Verizon Raises FiOS ETF to $360

Terry Olaes

I Used to be the [H] News Guy
Joined
Nov 27, 2006
Messages
4,646
If you’ve been procrastinating about signing up for Verizon’s FiOS service, you’d better get signed up today. As of Sunday, the Early Termination Fee for canceling a FiOS two-year contract jumps from $179 to $360. Check out some of the fine print below. Hope you don’t need to move in those two years. Wow.

Regardless of the reasons it's making this change, there are some disturbing facts about the Verizon FiOS ETF increase worth noting. Not only is Verizon refusing to give consumers a grace period to cancel without the ETF penalty, they'll still have to pay the ETF if they move to a town or city where FiOS is not available yet.
 
Not only is Verizon refusing to give consumers a grace period to cancel without the ETF penalty, they'll still have to pay the ETF if they move to a town or city where FiOS is not available yet.

That's the worst part. Not the moving, but the 'no grace period'. What if I got it and it was just incredibly unstable or didn't deliver the speeds they led you to believe you'd be receiving?

Back when I had Comcast it was horribly unreliable, and I called technician after technician out hoping they would just fix it, then they decided to start charging for tech visits (the tech would determine it wasn't something stupid -- he said some people call because they've accidentally unplugged their modem -- and then I'd get a refund by calling back but ONLY after they'd already billed me for the visit). I eventually got tired of it, dropped them entirely for a DSL/DirecTV setup. I can only imagine if Comcast had an ETF like that -- I know I definitely would have just kept calling techs out every single time I had an outage (and I was having them 2-3 times a day, so basically every day) until my 2 years were up before I'd have ate the ETF.

Maybe FIOS is so reliable there is no possibility of a situation like that with it?
 
Seems like 2 things might be happening in any combination:

Many people are leaving FiOS.
Verizon doesn't want the people to leave FiOS.

I have been looking for it for quite a while and now I'm less concerned about finding it.
 
Is it also possible that Verizon intends to sweeten the incentives to sign up, but they are bumping ETFs before they do that?
 
I have FIOS and trust me, you won't have any issues. The service is solid and there's really no reason to change. I've had the service for the past 2 years and I've down had downtime(about an hour each time) twice that I can remember. I'm guessing it was just general maintenance, but this was at like 4am lol. I'm about to move to a new house and they don't have FIOS out there, the rep I spoke to the phone on told me that I don't have to pay a ETF if I move to a new house that's not in Verizon service area. I hope that's true.
 
Hmm...The board of Directors must want to give themselves a raise / bonus....time to take it out on the customers...Gee what a surprise....
 
I'm using FiOS right now and can't complain. Never seen an outage, the TV service is great and the net speeds never really fluctuate. But the ETF is pretty effed up.
 
Crap, no edit function. Someone might point out that I won't have a ETF because I've been with them for 2 years. However, that's not the case. I had the standard residential service and then upgraded to the business class fios(static IP) and that reset the contract date. I'm still within the period for ETF. Look like I'll find out soon enough if they're going to charge me or not heh.
 
I thought it was illegal to not have a cancellation period of at least 30 days? I'm also pretty sure there is a law about ETFs and moving. Maybe they only apply to cable companies?
 
I have FIOS and trust me, you won't have any issues. The service is solid and there's really no reason to change. I've had the service for the past 2 years and I've down had downtime(about an hour each time) twice that I can remember. I'm guessing it was just general maintenance, but this was at like 4am lol. I'm about to move to a new house and they don't have FIOS out there, the rep I spoke to the phone on told me that I don't have to pay a ETF if I move to a new house that's not in Verizon service area. I hope that's true.

FIOS works great, no problems...Except the are now raising rates on a regular basis. TV, Phone, Net started out at $120.00 per month with all the features, now it's over $200 and about to go up again.

My guess is Comcast will do the same thing since they are now pretty equal in rates and service at least in my area.

The government wants everyone to have at least Net access, they said nothing about you being able to afford it.
 
In May 2007, I got Verizon Business FIOS (I have a web server at home, and DSL / Consumer FIOS blocks port 80 incoming) at my apartment. I wasn't impressed and canceled within the first 30 days. But I kept getting bills, a $250 ETF AND a charge for the equipment. All told, they billed me over $750. After about 3 months and numerous phone calls, I eventually got everything removed and paid $0, but it was a huge hassle, and not something I'd ever go through again.
 
