Verizon made big promises and busted on all of them

All for nothing

Verizon recently launched its much-awaited Fios Gigabit Connection, for only $70 a month.

Touted as “the nation’s largest deployment of gigabit Internet connection service”, it was all set to be a winning recipe—high speed at low costs to more than 8 million American homes.

Womp womp

It failed spectacularly, on both counts. Downloads reached a maximum speed of 940Mbps, uploads flattened at 880Mbps. And that $70? Well, not exactly. It does not cover the router charges and other unadvertised fees.

You only get it for $70 if you are a new customer.

Existing faithful customers heard something very different: an upgrade that would cost as much as $200 a month. The Verizon call centers were even accused of giving out confusing or contradictory information. Customers will pay different bill amounts for the same service depending on their existing plans, it seems.

Big miss

As a Verizon representative told Ars Technica, “The specific price a customer pays to upgrade depends on what their current pricing is.”

For example, existing customers who already availed the 750Mbps, the previous top speed, should be able to upgrade starting April 30, and also see a reduction in their bill amount.

But it seems no one will be paying $70 exactly.

Even new customers shall be paying a monthly rental of $10 or a $150 one-time fee for a Fios router. The price for new customers will also go up sharply when the “special bonus discount,” or introductory, rates expire after 12 to 24 months.

All hat, no cattle

Fios is available in “parts of the New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Richmond, Va., Hampton Roads, Va., Boston, Providence and Washington, D.C. areas – that’s a more than one million home increase from the Instant Internet footprint with the Washington, D.C. and Providence markets getting access to Verizon’s top Internet speeds for the first time,” the company reported.

Verizon planned the Fios rollout to build a 100 percent fiber-to-home internet network that promised to be so powerful that you could plug in 100 devices at once! Speeds that are 20 times faster than your daily present experience!
[clickToTweet tweet=”@Verizonfios customers had to pay more and the speed never went up to the gigabit ballpark. #vzfios” quote=”Instead, customers were told they need to pay more and the speed never went up to the gigabit ballpark.”]

Turns out, Verizon’s technology and billing departments are not “up to speed” with its own ad agency.

#VerizonGigaBust