Verizon Backtracks Slightly In Plan To Kick Customers Off Network (arstechnica.com) 52
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Verizon Wireless is giving a reprieve to some rural customers who are scheduled to be booted off their service plans, but only in cases when customers have no other options for cellular service. Verizon recently notified 8,500 customers in 13 states that they will be disconnected on October 17 because they used roaming data on another network. But these customers weren't doing anything wrong -- they are being served by rural networks that were set up for the purpose of extending Verizon's reach into rural areas. Today, Verizon said it is extending the deadline to switch providers to December 1. The company is also letting some customers stay on the network -- although they must switch to a new service plan. "If there is no alternative provider in your area, you can switch to the S (2GB), M (4GB), 5GB single-line, or L (8GB) Verizon plan, but you must do so by December 1," Verizon said in a statement released today. These plans range from $35 to $70 a month, plus $20 "line fees" for each line. The 8,500 customers who received disconnection letters have a total of 19,000 lines. Verizon sells unlimited plans in most of the country but said only those limited options would be available to these customers. Verizon also reiterated its promise that first responders will be able to keep their Verizon service even though some public safety officials received disconnection notices. "We have become aware of a very small number of affected customers who may be using their personal phones in their roles as first responders and another small group who may not have another option for wireless service," Verizon said. "After listening to these folks, we are committed to resolving these issues in the best interest of the customers and their communities. We're committed to ensuring first responders in these areas keep their Verizon service."
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Not quite all of them, but yes, the vast majority of these customers should never have been allowed to sign up for branded Verizon service in the first place, as they live outside the native Verizon service area. Greed or incompetence allowed them to be erroneously signed up for service when they never should have been. So, the gravy train is over for them, they have to purchase service from the local native carrier.
There are a minute handful of customers, such as those who live in the Roaming Partners serv
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"It's easy to hate on them for a plethora of reasons, it just so happens that this isn't one of those reasons!"
Uhh, no. Use your brain. This was false advertising when you break it down. As you state: "the vast majority of these customers should never have been allowed to sign up for branded Verizon service in the first place, as they live outside the native Verizon service area"
Time to check into hospice, old one.
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Very nastily put, but correct. They entered those addresses into their computers along with the plan type, and then they said YEP! Contract Approved! No check of location vs. cell tower location/coverage. Address to UTC coordinates is now trivial to compute, and they had UTC coordinates of every tower. To not do the math meant setting up the customers up to be dropped. Customers bought hardware to match their network, dropped other carriers, etc up networking, etc. Verizon did no due diligence where d
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Did the advertising promise them the same rate forever? Somehow I doubt it. Surely Verizon has honored their end of the bargain for the contracted terms, and now wants to simply not renew the contracts. I don't see why they shouldn't have that right.
If I contract to sell you my service for $X/month for the next two years, and after two years I realize I'm losing money on the deal badly, why should I have to extend your contract?
Besides, Verizon is a private company and can do whatever they want, as long
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Somehow I doubt Verizon cares who a customer voted for in the last Presidential election. Every carrier, every single one, besides Verizon has enforced roaming limits up until this point. Verizon has decided to start doing what every other cellular carrier does. The customers are unprofitable, as you said, and any company will fire unprofitable customers. It's a fact of life, no politics involved.
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Sure, go ahead and chop down that tower. It won't hurt Verizon; it's not their tower. It belongs to some other (more local) company, that Verizon was working with to allow roaming.
I think they *should* chop down the tower, because that means they won't have *any* cellular service now, not even from their overpriced local company, and they may even drive that company out of business so they'll never get any service. Sounds good to me. Fuck 'em. They brought this on themselves.
Government should do the same to Verizon (Score:2)
Verizon is skimming the cream, they're cherry picking, they're looting and pillaging.
Time the government does the same to Verizon by taking away Verizon's bandwidth or increasing the price by 10x. I'm sure Verizon's competitors would love to have this... As a consumer who's watched Verizon pillage for years I would love to see this happen to Verizon.
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Should T-Mobile, AT&T, and Sprint also have their spectrum taken away because they kick people off for roaming too much?
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Sure!
Or break them up. Perhaps you're too young to remember the song about AT&T's breakup...
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I'm old enough to remember that while expensive and stagnant, AT&T's wireline network was rock-solid. There were positive and negative aspects of the Modification of Final Judgement, which we could argue all night, but this is a little different. There are still 3 competitors for cellular service nationwide, and these rural users also have a local carrier to choose from in most cases.
I don't think breaking up the cell carriers does anyone any favors. Do you want to return to the days of driving to the n
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No, you completely missed the point.