Early termination fees are a bad move no matter how good the service is. I like my Verizon service, but another forced 2 year contract and a fee like that will make me stick with no contract cable for my internet/tv needs.
 
Crap, no edit function. Someone might point out that I won't have a ETF because I've been with them for 2 years. However, that's not the case. I had the standard residential service and then upgraded to the business class fios(static IP) and that reset the contract date. I'm still within the period for ETF. Look like I'll find out soon enough if they're going to charge me or not heh.

If you want out, get out when they change the service agreement. Anything they change, no matter what it is, how small or insignificant, means you have a chance to decline the new agreement and as such *not* pay the early termination fee. Saved me a bunch of money when I switched cell-phone carriers recently, they changed the fee for going over your data-limit.
 
If you want out, get out when they change the service agreement. Anything they change, no matter what it is, how small or insignificant, means you have a chance to decline the new agreement and as such *not* pay the early termination fee. Saved me a bunch of money when I switched cell-phone carriers recently, they changed the fee for going over your data-limit.

WOW. Best advice I have read on here in forever.

Side note to Spewn, I have "Stupid" issue #1 on my nightstand featuring "Spewn" the parody comic to the Spawn series. Any chance you named yourself after that comic?
 
Hell, I just wish it was available in my area.

You and me both! Quite honestly,their DSL service sucks,too prone to interruptions and interference from the phone lines. Only reason I haven't gone to cable is because we have Comcast in my area,and they suck even worse,dropped their TV service long ago. At least FIOS is a separate line.
 
WOW. Best advice I have read on here in forever.

Side note to Spewn, I have "Stupid" issue #1 on my nightstand featuring "Spewn" the parody comic to the Spawn series. Any chance you named yourself after that comic?

No, my name comes from the Tick's warcry ;)
 
Wow. I'm glad I already have my FiOS, or I likely wouldn't be getting it. I thought it was bad enough when they doubled the termination fees on their phones. I'll likely never get that droid I would probably already have otherwise. :mad:
 
Makes me not want FIOS. I can't stand the idea of having to sign a contract for internet service.
 
The cable company's have really stepped it up in a lot of areas.
The speeds they offer often match FIOS, so with this new fee, I'm sure many people will not want to switch since that was most of the draw..
 
I love my FIOS and it is far superior in value compared to the cable and DSL options I have (which is plenty as I'm in the DFW area). That said, I'd have some serious reservations about this ETF, though it ultimately depends on the contract language in its entirety. It wouldn't affect a person that owns their home as much as someone that's a renter since it's less likely the homeowner would move during the two-year contract and invoke the fee.
 
The ETF sucks but as a FIOS customer I wouldn't go with anything else. No mysterious slowdowns, capping, or overloaded nodes. If I were moving I'd have to move to a FIOS service area or I would go out of my mind. 250GB cap or slowing down of your upload speed is insane. I went so far past that last month between Steam, Impulse and D2D, not even counting my typical usage, netflix and remote backup needs I'd probably be paying the ETF price as a minimum assuming a ~$1/GB overage.
 
No grace period? I should sign up and cancel just to take them to court. I'm relatively sure that's illegal.
 
You guys need to look at this from a business perspective. Verizon is putting expensive equipment in your house, paying man hours and transportation costs for a technician (or 2 or 3) to physically come to your house to install & configure the equipment, and paying man hours for the service to be provisioned.

Deal with house construction contractors/subcontractors on a regular basis, and you'd be happy to lose only 360 bucks.
 
I'm sorry.. FIOS is worth it! What other service gives you 20/5 Mbps for a reasonable price?! Holy poop it's fast and awesome!
 
i'll bitch .. the TV service is poor. It's quite common for the picture to digitize ... similar to what I saw with Dish when there was a VERY heavy storm. I'm moving in a couple months ... i'm going back to dish.

Internet service has been better .... but it's not the end all be all.
 
No grace period? I should sign up and cancel just to take them to court. I'm relatively sure that's illegal.


There was a class action lawsuit against ATT for charging too much for early contract cancellation. The new way they are approaching it is that every month you have the service it knocks off a certain amount of your ETF, so if you cancel a year in on a two year contract it would only cost half of what it would have if you cancelled day one.

