Verizon Hides Fake Temporary Price War Behind Old Yahoo Announcement
from the follow-the-breadcrumbs dept
The press loves the idea that there might be a price war brewing between telcos and cable providers, but it's not clear if it's really happening. Back when SBC first announced its promotional DSL pricing of $15/month for one year only (afterwards the price will likely be jacked up), Verizon insisted that it didn't need to match SBC's prices at all. Apparently, they changed their mind... but rather than admit it, Verizon is trying to hide the announcement of a similar price plan behind the fact that their DSL portal will be powered by Yahoo. Of course, that deal was announced in January -- so, really, the only thing new here is the fact that Verizon has dropped their prices to try to scoop up new customers -- but are only doing it for a short period of time in a land grab effort. Meanwhile, of course, the cable companies still won't lower prices, so it's hard to say it's much of a price war at all. It's like the non-price war side skirmish that no one really wants to be involved in. Thankfully, since the FCC thinks that duopoly is competition, it might not have to go any further at all. The telcos will scoop up some new customers with cheap pricing, and then look to raise rates a year from now, especially as they push users to higher speed fiber lines and offerings like IPTV (you know, with the tiny set top boxes).
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???
Hmmm....
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Re: ???
The basics are:
Verizon is hyping up this deal, playing on the Yahoo angle, which makes littel sense, because they really announced the deal with Yahoo back in January.
What Verizon isn't hyping up as much is the fact that this is a lower priced offering, something they said they wouldn't do. However, within that lowered price offering, what they're talking about even less is the fact that it's promotional pricing only, rather than their real "new pricing."
The rest is discussing how this is even less of a price war, because not only is Verizon hiding its not-really-a-price-drop announcement, but the cable competition isn't dropping prices at all either.
Does that make it clearer?
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Re: ???
These type of promotions are very significant drops for Verizon (et al). And while they don't promise that price for life, who does?
Cable companies have held the line due to tradition, but they are watching new subscriber numbers erode, and will likely follow suit in the next 6 months.
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Verizon DSL?
In the heart of the county that the majority of internet traffic flows through...they can't even provide service. I just checked the website again and nope, still don't quality.
I was amused though that they finally have a link for 'don't have a home phone?'. All previous attempts required you haveing a phone number to even check if you were able to get service.
Sigh...back to cable internet, fast, reliable, and everywhere...
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