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It's the users who are "looting and pillaging."
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Can you provide a citation? Not that it matters a whole lot, because in essence VZW has sold/rented/leased that spectrum to the LRAs, just as the feds have "sold" spectrum which naturally belongs to the public to VZW.
Re:Government should do the same to Verizon (Score:4, Insightful)
How are the users looting and pillaging when Verizon access was advertised and is now being pulled away?
Try using some common fucking sense. Verizon never owned those towers yet they advertised coverage.
Jesus Christ. It's like the vanguard of /. is losing their fucking brains or have been paid off by companies to be apologetic shills.
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Companies can't be held to something they advertised decades ago; there's limits. If Verizon has honored their contracts, then they're free to refuse service to these people. They're under no obligation to keep providing them service forever.
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Fuck that. I say let Verizon kick these idiots off and maintain their profits. If these people want service, they can buy it from the local carrier and pay high per-GB charges for it.
What you're talking about is government regulation, and that's absolutely the wrong thing here. The people who are affected by this are rural: they all vote for the GOP, the party which is steadfastly against regulation. These same people, I'm sure, have used a bunch of that bandwidth to write idiotic conservative messages
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Here we have a big corporation taking advantage of people with no other options so they can make more money.
Didn't you read the summary? They have other options: there's local companies they can buy service from, the companies that actually own the towers they're using. Don't give me this "no other options" bullshit. They just don't want to use the small local companies because they cost a lot more and don't have unlimited data.
Damage control (Score:1)
I'm Rural (Score:5, Informative)
Verizon is our only internet option. I pay over $200 a month for 3 'unlimited' lines. Every month we have to rotate through phones until we use them up.
High speed internet has become a necessity for modern life. Schools in my area *expect* the kids to have high speed access. Their books are on line, as are all their instructional videos for experiments and other homework. Sheduling for after-school activies is ALL done through email, remind, and mass-text.
Our government has failed us. More specifically, the FCC. The continue to ignore local monopolies and stand by while companies like Verizon shut down local internet shops and municipal broad band through lawsuits. I'm tired of it, but there isn't a damn thing I can do about it. Oh, I've called my congressmen and senators. I've commented during the FTC review period - which they ignore in its entirety.
Ajit Pai is the biggest stinking pile of shit to ever work in our government.
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Ajit Pai is truly a stinking pile of shit, but if you think he's the biggest stinking pile of shit to work in our government, then you clearly haven't been paying attention.
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And who do you vote for in the elections? I don't know about you specifically, but all your neighbors vote overwhemingly for the GOP, and one of the biggest parts of the GOP platform is "small government", which means as little regulation as possible, and they've been big-business friendly as long as I've been alive. So maybe you're an exception, but collectively, you rural dwellers are getting exactly what you voted for.
Our government has failed us. More specifically, the FCC. ... Ajit Pai is the biggest
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P.S.- I didn't vote for Trump. Not that it matters, or is any of your business. But this blind political hatred that so many Americans are currently mired in is not helping the cou
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Wireless targets. (Score:2)
I'm on the old (the OLD) unlimited employee plan. I pay $75.odd final for a single line and have downloaded 96GB this month, slightly higher than usual. I hear they kill anybody at over100 so I'm leaving the remainder alone until the end of the cycle (days)
Instead, these people should watch all of go90 (free bandwidth) and use Stream Pass (a Free Sports Package for go90 That Includes Free NBA League P
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So, how do we know V's overall network and general?
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Instead of kicking customers out, expand your own network. In fact, do that everywhere instead of punishing people for using it.
There's not enough density in these areas to justify the expense. If you want companies to service unprofitable areas at reasonable prices, you need strong government regulation to make that happen, the way they do in Europe where even in the rural areas like northern Finland they have good coverage, while typical cellular bills are much lower than here in the US. But the rural d
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Yep, and these local politicians are the responsibility of the idiots living in these places. Why should they get a subsidy from all the other Verizon customers nationwide? It's amazing how red-state voters think they're always entitled to a handout, but somehow never see it as such, but then bitch about other people receiving "welfare".
Why not throttle them instead? (Score:2)
If cellular bandwidth is so limited in these rural areas, why not just throttle customers after a certain amount of usage, or apply QoS during periods of heavy usage on the tower? You would think Verizon would be able to figure out a solution that doesn't involve kicking off paying customers.
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It's up to Verizon to allow their customers to roam onto other networks, though.
They could simply disable data roaming for people who are using more than the allowed data quota.
I don't understand ... (Score:2)
*It's not like customers are getting a great deal here. Roaming charges aren't cheap and I'm sure most customers would rather get Verizon native service.