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Swinging Internet/Phone Deal from Frontier


V.T. Eric Layton

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V.T. Eric Layton

My two-year package expired on me on the 2nd of May. So, I called today to renegotiate because once the package expires, you lose your subscription discounts. It's all a bunch of baloney, but I know how to play their game.

 

With the additional fees and taxes minus my subscription discounts, my monthly bill was $93 and change for 50M/50M FIOS Internet and the Unlimited Phone Package. Today, I negotiated a new package, after going one level up to a supervisor in the "Retention and Customer Loyalty Dept." She made me a deal I could not refuse. I doubled my FIOS Internet speeds to 100M/100M and kept my Unlimited Phone Package. My new bill after fees and taxes minus my subscription discounts will be about $82/month.

 

The only bad thing is that they don't off the two year contract agreements anymore. They want you to renew every year now. What a PIA, but that's how they manage to charge more without getting approval from the Florida Public Service Commission. They just bump the prices on their "packages," which costs customers who don't renegotiate when their old packages expire. It's a BS game to get more and more of your money. People who don't realize this or don't bother to renegotiate are paying WAAAAY too much for their services.

 

So, on 8 May (Monday) my Internet should be just zipping right along. :)

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securitybreach

Very nice!! I am jealous of your upload speed. I get 350 mbps down but my upload is only 30 mbps.

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I wasn't able to do that with Comcast 15+ months ago. Wound up paring down my internet speed (not much of a sacrifice) and dropping all my premium channels (HBO, SHO, etc). They wouldn't budge, just kept saying "we have no special offers available at this time". I'm starting to think about dropping my landline ( for lack of better term) with Comcast and going with cellphone only.

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V.T. Eric Layton

That thought of dropping my landline has never occurred to me. It's the original phone number at this house that was initially turned on in 1953. It's never been turned off since... 63 years and three phone companies (GTE, Verizon, and now Frontier). I use that longevity as a chip in my negotiations, too. 63 years ago, you couldn't even direct dial a number. The number here used to be Redwood-****. You had to pick up the phone and tap the hang-up button a few times or dial 0 to get the operator, then tell them the exchange+number that you wanted. I don't remember this, of course, but my older relatives have told me about it. By the time I was born you could just dial numbers yourself.

 

Ah... those were the daze!

 

Oh, and they keep trying to get me to "bundle in" their TV offerings, but I don't have cable or sat TV in my home. I just watch broadcast channels with an outside aerial. I had cable back in the early 90s for a while. I had it hooked up mostly for my mom. A few weeks after she passed, I was napping in front of the TV after one of my 14 hour days at Sears. I woke and thought to myself, "I wonder how much I'm paying a day to nap in front of this TV every evening?" I did the math. It was costing my $1.85/day to sleep in front of Time-Warner cable carp. I cancelled it the very next day. ;)

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Where I live cable or satellite is a must. With a conventional antenna you'd get 2 channels - CBC and CTV. I suppose you could have Internet streaming but you'd still need some sort of connection to DSL or cable. Our US network channels are in Detroit. They are the closest ones to Canada for the cable company to acquire and distribute I guess. It seems odd to watch Detroit news from a location 8 hours away by car.

On the subject of phones the first one I remember had a phone number 62-J. It was a party line with 62-W. You had to crank the handle and ask the local operator to connect you via a plugboard in the central office. We did not get rotary dial phones until 1964 or so. When I moved to Georgetown in 1979 we still had the old step by step rotary dial office in that town, so if you had a push button phone the computer saved your button press and passed it on to the old rotary based system.

I can't play retention games because my only real option is cable. I do not want satellite dishes and DSL. Most of the deals the cable guy or telco will offer are for new customers only, and changing all my services is not a trivial task.

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You had to pick up the phone and tap the hang-up button a few times or dial 0 to get the operator, then tell them the exchange+number that you wanted. I don't remember this, of course, but my older relatives have told me about it. By the time I was born you could just dial numbers yourself.
Ouch--I do remember as a child having to ask a live operator for a number when I called my grandmother, also when we had a party line. Staggering away to find my rocking chair now.
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I don't remember having to ask an operator to dial a number but I do remember we had a 4 party line. For our side (2 parties) there was a particular ring so you knew whether the call was for you or the other party.

 

You would pick up the phone to use it and the other party had the phone engaged, you could hear the conversation. If it wasn't an emergency, you had to wait to use the phone. If it was an emergency, you politely asked them to hang up so you could use the phone.

 

I remember how thrilling it was to finally get a private line!

 

I'm right behind you Elizabeth, heading for the rocking chairs!

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Wow. I was just born in '78... B)

You are younger than my daughter..I could be your dad..how's that for a scary thought?

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V.T. Eric Layton

Ah... to be young again. :)

 

The Frontier tech just left my house. We're just zippin' right along now...

 

speedshot-050817_zpsowj2jlkr.png

 

It was fun BSing about old service war stories with this fellow. He's a little older than I am and has been with the company since it was G.T.E.; that's nearly 40 years. He definitely knew his stuff. He even gave me his personal cell number to call him if I have any issues; saves me from having to deal with Frontier's customer support. I will have to say, though, that Frontier's support has improved drastically in the past few months since they took over from Verizon. Initially, it was a nightmare.

 

Well, I'm off to see what I can do with my new zippy Internet connection. I wish I felt zippy. I've had the snot beat out of me since Saturday when I woke up with a sore throat that turned into a full-blown summer flu bug. I've been sneezing, coughing, burning up with fever for two days. I'm finally on the downhill side of it, though. I looked for the bus tracks on my bedroom floor when I woke up the past couple days. Yeeesh! I just don't deal with these bugaboos like I did when I was a young lad.

