Verizon at Home

[#1]

Imagine being at a restaurant and asking  your waiter for a medium rare filet with a baked potato and  house salad, shocked to learn that the only way you can get what you want is if you also order broccoli and a Jell-O mold.  Otherwise, you have to order a New York strip to get those particular side orders…and it only comes medium well!

Over the years, some customers have said that ordering a bundle of FiOS services has been too limiting.  If you wanted, say, faster Internet speed or more TV channels, you still needed to move up to the next bundle tier – and up again to get even more broadband speed.

No more.

Recognizing that all digital lifestyles are not the same, Verizon has created new options for you and others to personalize your FiOS service bundles to best meet your unique digital voice, broadband and home entertainment needs.  Our new, flexible service choices, introduced today, feature the freedom to build a highly personalized bundle featuring all FiOS-based services that fits individual tastes.

For example, let’s say you and your family are rather settled with busy professional lives and active social calendars. If so, you may find social networking and a lot of video and photo uploading more important than watching a lot of specialized TV content.  In this case, you can start with a $99.99 per month bundle that offers broadband Internet speed of up to 15 Mbps downstream/5 Mbps upstream and, for $5 more per month, increase the Internet speed to 25 Mbps/25 Mbps. 

If you add an extra $5 more per month ($109.99 total per month), you zoom ahead to a window-rattling 35 Mbps/35 Mbps broadband Internet speed – and will still enjoy 233 TV channels including more than 50 in HD.

If on the other hand you have a younger family, you might find that 15 Mbps/5 Mbps speed is plenty of Internet speed but your clan wants a lot of TV content.  If this better resembles your family, you could select our $99.99 per month bundle and, for an extra $10 per month ($109.99 total per month) move up to a FiOS TV service with 324 channels including 80 in HD.  For $20 per month more ($119.99 per month) you and your family can enjoy 391 channels with over 100 in HD.

The new options are numerous and designed to help you customize a bundle that best meets your life situation. They start with a $99.99 triple play for new customers or $109.99 for existing customers whose contracts are ending or who are paying month to month.  Double play, the addition of Verizon Wireless services to the bundle and bundles appealing to Hispanic households are also available for customization.

The pricing referenced here, of course, is the base rate before set-top box rental fees, the cost of premium TV channels, taxes and fees. Last summer, we introduced the end of term contract requirements, designed to give you peace of mind with our Worry-Free Guarantee of month-to-month service as an option.

This summer, we’re adding in an additional layer of convenience.  Providing you with the best technology, no long-term commitments, and more of what you want in home entertainment -- that’s our way of making sure you get what you want and have a great entertainment experience.

[#2]

The selector for existing customers isnt working

Its says "sorry - call your local office "

After trying  3 more times it finally let me see my current plan and choose a number of options

Rather than the $10 more you advertise above, upgrading Video plan costs $40 more from one tier to the next ... 

That's more than a dollar a channel per month for the added channels

Im currently on a 2008 plan - I wouldn't mind changing plans but haven't found one since then that works for me.

Im already paying Verizon $220 a month for TV internet and phone.   I don't really want that number to jump to $300 a month. 

[#3]

silver_2000

Sorry you had problems with the website.  We'd like to help you personalize a FiOS bundle that works for you.  Please send me a private message here in the Verizon Community Forums with your name, address and a contact number and we'll have someone call you.

Bill

[#4]

BIl

Thanks for the offer of help

I sent my contact info in a PM yesterday

Doug

[#5]

Doug,

I sent you a more detailed Private Message, based on the information you provided us, but I wanted to post information that everyone could see as well.

First and foremost, THANK YOU for being a long-time FiOS customer.  You’ve seen a tremendous evolution of the service since we first introduced it in Keller,Texas, in 2005 and there is a lot more to come…count on it.

In fact, the ability to customize your FiOS bundle – faster Internet, less TV; more TV, I’m OK with 15 Mbps/5 Mbps Internet; or all I need is a double play but I still want faster Internet – is a sign of a maturing product offering.  However, like all maturing processes, there are sometimes bumps in the road and that is what you have experienced recently though I’m happy to report that it is a temporary experience...in your case, like another 30 days or so.

The issue is that we are using all FiOS services – FiOS Digital Voice, Internet and TV – as the basis for personalizing a bundle.  Going forward, all FiOS bundles for new customers will use only all FiOS services.  Long-time customers like you have FiOS Internet and TV but are using our copper-based Freedom calling plan.  Moving customers from Freedom to FiOS Digital Voice is a process that we can accomplish with no issues in about half of our territory.  In the other half, we are still ironing out the IT kinks to do that – and Texas is one of those states where we still cannot move existing customers to FDV.

But take heart!  In about 30 days that will no longer be a problem – to be safe, let’s say August 1.  (Building bundles online for existing customers will take a bit longer but calling 1-800-VERIZON should work fine.)

I’m going to have a Texas-based Verizon rep reach out to you to see what we can do.

Thanks again for you business…we’ll be calling.

Bill

[#6]

Why not offer a bundle that has all the HD's available but without all the additional sports stations while I do watch the local sports and espn at times I really have no need for a bunch of sports stations that I will never watch and I am sure there are more people like me who feel the same way - JMHO

[#7]

ggma1126,

Thank you for the suggestion.  I've sent it to the product management team, but I also suggest posting it at the Verizon Idea Exchange: http://forums.verizon.com/t5/Verizon-Idea-Exchange/ct-p/ideaexchange. By posting it, you'll give other Verizon customers a chance to see and support your idea by voting for it.

Bill

[#8]

My mom lives in South Jersey, and she had the Extreme HD package.  When this new package came out, I spoke with a sales rep, and was told that could upgrade her to the Ultimate HD, leave her internet the same, and it would cost 2.00 less a month for more channels.  She chose to take the package, but prior, said that she wanted no billings issues.  She was told that it would be flawless.

One month later.

She got her first bill, with the "savings".  She went from 192.00 to 246.00.  She was upset, and asked me to straighten it out.

I called billing, and was disconnected on purpose twice.  Once with a representative the other time with a supervisor.  The third time, I spoke with another supervisor, who told me that a lot of people had problems with this offer, and she put my mom back to her original package.

I find it annoying being disconnected after explaining things.  Also Verizon needs everyone on the same page.  Getting different stories from different people only infuriates people.  From now on, I will never even inquire on any offers because I won't go through a billing nightmare again.  I have FIOS as well, and will just stay with what I have.  My mom was ready to go back to Comcast.  That is how upset she was.  I guess we will have to see if her next bill will be another nightmare.

[#9]

Yeah, Verizon's billing process is the weakest link in their system. The FiOS product itself is just great, I am a happy camper. But, against my own advice to pick your stuff and stick with it, I recently 1) upgraded all of my STBs, 2) Added the Multi-room feature on my DVR, and 3) took advantage of the package pricing for a DVR and multiple HD STBs. The most recent bill is totally unintelligeable, but at least it does not show any stuff on it that I did not order, so hopefully in another month or two the bill will settle down and be back to the normal simple format I have been used to for years. Verizon really needs to figure out how to do billing in the 21st century instead of their phone-only process from the '70s (or '60s or '50s or????).