A Year Without Cable, Week 14: The Sorry Attempt

If you’ve ever quit a pricey subscription service before, you’ve likely had that service put on the full court press in order to regain possession of those lost dollars. You might get offers via email or telephone, for instance. You might even have someone come to your door looking to sell you service, as I did with a Comcast contractor last year.

I’ve actually been lucky with Verizion FiOS these past few months; I haven’t really been bothered, as the company is still pulling in around $80 a month for my Internet service. Perhaps they decided to let me experience a world without cable TV for a few months in hopes that I’d come crawling back as soon as they offered any kind of deal. Or maybe they just make so much on people paying for $200 cable packages that my account isn’t even a blip on the radar. Whatever the case, I finally got an offer from Verizon yesterday, and, wow, is it bad.

First off, let’s talk about what I pay per month for 50/50 Internet service — $79.99 a month. That is actually a pretty great price, as far as I’m concerned. If I were to add a decent cable package, I’d expect a discount on that Internet service, a DVR, and a total that comes in under $110 without any hidden costs or miscellaneous bull.

What is Verizon offering? FiOS Triple Play, which bundles my same Internet plan and that decent cable package with VoIP phone service that I absolutely do not need, at a price of $104.99 per month. The catch? It requires a two-year agreement, and doesn’t include fees and equipment charges. So you can add all those fantastic government fees and taxes, $10 per month for one box, and $15 a month for DVR service with a two-year set of handcuffs that will cost you an extra $180 should you decide to end service.

Let’s say all of that comes to $140 per month when all is said and done. Total cost for the year is $1,680. My current Internet plan, a Netflix subscription and a Hulu Plus subscription would come to $1,164. That spare $516? It could go toward a PlayStation 4 and a few games, or it could (more wisely) go into a savings account.

So sorry, Verizon, but I’m not interested. You’re more than welcome to offer me and the rest of the world something better. If not, the cord-cutting will continue.