@Caps09 wrote:The changes, however silly they might seem, probably come from the wholesale cost of different channels. You can keep the channels you have as long as you don't change or commit to "new" packages, but you will have to pay what is considered the regular price.
Such is life in the world of mutichannel video. We demand every channel, but then we're outraged when the price goes up or some channels go away.
I agree with you, but placing the HD we had, into another package to suck us into a package with premium movie channels we do not need or want, is just not fair. Raise the price $5 if you must but not $20 to get us into the premium movie area to make more profit on channels we do not want! HD should be HD and Premiums should be Premiums! I know one cocky director that I would like to really yak at! But he does not even participate in his own blogs. Why does he not just post look how great I am for Verizon and their profit!
@spacedebris wrote:no, the price is not changing. The packages that are affected are the 2009 version of the extreme package, and the now defunct Premier and Essentials packages.
You call a $109 bundle with Extreme moving to a $124 bundle that is less Extreme no price increase? OK it is a $5 increase in price with slightly faster upload, but take channels away and give me upload speed of 25/25. I think we should have a choice. Give options to compete, not bundles that you can say are better, and existing customer do not like. Who is running marketing anyway.Yes fast both ways is better than cable, but don't PlSS off existing customers to prove a point! I am happy with my 20/5 and my existing lineup. I should have a choice. I do have one. Stay or go and they don't care. Of course they know I will stay, and that is why it's done.
Those of us that were here at launch remember I believe a term A La Carte. It never really took off because when bundles took off they could give better pricing, the choices started going away. We still have choices but only the ones that are offered. Create your own bundle, have not seen that work, except for creating which service you want instead of what levels. Like can you have Ultimate with 15/5? or 35/35 with Extreme? Not in a bundle.
Fios is not perfect but it blows away DirecTV and Cox (I've had both)!!! The Triple Play price is actually better than Cox's bundle deal and offers so much more. I was paying $110/mo. for D* alone, my latest Fios bill was $144 and included all 3 services. No contest.
@Rhodyman wrote:
Fios is not perfect but it blows away DirecTV and Cox (I've had both)!!! The Triple Play price is actually better than Cox's bundle deal and offers so much more. I was paying $110/mo. for D* alone, my latest Fios bill was $144 and included all 3 services. No contest.
I agree with you about price. I was in the same boat. But I may switch to DTV and internet only just because of the new marketing practices for the bundles. I have a custom 1 meter dish that does fairly well against rain fade. It and all coax has been parallel FIOS for 5 years. It may become live soon. (edit)
OK, so I should have said it wont go down.
@spacedebris wrote:OK, so I should have said it wont go down.
No problem spacedebris. Everyone is a bit upset about losing channels, and the notice that was sent out. At least with the move from Premium to Extreme, you were able to keep what you had until your bundle expired. Now it looks as if the clause in the TOS is being used. I was thinking of upgrading, but now I may just go back to 15/5 only internet. I may go back to DTV because my wife is pushing for some channels FIOS does not have. I may not need a perfect picture, but will miss it. Many of the requests for new channels have gone un answered. Yes many were added with the Premier to Extreme when the analogs were dropped, but that has been more than a year. I have no problem with a price increase because of rising cost to add many of the channels asked for in the 667+ posts in the sticky thread. Where is the free nASA broadcast that has been asked for time and time again. Perhaps there are limits to their limitless fiber and Verizon is hiding something. They are putting the cart before the horse. Adding the few channels to the Ultimate and removing them from Extreme was a dumb idea. I remember at one time suggesting an Ultimate or Supreme type package that gave all premiums at a discount. Well they did a bundle with all Premiums last year for $30, it did not go well enough so lets push people to get premium channels so they don't lose what they have. How S T U P I D! I can say BUTT but S T U P I D gets filtered. I myself dropped all my premium channels last year because I did not want or need them, and because of budget concerns. So this is like sticking a knife in me and twisting.
First off I would like to say this is just my opinion. Verizon like a lot of big company's have chosen to take the path of give less and charge more. This to me sucks as the customer however as a small business owner I can understand. What I do not agree with is Verizon acting like there not. What choice do you have all TV providers mistreat there customers. Because there are not enough people to stand up and say no more nothing will change. Honestly I don't know if any one else feel like HDTV is one ripoff after another. First you have to upgrade your TV which could be very expensive. Then come all the extra cost for cable box service packages and on demand. And now they try and force more money out of us. But if this isn't bad enough HD is the standard as mandated by the U.S. government. So tell me why HDTV and not SDTV in-cures the extra costs. Why do we keep having to pay more for HD channels when HDTV is no longer a new technology. I cant speak for anyone else but if Fios stays on this path I will simply take my money else were.
@Mr_Upset wrote:Why do we keep having to pay more for HD channels when HDTV is no longer a new technology.
Because most programmers are charging extra for Verizon to carry the HD version of their channels. The programmers also demand that their channels are included in certain packages that will get the most subscibers. The customers (yes, us) demand that Verizon carries different channels (have you seen the thread for Fox Soccer Channel?), so like it or not, right or wrong, we all end up paying for new channels. Every time a new HD channel is launched, there's a certain segment of subscribers that demand it.
Some of you may say that channels should be sold to us individually. While that sounds nice for some of us who may watch two or three channels, think about this- Channel "x" now has 7 million subscribers paying $1 a month through wholesale costs. With a la carte, this same channel will now have maybe 100,000 subscribers if it's an average rated cable channel. In order for that programmer to make the same profit and be able to produce the content at the same cost level, those 100,000 people will have to pay $70 a month for that one channel. Just a thought. Maybe a cheaper or higher rated channel would only cost $35 or $40 a month.
I agree. I just got notified that my bundle was expiring. The price went up $5 per month, but I would lose all of the movie channels and would have to pay $15.99 extra to get them back, essentially increasing my price by $20.99. I opted to go with the ultimate package, assured that all of the previous movie channels will be included plus EPIX. I appears now as is I still won't get Starz unless I pay an additional $10/per month, although it may be region dependent ( I was assured by customer service Starz will be included. We'll see.)
It looks like Verizon is getting their direction from the airlines with nickel and dime fees.
Caps09, you are exactly right. What most people dont understand is that the channels carried by Verizon charges Verizon to carry it. (with very few exceptions). Therefor Verizon groups those channels in such a way as to maintain a profit margin. When channels start charging Verizon more to carry it, they move it to one of the higher plans to maintain the profit. Just look at the recent fight with fox and time warner. Fox wanted more money, time warner didnt want to pay. Fox nearly pulled their channel from time warner. Now in that case it was resolved publicly, which is why I think Fox was willing to negotiate. But in most cases these negotiations are held in private, the pubic doesnt know about it so there is no public opinion affecting the outcome, and why we never see it. once those negotiations are done, then the company in question (Verizon in this case) then re-oganizes their channel lineups and packages to put higher cost channels on the upper levels.
Now in this case, the only people affected are the people on older plans, none of the current plans are affected by the channel changes. The older plans no longer reflect a profitable system for Verizon and they are moving the channels to make it profitable again.
from a customer standpoint, this sucks. But from a business standpoint, it is just good business. As much as they would like to keep customers happy, the bottom line is profit, and that is the only reason they are there in the first place, to make money. Fine ballancing act.
They offer the faster speeds on internet because for all intents and purposes, faster internet doenst cost them anything but gives the customer more bang for the buck. They have to charge more for the video so they give more on the data and try to ballance it out. Good or bad, thats the way it works
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