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Verizon Begins Charging a Fee Just to Use an Older Router (dslreports.com)

Posted by msmash on from the in-some-other-news dept.

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."

18 of 180 comments (clear)

  1. Really, this happens in America? How?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

    1. Re:Really, this happens in America? How?? by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Nickel-and-diming your customers to death is an American tradition.

    2. Re:Really, this happens in America? How?? by netsavior · · Score: 4, Informative

      Most areas in the US have 1-2 broadband providers. And in areas where people actually subscribe to Verizon FIOS, the only other option (if there is one) is a far slower connection. In my home town (before Frontier took over for verizon), your choices were: 2mbit DSL or 100mbit FIOS

      No voting with your feet when the country is 40 times bigger than the UK, geographically speaking, and under-served in the broadband market.

    3. Re:Really, this happens in America? How?? by zieroh · · Score: 4, Informative

      Here in the US, I think most would agree that AT&T and Verizon are equally terrible. The difference, though, is that A&T achieves that through gross incompetence, while Verizon actually goes out of their way to be evil.

      --
      People who say "sheeple" have about as much sophistication as an AOL user, and in fact are probably actually AOL users.
    4. Re:Really, this happens in America? How?? by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Wrong Word.

      The correct words are "Franchise Agreements". And those are granted by your local municipality. Stop blaming businesses for corrupting your local mayors and council critters.

      The problem is easily solvable, because it is a problem of the "last mile" and a simple bond measure would solve it. Issue bonds to build out Conduit pathways to all city dwellings and commercial buildings. Pull fiber to each house, back to a single (or more) COLO facility. Offer any/all providers a spot in said COLO facility to offer whatever they want, to any/all of the people hanging on the other end of all that fiber.

      1) Competition will create lower prices
      2) Competition will create additional options (a la carte??)
      3) Competition isn't for last mile, it is for service.

      IF you are pissed at your options, make this proposal to your City council next time the Franchise Agreements come up for renewal. MAKE them work for you, they are your Public Servants (or should be)

      --
      Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
    5. Re:Really, this happens in America? How?? by Ultra64 · · Score: 4, Funny

      >Seriously, if this happened in the UK there'd be a gigantic 'fuck off' from the customers

      Wait, wait, are we talking about the same UK where the citizens have to pay for a 'TV license'?

    6. Re: Really, this happens in America? How?? by Miamicanes · · Score: 5, Interesting

      That's what happened to me. When I bought my house ~10 years ago, I made a point of adding a contingency for DSL availability (because I didn't want to get stuck with Comcast).

      It turns out, both of my immediate neighbors to my left and right had DSL, but AT&T wouldn't let ME sign up because their DSLAM was maxed out, and they weren't going to expand it. For a year and a half, literally the only way to get DSL was to call them and be lucky enough to grab the slot recently opened up by someone (they didn't have a waiting list, either).

      The two years I was forced to endure Comcast were MISERABLE. Their service went down AT LEAST 2 or 3 times per week. I was working from home, so when it happened... I noticed immediately. Basically, their installers would disconnect trunk cables when doing new installations & take everyone downstream from that node offline, because at that point they still had the mentality of "TV provider" instead of "five-nines network service provider".

      The worst part about it is, if I called Comcast to report the outage (and implicitly, to bitch at them for going down yet again), they INSISTED upon wasting my time making me reboot my computer and other troubleshooting steps, even though they could have known within a matter of seconds whether my cable modem was even reachable. They basically treated service outages like a state secret, and bent over backwards to not admit there was one in my neighborhood, even when they knew DAMN WELL that the problem was somewhere upstream from my cable modem. And Comcast STILL doesn't seem to understand why I passionately hate them so much, and refuse to talk to their salespeople.

    7. Re:Really, this happens in America? How?? by AthanasiusKircher · · Score: 5, Informative

      It is not called Franchise but concession.
      Mac Donalds etc. are Franchises.

      Wrong -- by federal law, cable providers often operate as local franchises. That's the term the government uses:

      A variety of laws and regulations for cable television exist at the state and local level. Some states, such as Massachusetts, regulate cable television on a comprehensive basis through a state commission or advisory board established for the sole purpose of cable television regulation. In Alaska, Connecticut, Delaware, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Vermont, the agencies are state public utility commissions. In Hawaii, regulation of cable television is the responsibility of the Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs. In other areas of the country, cable is regulated by local governments such as a city cable commission, city council, town council, or a board of supervisors. These regulatory entities are called "local franchising authorities." ...

      The Communications Act requires that no new cable operator may provide service without a franchise and establishes several policies relating to franchising requirements and franchise fees. The Communications Act authorizes local franchising authorities to grant one or more franchises within their jurisdiction.

      Etc.

      By the way, you may want to look up the original definition of "franchise," which had to do with governments granting the right to do business in a particular area or for a particular set of goods, services, etc. The word was later extended in meaning to refer to large corporations granting rights to individual owners to sell their company's products, etc. as in your McDonalds example.

    8. Re:Really, this happens in America? How?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      Is that the same UK where you have to ask your ISP to look at porn?

    9. Re: Really, this happens in America? How?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      They know perfectly well why you hate them, they just don't care.

  2. If the router can't handle IP6 why not ? by Crashmarik · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Lets face it there have been changes in networking standards over the years, and it's a cost to deal with legacy anything.

  3. Re:Which is worse, Verizon or Comcast? by Crashmarik · · Score: 5, Funny

    Comcast is really bad. But when you live in area that actually has competition they get better.

    Ex. In my area ATT began a fiber rollout and Comcast suddenly discovered customer service and competitive pricing.

  4. Re:Probably not me by thevirtualcat · · Score: 3, Funny

    That reminds me of a conversation I had with a FiOS installer circa 2009.

    "Er, can you run CAT5 instead of coax?"
    "No, you need coax for TV."
    "You're not installing TV, though. Just Internet. Can we run CAT5?"
    "You might get TV later."
    "Nope. I won't. And even if I did, you'd be sending out another installer anyway. Can we run CAT5?"
    "I don't know how to crimp CAT5..."

  5. Re:Which is worse, Verizon or Comcast? by fred911 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Whereas this forced upgrade is a new way to forcibly fuck their consumer and I find it pretty reprehensible, at least Verizon
    has had a pretty documented history of protecting their customers ID's from the *AA. Got to hand it to them for that,

    2012
    https://torrentfreak.com/veriz...

    2003
    https://epic.org/privacy/copyr...

    --
    09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B - D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
  6. Possible workaround: Complain by Squach · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

  7. Re:Oh noes by ortholattice · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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?

  8. It's not the home router part they care about by LamaBrew · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  9. Get Ethernet from the ONT, then a MOCA bridge by Ingenium13 · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.