Verizon’s $70 gigabit Internet is half the price of older 750Mbps tier

FiOS customers on 750Mbps plan will get speed boost and automatic price cut.

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[moosemaimer]

WooHoo!! My switch from Comcast to FIOS is scheduled for this Thursday!!

I really have to revisit VZ now. I recently was given the honor of having my bill bumped up to $75/month while still getting 25Mbps by Comcast in January.

I recently cut my Comcast bill to $75 when I cancelled TV... the sad part is, there's a VZ fiber in the basement of my building, but no VZ to connect it to any more. Meanwhile Fairpoint is sending me flyers begging me to sign up for DSL.

 

[moosemaimer]

I'm always astonished by the price you have to pay for a decent internet connection in the US...
Over here, for 30€/month you can have a Gigabit fiber connection (real Gigabit, no data caps, no favoritism between services, ...).
For 50-55€/month you can have full quadruple play (fiber optics at home + TV + landline with unlimited calls + cellular with unlimited calls/SMS and tens of gigabites of 4G data).

Why is there such a huge difference in price for the same service between the US and Europe ?

Because the major carriers have, for the most part, bought so many politicians that they have legislated themselves as legal monopolies and therefore don't have to compete with one another. They flat-out tell you they won't expand into any territory covered by another service provider, so there's no reason for them to cut their rates. If you're lucky you'll have a cable company, and a telephone company offering DSL (and if you're really lucky, fiber!) and that's it. A few enclaves will have more than just those, and many places only one or the other. Companies gobble each other up because that's the only way they can feasibly increase the size of their customer base without having to run any cabling.

The established providers are so entrenched that even when newcomers like Google arrive on the scene they scurry to have the laws rewritten to block their expansion; look at the trouble they're having getting permission to string fiber on utility poles.