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Verizon Begins Charging a Fee Just to Use an Older Router (dslreports.com)
Karl Bode, reporting for DSLReports: Several users have written in to note that Verizon has informed them the company will begin charging FiOS customers with an older router a new "Router Maintenance Charge." An e-mail being sent to many Verizon FiOS customers says that the fee of $2.80 will soon be charged every month -- unless users pay Verizon to get a more recent iteration of its FiOS gateway and router. Since Verizon FiOS often uses a MOCA coax connection and the gateway is needed for Verizon TV, many FiOS users don't have the ability to swap out gear as easily as with other ISPs. "Our records indicate that you have an older model router that is being discontinued," states the e-mail. "If you do plan to keep using your current router, we will begin billing, on 9.29.16, a monthly Router Maintenance Charge of $2.80 (plus taxes), to ensure we deliver the best support."
UK person here - Seriously, if this happened in the UK there'd be a gigantic 'fuck off' from the customers and probably god knows what in complaints and legal stuff against the company involved.
You guys need to open up that market and vote with your feet! If companies think they're able to put that kind of crap in the T&C's and get away with it then it means you lot are:
a) too comfortable
b) fucked
c) being subjected to some backhanded deal
d) probably profit somewhere.
Those might be my only 2 choices in our new home.
dave
Lets face it there have been changes in networking standards over the years, and it's a cost to deal with legacy anything.
I have FiOS broadband only (not from Verizon). All I have is a 100Base-T cable from the ONT (Optical Network Terminal) on the outside of my house**. What that cable goes to is none of my provider's* business.
*Frontier. Actually a pretty decent company to work with. When I upgraded my defunct wireless broadband to their system, they 'stuck' me with a maintenance contract (couple of bucks a month added) but said I could cancel it once the system was up and running and I wouldn't be calling for support. So when I called to cancel it, the account sales person tried reading me all the reasons I should keep the add-on, like anti-virus, O/S support, etc. I just said, "I run Linux" and she said, "Never mind. You won't be needing all that support." Charge removed, no arguments.
**When the installer showed up and put in the ONT, he was getting ready to crawl up in my attic with their MOCA coax. I just handed him the Cat 5 cable (pulled right to the ONT location) and told him that would be all I'd be needing. He just plugged it in and left with a big grin (no crawling through the attic insulation that day).
Have gnu, will travel.
[quote]Since Verizon FiOS often uses a MOCA coax connection and the gateway is needed for Verizon TV, many FiOS users don't have the ability to swap out gear as easily as with other ISPs.[/quote]
This isn't really true. Their gateway isn't required for Verizon TV. Their cable boxes use a MoCA LAN to get guide and on demand data, and the Verizon Gateway has built-in MoCA WAN and LAN, but you can always use your own MoCA adapter connected to your router for LAN to the cable boxes. You can also request CableCards instead and use your own boxes like the HDHomerun Prime or Tivo.
The ONT where the fiber comes in has both an ethernet port and a coax port. You have them switch to the ethernet port for internet and use your own router. Video will still go over QAM on the coax port.
I wouldn't be surprised if the new routers have remote troubleshooting features that will make tech support easier/cheaper. Hence the surcharge....
love is just extroverted narcissism
I wouldn't be surprised if the new routers have remote troubleshooting features that will make tech support easier/cheaper. Hence the surcharge....
Of course they're better for Verizon. Verizon enures the benefits, so Verizon should foot the bill.
ob. car analogy: I had a mechanic put a $6 "scanner" charge on his bill. I asked him about it and he said he had to pay for his new scanner somehow (after I had already told him the code from my $60 reader so it wasn't even necessary). He agreed to waive it "just once" so I never went back. Thank goodness there's no Public Mechanics Commission that granted him a monopoly on fixing cars in this town.
Service providers need tools to do their job well. There is always a time to get better tools. That's the responsibility of the service provider and is built into the price of the service. My goodness, if I showed up at a client site and billed them $20 to use my laptop to diagnose their network they'd tell me where to stick it and I'd deserve it.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
How in the world does it cost verizon more money if customers choose to use a certain router? This should be illegal.
Dear Verizon,
I'm happy that you're charging me a fee so you can continue to offer "best support". If at any time I find you are not offering me the best support, or indeed have no occasion or need to offer me support since everything just works fine, I shall be obliged to issue a chargeback.
