their lines at the road, and gotten the same horrid speeds. "You're too far from the CLLI" - of course, those speeds have nothing to do with poorly maintained infrastructure with wiring exposed to the elements diminishing speeds, right?

I pay $80 a month for something that is 0.6% of the speed of the communities nearby who have FiOS AND pay $20 less a month.

Of course, when you explore other options you're left with satellite internet, which I refuse to go down that road. I download and upload a lot of files for work, so data caps are out of the question. Verizon's LTE Home Internet is not available here because DSL is available. Comcast is nearby but no plans to expand there either. So, thanks to a lack of any regulatory oversight, Verizon continues to charge us ridiculous prices for 1990s internet, using every excuse in the book to keep from having to accept responsibility for lack of maintenance and interest, and continue to overlook the areas outside the urban centers. I know fiber optics are expensive - I'm no fool to this. I've been following internet installations closely nearby and seen invoices totaling $10,000/mile for fiber optic installation, not to mention the costs of the data centers, IPs, etc. But for what Verizon is doing to us price wise now, they should be able to recoup the cost in no time. I'd gladly pay $100/month if I could have anything close to what those around us with FiOS get for speeds.

Verizon - DO something!