Turns out Verizon’s $70 gigabit internet costs way more than $70

Yesterday, Verizon announced a new gigabit internet plan that the company said would cost just $70 a month, which would have been an aggressively low price for that kind of speed. 

But, as it turns out, that $70 price tag is too good to be true. As Ars Techinca reports, it turns out that the ultra-low price is only for new customers who don’t have Fios already. Existing customers who have tried to upgrade were reportedly met with confusion, with some customers facing upgrade costs of up to $200 a month for the gigabit service. As a Verizon representative told Ars Technica, “The specific price a customer pays to upgrade depends on what their current pricing is." Further complicating things is the fact that Verizon’s own system isn’t able to process the upgrades to gigabit yet, adding a further level of confusion to the whole affair. 

Additionally, even setting aside Verizon’s poor messaging about the plan for current customers, it turns out that even new customers probably won’t be paying $70 a month, as Verizon will be charging either a $10 monthly rental or $150 one-time fee for a Fios router. And apparently, diving in to the fine print of Verizon’s website reveals that even if a customer is eligible for the $70 per month price, that service is actually a $195 / month plan which is reduced to $70 through a $10 online discount and a $115 "special bonus discount,” which is only valid for either 12 or 24 months. (The site isn’t totally clear.)

The article was published on : theverge