To be fair, the NSA fine Verizon for every user that doesn't use one of their backdoored routers, so Verizon are just passing on this cost.
ISP should be forced not to change for any hardware! It must be part of the base rate or you must be able to buy it with no added fees for having your own hardware.
Comcast forces you to rent there hardware at an added cost on the static IP plans on top the static IP fees.
I had a mechanic put a $6 "scanner" charge on his bill. I asked him about it and he said he had to pay for his new scanner somehow (after I had already told him the code from my $60 reader so it wasn't even necessary).
So you spent $60 to save yourself a $6 scanner charge. Sounds like a good expenditure to me.
It sounds like you know nothing about car repair. Let me explain: there are some people in the world who actually can repair their cars themselves. People who do more than change their own oil and brake jobs and such might actually invest in a cheap scanner to get diagnostic codes from their vehicle when something goes wrong, so that way they know what needs fixing. (That's why the manufacturers put those diagnostic codes in in the first place.)
I assume GP has probably used his scanner on a number of occasions and by doing his own car repair probably saves hundreds of dollars on every major repair. However, almost every home mechanic will reach a point when a repair is not worth his time or he doesn't have the equipment to deal with -- in which case, like GP, he might take his vehicle to a mechanic.
GP's point was: he could get a diagnostic code with a cheap $60 scanner, and his mechanic was claiming he needed to charge a $6 diagnostic fee PER SERVICE to recoup the cost of a scanner. Point being: unless the scanner only does 10 diagnostics before dying, the mechanic may be significantly overcharging for his "scanner fee." (In reality, many pro scanners can cost more -- often a few hundred dollars -- but a $6 fee still seems steep if a customer came in and told you exactly what needed to be fixed.)
he had to pay for his new scanner somehow
Ha...He does not understand how margins work. Charge the rate that covers your costs.
Socket wrench fee $.03
Front office air conditioning: $0.08
Receipt signature ink fee: $0.001
So long as you're just using FiOS for Internet, use your own NAT router (If you're using them for TV, you'll need MoCA for the STBs). Call them up and say this:
I want to switch my ONT from MoCA to ethernet. Please release the hardware lease on my equipment, too. I'm about to connect my new equipment.
That's all you need to do :)
My cube-mate called up and politely said "WFT!?", and after some sighing, Verizon agreed to send him a new box for free. So that's something.
How does an ISP $2 dollar charge make a news item worth of slashdot? Heck most of us have been fighting miscellaneous carrier fees for years.. Call Verizon and complain...
Nothing to see here.
First off, it's $2.80/month + taxes and fees, so probably at least $40/year or so. A single year of this fee would thus be equal to the cost of a cheap router, probably less at the manufacturer's cost Verizon probably pays for them.
And the issue -- at least from my perspective -- is that they apparently are charging general fees to people for "maintenance" just because they have old equipment, rather than simply... well, charging for maintenance calls when necessary to deal with support. If they want to tell you: "You own old equipment which we no longer support fully -- any future troubleshooting calls may incur an extra X dollar fee," that seems perfectly reasonable. Or if they are really upgrading for their own convenience, why not offer a FREE equipment upgrade to customers? Routers aren't that expensive, considering the price most people pay for cable and internet per month. (One month of fees for most people likely exceeds their cost for a router.)
Instead, Verizon is punishing its most loyal customers who have been around long enough for their equipment to become out-of-date by pushing nonsense fees. Are these fees a lot compared to most random cable fees? No -- but the whole thing is in fact a bit ridiculous.
I received one of these emails from Verizon, which for $59.99 "is a great opportunity to enhance your Fios experience with faster Wi-Fi speeds."
It isn't so much the money or speed I worry about as the ability to control the router's advanced settings for server ports, etc. that I have now in the "old" router.
I couldn't find any detailed information about the new router. I am seriously worried that the advanced settings will be dumbed down or made unavailable, so their outsourced customer service won't have to be concerned with technical stuff and thus require less training. Maybe the monthly fee for the old router is a red flag that this is the case, since they may need customer support with more training. I don't want to buy the new router and then be screwed unless I upgrade to an expensive "business" account. I doubt they will let me go back to the old router.
Does anyone know the specs for the new router?
