Verizon: Still Behaving Like a Phone Company

Even more bad news. Verizon, our phone company offers DSL at around 3Mb maximum. To get this rate, we'd have to pay $45/month. We could get a 1Mb service for $30 per month.

We need 1.5Mb service in order to use Boxee, and considering that our cable bills us $50 for 15Mb service, I simply cannot see how Verizon competes.

I could get a package deal: Phone and Internet for only $80 per month. That's $39.99 for the phone, a $6.26 Subscriber Charge, and a $1.29 Federal Universal Fee. By the way, the last two fees are interesting. The $6.26 Subscriber Charge (sometimes called a FCC Charge for Network Access) doesn't go to the government. It's simply a fee that Verizon uses to line their own pockets.

The $1.29 Federal Universal Fee is similar. The government does require Verizon to help subsidize the cost of rural phones, but it doesn't go directly to the government. Instead, it's Verizon's estimate how much it costs them to provide phone service in rural areas.

So, Verizon charges almost $50 per month for what I am now paying $35 per month for. I do save $10 on Internet, but I have to sign a two year contract.

So, the phone company is out of the question. It looks like I have to keep my Internet service with the Cable Company whether I like it or not.