Verizon New $20 Fee

[Williamsmith]

Add a new line to your service and Verizon will be thanking you with a $20 activation fee that is new to the Verizon fee tool box. This is expected to net Verizon a cool 189 million more dollars per year. So what's the big deal you say, all the other major providers charge one time activation fees. Well that's a sorry excuse. Just because everyone else does it.

so what is Verizon going to do with that money? Improve their service... I doubt it. Cell phone service in the United States is the worst in terms of cost and reliability. Compared to other developed and not so developed nations .....it sucks here. Why is that?

how bout the Telecommunications Act of 1996. It was supposed to allow for all this competition and free market magic that would add new technology, new companies and drive costs down. With no minimum standards all the companies agreed to suck. Consolidation of companies ensured that little competition exists. So we pay for the worst service globally and we pay at some of the highest fees.

Go figure that the head of the FCC was a cellular telephone lobbyist in charge of influence peddling on in D.C.

I did however figure an upside. Terrorists will have trouble communicating when trying to pull off attacks on our homeland. "Mohammad, can you hear me now? How bout now? Now?"

[freshstart]

[QUOTE=Williamsmith;222233 Terrorists will have trouble communicating when trying to pull off attacks on our homeland. "Mohammad, can you hear me now? How bout now? Now?"[/QUOTE]

good one

I just read in Consumer Reports that the law to make cable providers offer and support things other than cable boxes (i.e.: cable cards for tivos) so not every cable customer was forced into having a set top box is not being "re-newed" as consumers did not take advantage of it. Consumers probably did not know they had a choice, so let's cut that law designed to help them. Why not leave it standing? cable lobbyists maybe

[SteveinMN]

One would think we've been through enough mess and expense and waste "letting the market" decide on tech standards. The FCC has let things ride since the 70s and what we have to show for it is a litany of failed standards and a hodgepodge of providers. Broadband, mobile, AM stereo, digital TV -- all of them came late and expensive and early adopters who helped build a market tossed millions of dollars of incompatible equipment.

Not setting a cellular standard allowed multiple technologies to proliferate even though pretty much the rest of the world already had settled on GSM and every mobile carrier in the U.S. eventually moved to a technology much like GSM in their latest iterations.

Given that telecommunications is a commodity these days, one standard for each technology should have been established by the gubmint and the efforts of the service providers spent better on accessibility and coverage with that one standard.


I just read in Consumer Reports that the law to make cable providers offer and support things other than cable boxes (i.e.: cable cards for tivos) so not every cable customer was forced into having a set top box is not being "re-newed" as consumers did not take advantage of it. Consumers probably did not know they had a choice, so let's cut that law designed to help them.
Show of hands here if others knew about cable cards? I think you're right. It was a bit circular, though -- manufacturers stopped offering the ability to use cable cards because cable companies made them relatively hard to procure and use. Which let the cable companies justify this course of action because "nobody uses them".

I'm guessing the cable companies didn't want to ignore an income stream. Our previous HDTV had a tuner which could accept the cable company's signal for the "standard" channels (local broadcast, open access, C-SPAN, etc.) without a converter box. But Comcast decided to encrypt even that signal so that a converter box was necessary even though the TV was perfectly fine before. >:(

[Radicchio]

Raising my hand I do remember the cards, also the promise that with a QAM tuner I could continue to get the same channels I was getting on a low tier cable package we currently had with analog (one up from basic,which was just local stations). You know how that turned out, after we replaced a couple TVs.

[Alan]

One would think we've been through enough mess and expense and waste "letting the market" decide on tech standards.
Oh, I don't know. I'd rather the government not dictate every last thing to me as a consumer. If we'd gone the European route and have forced participation of only one standard, GSM, we'd never have seen some of the other technologies. I was enthralled with Nextel's iDEN network which was eventually killed by SPRINT.
There are advantages to consolidation, but the dis-advantages to the consumer can be huge. I remember fondly my first Betamax VCR which was soon put out of business by the VHS manufacturers. Beta was a better product but couldn't compete with the market which wanted cheaper, crappier tapes. If the government had been involved, it wouldn't even have been allowed to exist. Market forces can be disappointing, but at least give innovation a chance.