Heck, I bought a $600 scanner tool. Already paid for itself and everything from now on is money on top. That doesn't include the fact that I can continue running an older car for far less than buying a new one.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
I too got this email but it was a head scratcher since I've used my own router for as long as I've had Fios (since 2007). I called them to say I don't have one of their routers.After some back and forth they agreed I didn't - what I do have however is an old Motorola NIM100 that acts as the MOCA to ethernet bridge in these systems. I responded with "well since I don't have your router I don't have to pay $2.80/month" and the script response more or less was "we don't care what you have, we're charging you $2.80/month or buy *our* new router for $60".
I nicely explained that since I've had this forever it clearly didn't need "support" and I was not going to pay $2.80 month. I explained that I wasn't blaming the support person for my annoyance but could she ask her manager if they wanted to lose a customer over this nickel and dime charge as I don't see any difference between FIOS and Comcast and would just as soon switch on the principal of the thing (I happen to be able to get both). She put me on hold for a few minutes and said they would still charge me $2.80/month, but credit me $3.00 month. Though only for 12 months...so I guess I'll have to call them every 12 months until they cut this silliness out, or the thing breaks and actually does have to be replaced.
In all fairness to the support people there this is only the 2nd time I've called FIOS support and both times it was a good experience.
This affects nobody. You can use any router you want, and you do want to use the new FiOS router to get the highest speeds over the MoCa connection.
You merely set the router you want to use to be exposed to the internet using the "DMZ" feature. I have the latest FiOS router and it works perfectly with DD-WRT just fine. I have full inbound/outbound control without restrictions.
Kriston
This is not a problem for anyone and it costs nothing.
You call Verizon and they send you a new FiOS router.
You plug in your existing router (say it's DD-WRT or whatever) into the new FiOS router.
You set your existing router (DD-WRT or whatever) in the DMZ or pass-through setting in the new FiOS router, just like you did before.
Your existing router (DD-WRT or whatever) has full inbound/outbound internet access with no restrictions.
No extra costs apply. Your speeds get faster. You gain the ability to sign up for a 1 Gigabit internet connection.
This article has generated some seriously bad Slashdot knee-jerk coverage here. I have the new FiOS router. I do not pay more money. I am using the same DD-WRT router I have been using for years which still has complete inbound/outbout access.
I also now have 50+ megabit for no extra charge.
Kriston
I have had FiOS as long as anyone. The original deployment used PPPOE encapsulation for traffic, and required your router to sign in before getting an IP address.
Newer installs are regular Ethernet and simply rely on the router MAC address for access control. PPPOE and Ethernet configurations are currently co-existing on the FiOS network I am using, I can use both at the same time with two routers, one with DHCP and the other with PPPOE.
They are maintaining dual infrastructures with entirely separate public IP address ranges. While charging their customers to encourage them to get rid of the legacy ActionTEC routers is annoying, they did send me a new one for free. I'll possibly set it up some day if I am forced to.
Comcast tried to get me to upgrade about 6th months ago for 'enhanced performance'. Since I own my router and only have a 3.5mb account of course I opted out- but the upgrade was voluntary. I really am curious behind the push for these new routers.
love is just extroverted narcissism
That's why you have them run CAT5 from the ONT into your house. The wire is usually there already, since they install it "just in case" you get phone service (apparently it hooks into the CAT5 port on the ONT. If you have home phone service, you have to use coax for internet since ethernet is then used for phone). Then you can use your own router (in my case a VM running Vyos). We have FiOS TV as well, so I have a device acting as a MOCA bridge (on it's own VLAN, I want their stuff isolated from my home network) and their devices connect to that via coax. You just need to make sure you forward the correct ports to the right set top box so you get the TV Guide and other features. If you have a DVR, then that's the device that everything is forwarded to, and it shares the information with any other set top boxes it sees.
AT&T U-Verse tried to get me to upgrade my router when I complained about them blocking IPv6. Doing so would have added an additional monthly charge for no benefit to me.
And why would I ever trust the ISP router anyway? I use my own FreeBSD based router between my network and their router which proved to be a good idea since when they did firmware updates, they also reset their router settings enabling WiFi and leaving it open.
When I recently changed to Charter because the AT&T transfer caps were just too much on top of blocking IPv6, Charter asked if I needed a router and I said, "Nope." The switch over took all of 5 seconds while I moved the network cable and my FreeBSD router used DHCP to grab the routable address from the cable modem and that is all it is, a cable modem.
If your router were to somehow develop a problem ;-), Verizon would replace it with one of the newer routers for free. Problem solved.