 

Away we gooo.............

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Glad to hear you are on the mend.

What did they have to do to improve your connection? Around here I think the cable folks can capably deliver up to 250 down on coax and 350 down on fibre (if you can get it.) They generally throttle you back based on what plan you have. If you pay more they open the pipe up a bit more.

I pay for 60 down and regularly get 75-80 Mbps. That's on wire of course. A bit slower with wifi.

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I've had the snot beat out of me since Saturday when I woke up with a sore throat that turned into a full-blown summer flu bug
I was hit with something similar a few weeks ago--first time I spent any sick time in bed since 2012. Nasty. Glad you're doing better and that the new deal with Frontier is working well for you. *sigh* I hate Comcast, but I dislike Verizon just as much so I'm stuck.
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V.T. Eric Layton

Glad to hear you are on the mend.

What did they have to do to improve your connection? Around here I think the cable folks can capably deliver up to 250 down on coax and 350 down on fibre (if you can get it.) They generally throttle you back based on what plan you have. If you pay more they open the pipe up a bit more.

I pay for 60 down and regularly get 75-80 Mbps. That's on wire of course. A bit slower with wifi.

 

Well, when Verizon first installed the FIOS system in Tampa, the residential equipment was only capable of 75M bandwidth. I was OK with my 50M/50M, but to upgrade to 100M/100M, the tech had to change out the external drop and the accompanying in-the-house distribution hub. It was no biggie. This fellow knew his business. He and I BS'd about life as a service tech the whole time he was here. He worked right along with the BSing without slowing down. Efficient!

 

Oh, and there was definitely an advantage to changing that old equipment out. This new set up is much better and doesn't require the silly backup battery that the old system used. I don't think this new system will be operational at all (phone service) during a blackout like the battery backed up system was, but it's hardly necessary these days because everyone has a cell phone. The advantage is that I don't have that big box (with the battery) in my closet sucking up wattage from my AC service to keep that battery charged all the time. Lessens the fire hazard of having that gel-cell being drained/charged in my closet all the time, too.

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V.T. Eric Layton
I've had the snot beat out of me since Saturday when I woke up with a sore throat that turned into a full-blown summer flu bug
I was hit with something similar a few weeks ago--first time I spent any sick time in bed since 2012. Nasty. Glad you're doing better and that the new deal with Frontier is working well for you. *sigh* I hate Comcast, but I dislike Verizon just as much so I'm stuck.

 

I had to contact Frontier customer support about a year ago when they were transitioning over from Verizon. That was a 45+ minute nightmare in phone service H3LL. However, they've scrapped the third party support that Verizon was using since then and now have real competent Americans manning the phones. BIG difference!

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securitybreach

Well, when Verizon first installed the FIOS system in Tampa, the residential equipment was only capable of 75M bandwidth. I was OK with my 50M/50M, but to upgrade to 100M/100M, the tech had to change out the external drop and the accompanying in-the-house distribution hub. It was no biggie. This fellow knew his business. He and I BS'd about life as a service tech the whole time he was here. He worked right along with the BSing without slowing down. Efficient!

 

Oh, and there was definitely an advantage to changing that old equipment out. This new set up is much better and doesn't require the silly backup battery that the old system used. I don't think this new system will be operational at all (phone service) during a blackout like the battery backed up system was, but it's hardly necessary these days because everyone has a cell phone. The advantage is that I don't have that big box (with the battery) in my closet sucking up wattage from my AC service to keep that battery charged all the time. Lessens the fire hazard of having that gel-cell being drained/charged in my closet all the time, too.

 

I figured you had your equipment already (modem and router). I got tired of paying my ISP every month to rent a crappy modem from them. I think it was costing me $9.99 a month and for $105,

 

I could just buy one and be done with it. My modem supports speeds up to 1.4 Gbps, which is more than I will get anytime soon. https://www.amazon.c...uct/B016PE1X5K/

 

 

 

Ah, you use one of the combo modem/router/phone devices from your ISP. That would cost more as you wold have to buy a modem and a router.

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V.T. Eric Layton

With Verizon (and now Frontier) the equipment comes with the FIOS package. There are no equipment charges. I'm sure they can afford it. ;)

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securitybreach

Well Comcast and Cox can both afford them but they make their customers pay rent on their devices.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I checked in with my ISP to see if I could do better. Turns out that I can now get a new gateway/modem, 100 Mbps service and unlimited Internet for about the same money I'm paying now for 60 Mbps and 200 GB limit. Think I should take it?

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Got the changes made and new gateway installed. Rogers has really got their act together with these new modems. I was getting about 125 down and 10 up on the wire and faster speeds than I had before with wifi using a separate router.

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I found out that Rogers has 3 types of their so-called "Rocket Modem" all made by Hitron.

  1. Basic model AC - dual band.
  2. #1 upgraded to support home security if you have it from Rogers.
  3. 1 Gbps download speeds capable.

For some reason the Rogers store near me gave me model #3 so I am sure it will easily handle the 100 Mbps download speeds I have from the Internet.

On the wifi side some of Rogers customers are bridging the gateway and adding on really high end consumer grade AC routers made by Netgear and ASUS - but they all have AC capable hardware, huge spaces and multiple floors in their homes. Most of my old hardware is N capable at best (some is G capable) and very little of it can use the 5G band - so I'd be unlikely to see much difference over the integrated gateway.

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  • 4 weeks later...
V.T. Eric Layton

Heh! Actually, come to think on it, I have a couple pair of boots that are older than he is. ;)

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