[Cypress]

I never heard of cable cards until I read this. I live in central Massachusetts and we have Charter Communication for cable service. RCN is starting to move into the Boston market now. I believe Comcast is the major cable provider in that area. Choice is making its way in. To the best of my knowledge, RCN is the only provider to make it in. If I am not mistaken, the contract for local cable services is negotiated at the town level out my way. The town governance reviews the contract for services at set expiration dates and negotiates rates for payers. If there was another option for TV services, I'd take a look. There is Direct TV but I don't want that dish on my house. I don't. Oh, when I moved into my little old house six years I spoke with a TV Antenna installer and thought it over and turned it down. I would have had a reinstall as I put in a new chimney about 4 years ago now. I truly dislike paying for cable. It's that or give it up.

[Cypress]

On the original topic of Verizon. Six years ago, I did ask Verizon to install a regular land line at my new house. I remember fixing an appointment, being at the house a week or so before moving in and trying to get the new line activated. There was no dial tone after the expected activation time. I called and called and had trouble getting service. I think what happened is the last owner had Charter Phone service and did not turn off the mechanism for that. I had no idea what to do or where the switch was. I learned at that time that Verizon does not have guys in trucks out there anymore. I was living off an old style of living where someone came out, installed, checked and left with the service on. Times changed and I didn't. I had such a hassle I cancelled the phone line and bought my first cell phone. I went from Tracfone pay as you go to a Verizon Wireless plan lately. I have a good rate and love my iPhone 5C. My service has been good when I go to the Verizon wireless store.

[oldhat]

Oh, I don't know. I'd rather the government not dictate every last thing to me as a consumer. If we'd gone the European route and have forced participation of only one standard, GSM, we'd never have seen some of the other technologies. I was enthralled with Nextel's iDEN network which was eventually killed by SPRINT.
There are advantages to consolidation, but the dis-advantages to the consumer can be huge. I remember fondly my first Betamax VCR which was soon put out of business by the VHS manufacturers. Beta was a better product but couldn't compete with the market which wanted cheaper, crappier tapes. If the government had been involved, it wouldn't even have been allowed to exist. Market forces can be disappointing, but at least give innovation a chance.

The history of technology is littered with the corpses of superior technologies that were done in by inferior ones. If the government had controlled VCR production, we'd probably have had Beta instead of VHS. (If the gov't controlled computer operating systems, we certainly wouldn't have Microsoft Windows.)

I wouldn't have wanted the gov't telling me what VCR to buy, either. But VCR technology isn't a utility--the phone system and the Internet are. Both are indispensable parts of our national infrastructure, like roads or the electrical grid. In the case of our telecommunications infrastructure, the free market has given us a crappy product at high prices, and probably less choice than if the government did control them.

[Alan]

The history of technology is littered with the corpses of superior technologies that were done in by inferior ones. If the government had controlled VCR production, we'd probably have had Beta instead of VHS. (If the gov't controlled computer operating systems, we certainly wouldn't have Microsoft Windows.)

Ha ha, you obviously have greater faith in a government sponsored monopoly than I. I think we'd have been limited to VHS and computers would be a novelty due to the difficulty of users stuck with COBOL.

[freshstart]

But VCR technology isn't a utility--the phone system and the Internet are. Both are indispensable parts of our national infrastructure, like roads or the electrical grid. In the case of our telecommunications infrastructure, the free market has given us a crappy product at high prices, and probably less choice than if the government did control them.

I agree


I have cablecards out the wazoo and Time Warner hates them but I'll take cablecards and tivo any day over the crap they hand out

[oldhat]

Ha ha, you obviously have greater faith in a government sponsored monopoly than I. I think we'd have been limited to VHS and computers would be a novelty due to the difficulty of users stuck with COBOL.

Yeah, the government couldn't possibly come up with anything useful in the field of technology. Like that government project that turned out to be completely useless--what was it called again? Oh, that's right--the Internet.

[kib]

I think we get into an ugly cycle. We wind up with inferior technology because it's cheaper and as a group we're greedy, regardless of who runs the show, Nanny G or the free market, we reward the cost-competitive selection. Then once we're all hooked and better alternative B has been properly buried, sky's the limit on the price of the crappy alternative: screwed again.

I'm curious to see how the gas-price driven behemoth craze (the auto equivalent of bad technology, IMHO) will play out when gas suddenly shoots to $5 per gallon again in 2017. (Madam Azonka has spoken.)