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8,500 Verizon Customers Disconnected Because of 'Substantial' Data Use (arstechnica.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the flick-of-a-switch dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Verizon is disconnecting another 8,500 rural customers from its wireless network, saying that roaming charges have made certain customer accounts unprofitable for the carrier. The 8,500 customers have 19,000 lines and live in 13 states (Alaska, Idaho, Iowa, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Utah, and Wisconsin), a Verizon Wireless spokesperson told Ars today. They received notices of disconnection this month and will lose access to Verizon service on October 17. Verizon said in June that it was only disconnecting "a small group of customers" who were "using vast amounts of data -- some as much as a terabyte or more a month -- outside of our network footprint." But one customer, who contacted Ars this week about being disconnected, said her family never used more than 50GB of data across four lines despite having an "unlimited" data plan. We asked Verizon whether 50GB a month is a normal cut-off point in its disconnections of rural customers, but the company did not provide a specific answer. "These customers live outside of areas where Verizon operates our own network," Verizon said. "Many of the affected consumer lines use a substantial amount of data while roaming on other providers' networks and the roaming costs generated by these lines exceed what these consumers pay us each month. We sent these notices in advance so customers have plenty of time to choose another wireless provider."

2 of 108 comments (clear)

  1. Nationwide coverage by hackwrench · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Why do I get the impression Verizon misrepresented its coverage.

  2. Re:Families in rural areas screwing themselves by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    otoh, I can't really feel bad about rural markets getting screwed over by policies they voted to be implemented upon themselves anyways.v

    I'll bite. Not all "rural" communities are the same and no, they did not "vote" for this upon themselves.

    I live in a large acre lot neighborhood. Most homes run $500k+, however, we are 20 minutes from nearest town and probably 45-60 minutes from nearest city - by choice. Below is a timeline of events based on an anecdotal personal experience.

    2008 - Move into my current residence in a "rural" market. Alltell 3G unlimited plan. Good solid 150KB/s and ~250ms ping times when no real alternative existed.
    2009 - Verizon acquires Alltel. No changes to existing plans.
    2010 - Verizon introduces LTE. Unlimited data plans are allowed for a brief period of time.
    2011 - iPhones hit Verizon's network and tear it to absolute shreds.
    2012 - Verizon network continues to be crap on 3G. All investment is in LTE / plans where they can charge consumers per GB. 3G starts dropping into 2G/1xRTT - frequently. 2500ms pings and 16KB/s bandwidth is horrible to deal with.
    2012 - Large telco runs fiber to government/municipal buildings and has a large station 2 miles from entrance of neighborhood. DSL is also available at large station. They refuse to run fiber or DSL to our neighborhood.
    2013 - Switch to ViaSat Satellite. At 25GB/month datacap and 750ms pings, it beats the hell out of the 2G nonsense. From midnight until (6am?) its unlimited downloads - you get creative with managing your bandwidth as a result.
    *Note - Verizon at this point has NO LTE home broadband solution. The only option available is 10GB max per month data plans, which is nowhere near sufficient for home internet usage. No other mobile carrier has signal where we are located.

    2014 - A citizens group in my county regularly meets and petitions our county commissioners to fix the inaccurate broadband maps which note we have access to DSL when we do not.
    2015 - A small telco comes to talk to us about running fiber to neighborhoods - realizing we are an underserved community (with broadband maps updated!). They need 1 signup every 1000 ft. to justify the cost of running the line. Signups were immediate. Coincidentally, we also had a county commissioner in an adjacent neighborhood who was willing to help the small telco cut through the red tape to get the fiber run.
    2015 - Large telco starts sending out flyers for DSL signups. We give them the middle finger.
    2016 - Small telco has fiber complete and running to neighborhoods.

    From a "rural" perspective, yes, I was engaged in local politics to vote and GET THIS FIXED. I would encourage others to do the same.