Making connectivity suck

You know that scene in Casablanca in the marketplace where Rick is trying to make nice with Ilsa, who’s pretending to look at some textiles so she doesn’t have to talk with him? And the cloth vendor keeps holding up new, lower, prices as it becomes clear to him during the conversation that she’s in the “special friends of Rick” category?

Well, dealing with ISPs is like that, except that they start out with their “special friends of Rick” pricing on their website, and you end up paying much, much more and geting much, much less than that when the installer and the bill arrive.

Case in point: because I’ve been in the dark realm of Comcast for the past 15 years, I thought that this time around I’d try Fios from Verizon. Leaving aside the issue that their website is a very miracle of obfuscation and endless loops that take you from screen to screen without giving you information that’s of any help in making a, you know, informed decision, so that you’re driven to speak with a telephone rep or enter into one of those dreaded chat sessions, it doesn’t matter which way you go at it: you’re screwed.

 Here was my starting point: bundled phone, Internet and TV at $69.99 per month, no two-year contract.

 

Note the “100 Mbps Internet”. That seems pretty clear, no?

But even after spending 20 minutes on the phone with one of their fast talkers, here’s the price point I ended up with: $106.36, for a bundle that includes Internet at 20/5 Mbps. (Oh—and this actually is a two-year contract. Imagine that!)

The extra $40 is for the equipment that’s necessary to deliver these services (the modem, router and set-top box). Meaning: the $69.99 is for Verizon to push the services to your walls. If you actually want to use them, you have to cough up the extra dosh.

In fact, there is no option for purchasing the set-top box; you’re completely stuffed. So the $69.99 “deal” is…at a minimum, bait-and-switch.

 

 

(Kind of like airfares, when you come to think of it. You know—they advertise one-way tickets between SFO and JFK for $229, but when time comes to give them your credit card details, you’re on the hook for $474.)

But the Internet speed is another stab in the side. When I called their sales line to ask what’s up with the promised 100 Mbps but stipulated delivery of 20 Mbps download, I was told that the offer is “up to 100 Mbps” (which, as you’ll note, is not what they actually say on the website), and that I’m only getting 20 Mbps because we’re talking about a multi-unit building, and that’s all they can do.

(They don’t even qualify that 100 Mbps in the fine print, which you have to scroll down to the bottom of the page to find.)

 

Well, they could muster up 30 Mbps, but that costs another $20 per month.

But wait—there’s more. For some reason I looked at the delivery order and didn’t see any mention of DVR capability, so I spent another 20 minutes on a chat with “Destiny”, one of their agents. That’s an extra service, too. To the tune of $12 per month.

See how quickly it adds up? I’m not even watching any premium channels. I’m getting very basic TV, phone and much slower Internet than I’d been led to believe, and I’m paying 65% more than the come-on price.

Seriously—if this isn’t bait and switch, it’s just plain demanding money with menaces. Verizon is moving its way down to Comcast status before they’ve even stepped foot in my house.

This is not the beginning of a beautiful relationship.