I am betting this ETF from Verizon will be challenged at some point.
 
I dont know if it is true or not, but I had heard that Verizon is selling their fios network to another company (I remember the word pioneer. I dont know if Pioneer is the company, or if they were calling it/them pioneers). Does anyone know about this, is it true, false, IDK
 
I dont know if it is true or not, but I had heard that Verizon is selling their fios network to another company (I remember the word pioneer. I dont know if Pioneer is the company, or if they were calling it/them pioneers). Does anyone know about this, is it true, false, IDK

I have no idea on that particular subject, but that wouldn't make sense. Laying down fiber optic lines, many times without a competing fiber optic service around, although expensive can and will make verizon alot of money for a very long time, between charging now downright ridiculous ETFs and then by charging other companies to lease out verizon lines, which is much less taxing then it is to lease cable lines, so more companies can.

Verizon is just greedy, which pains me to say because I use them and they are so good, its not good enough anymore to simply pull a profit, you have to pull a higher % of profit every quarter. Got to love the free market :(.
 
I have Fios internet. The service is the most awesome thing around. 20/20 for 65 bucks a month.

The customer support is the absolute worst piece of s*** and makes me want to punch myself in the head for the amount of time I have wasted getting support for things they messed up.
 
FIOS price hikes are insane... plus they don't do "free" upgrades. I'm stuck at 10/2 because I refuse to pay extra 20 something $ per month, at least they grandfather plans versus forcing people to upgrade...

I'm rather happy with my 10/2 at 45$ per month so screw them. TV/Phone price hikes made my wallet bleed so I canceled both, they didn't even try to keep me signed.

Happy with QoS, but disgusted with customer service / billing.
 
I have Fios internet. The service is the most awesome thing around. 20/20 for 65 bucks a month.

The customer support is the absolute worst piece of s*** and makes me want to punch myself in the head for the amount of time I have wasted getting support for things they messed up.

Talking with FIOS customer service is somewhere near infinity times better than talking to AT&T.
 
FIOS price hikes are insane... plus they don't do "free" upgrades. I'm stuck at 10/2 because I refuse to pay extra 20 something $ per month, at least they grandfather plans versus forcing people to upgrade...

I'm rather happy with my 10/2 at 45$ per month so screw them. TV/Phone price hikes made my wallet bleed so I canceled both, they didn't even try to keep me signed.

Happy with QoS, but disgusted with customer service / billing.

They no longer grandfather plans. I had the 5/2 (which I was quite happy with) and was forced onto the 10/2 in December along with a $10 price hike. I did NOT have a choice.
 
I have really wanted to get this for a long time, but now I am not so sure. I really hate getting locked into contracts like this. It drives me insane the way the cell phone companies do it. I get 20/3 on Comcast, so I don't think I would notice a difference anyway.
 
I'm sorry.. FIOS is worth it! What other service gives you 20/5 Mbps for a reasonable price?! Holy poop it's fast and awesome!

Well where I used to live I had the choice of Cable, DSL (yea right), and Fios.

I ended up going with Cable since I was not sure I would be there for a 2 year contract. At that time Fios was advertising 20/5 for the same price in that area that cable was advertising 20/5 without the contract. So I went with cable, and Brighthouse was the company and I ended up with 25/5 with no downtime or slowdowns. Brighthouse has to be the single best cable company I have had so far.

Sadly then I had to move and now I am stuck with charter...god i hate charter.
 
I had nothing but problems with FIOS that I never had with Comcast. Topped off by the worst customer service ever.. which I should have expected because I use them for my phone (and still do, I don't know why, just to lazy to switch I guess). Pretty sad when Comcast is the benchmark for great customer service - compared to verizon. At least they didn't charge cancellation fee when I switched back to cable due to their ineptitude. Just goes to show, everyone has their own experience. In my experience FIOS SUCKS.
 
FIOS is not as great as it used to be imo. I can get similar speeds with comcast for less so there really not that much of a benefit imo.
 
I guess it all depends on where you live. My experience with Comcast was absolutely horrible,at least once a month I'd lose my cable service because their idiotic servicemen would disconnect customers while working on the lines,then it would take them almost a week to reconnect it.
 
Back
Top