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Frontier's latest promotion promotes one price, but you'll pay considerably more thanks to profit-padding fees, surcharges, and taxes.
Frontier Communications is mass-mailing its latest DSL promotion to customers — a year of their fastest tier DSL service for just $20.10 per month.
Labeled “FrontierFast,” the promotion claims you will get a “groundbreaking value” on their fastest Internet service for $20.10 per month, with a Price Protection Plan and a $4.50 monthly modem fee. Frontier says you will enjoy:
- Breakthrough speeds at an unbeatable price
- Dedicated, unshared connection that won’t bog down during peak hours
- Safe, secure Frontier Mail and a personal online portal powered by Yahoo!
- Free professional installation
- A three month free-trial of Peace of Mind Hard Drive Backup and unlimited technical support.
Sounds reasonable… until you explore the terms and conditions that are attached to it. Frontier has created a minefield of tricks and traps designed to maximize their profits and make you jump through hoops to minimize your exposure to them.
Let’s explore:
- The $4.50 monthly modem fee makes it $24.60 for 2010. The modem fee is nothing more than profit-padding.
- That “Price Protection Plan” is really a nice way of saying “contract term” committing you to sticking with Frontier broadband for one year, or face a $200 early cancellation penalty.
- That “Peace of Mind” trial is anything but if you forget to cancel before the three free months are up. If you don’t they’ll charge you an extra $9.99 a month for the service. Forgot to cancel during the trial? Then pony up a $50 cancellation fee if you want out. At least the free trial is optional. Do yourself a favor and opt out before Frontier opts-in your wallet.
- The promotion is available to new customers only, and you are required to bundle it with phone service -and- pay installation fees for that phone line, if you don’t have one already.
- Service is subject to availability, speeds are not guaranteed, and your credit will be checked before you get service.
- Taxes and surcharges apply, and they do add up fast. You can easily add an additional $10 when combining the modem rental fee with the other fees Frontier collects for various taxing authorities.
- Don’t forget Frontier defines an appropriate amount of usage at just 5GB per month in their Acceptable Use Policy.
Broadband service shouldn’t have to come with a minefield of fine print and profit-padding fees and surcharges. The out-the-door price should be published so customers can truly understand what they are getting into, before exposing themselves to those steep cancellation fees. They should also not have to worry about a ridiculous 5GB limit in Frontier’s Acceptable Use Policy.
Other stories of interest:
- Frontier Communications Boosts DSL Modem Rental Fee to $6.99 Per Month
- Frontier: Now With Prices Up To $10.80 Per Gigabyte, Limit Five GB
- Fighting to Improve 2nd Quarter Results: Why Providers Are Promotion Happy
- New York Attorney General Smacks Frontier: ‘Early Termination Fee’ Controversy Could Net Hundreds in Refunds to NY’ers
- Frontier CEO Tells Customers To Stay Home This Summer (But Stay Offline)
I was a little disappointed at this article Phillip. Normally you do a good job at
breaking down the lies and problems with the ISPs, but this one seems to be lacking
in the proof department and seems to be little more then bashing. Here are some of
the holes / fluff I’m see that was added to this article:
1) The $4.50 monthly modem fee makes it $24.60 for 2010. The modem fee is nothing more than profit-padding.
I half agree / half disagree with this statement. For the most part it is a profit padding.
However, don’t forget the instances when a user’s modem breaks for whatever reason.
The ISP needs to pickup the bottom line for that. Modems aren’t cheap depending on
the model you are looking at. The cheapest one I could find was here:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=5071672&CatId=11
This this a combination though and depends on connecting to the computer through
USB. Now that is a terrible connection it still serves it’s purpose unlike all those so
called “modems” that are little more then USB wireless adaptors for $10 a pop that
you still need an actual modem to connect to the ISP through a jack in the wall
whether it be DSL or Cable. Here is the one I had purchase from AT&T:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=5501891&CatId=11
cost me $50 (tax included if I remember correctly) when I purchased it about a year
This is a DSL modem
or so ago. So AT&T isn’t making a profit from the modem.
so let’s use this as a comparison to Frontier shall we since it’s the cheapest on tiger
direct.
So to actually start making a “profit” off of this modem. The ISP has to have the
customer own this modem for about 11 months. So the ISP is hoping the modem
doesn’t break in a year before making a profit off one customer. Now stack that
number by the amount of customers and after a year you can start making a
profit. However, don’t forget along the way some modems are liable to break. No
product is perfect. Everything is subject to a little wear and tear. When that modem
will break varies per person. Some last a few months like an XBOX 360 and some
last a few years.
So if that rental fee is justified from the ISP perspective of “oh, I need to recoup $50
in case a modem breaks. How can I pass this on to the customer?” And so a rental
fee was introduced.
2) The way you fluff the piece of mind trial.
While I do hate the fact that you locked into a contract and that not many people
bother to read the fine print, to include the early termination fee, 3 months to test to
see if you service sucks or not compared to the competition (if there is any) is a neat
thing.
I’m lucky. In my area we have only two (dial-up excluded) service providers:
- AT&T (DSL)
- Charter Cable (cable internet)
Charter makes you sign a contract and you get up to 20 MBPS. AT&T gives you up
to 6 MBPS and has not contact. Now I only have a DSL. I don’t have Cable TV,
Dish network provided by AT&T, or phone service phone service provided by both
Charter and AT&T in the area. AT&T calls it “roots” service.
Allow me to share a personal nightmare story with you:
Charter has a 6-month “trial’ available to new customers, in which prices are cheaper compared to normal customers. After the 6 months you will see a spike in your bill. I has cable internet
and TV at the time and was paying $80 a month. Low and behold when I opened my
7 month bill in mail to see $150 staring me in the face. I was outraged. Not only
had they nearly increased the price 200% but they did so without telling me. That
“trial” period I mentioned, yeah, they said nothing about a “trial period”. But I can
almost promise you it was in the contract. Thankfully I was only in for 6 months and
they only renewed my service for a month. I canceled the service, got my money
back, and switched to AT&T. They have no contract and charge $40 a month for
internet access.
I choose AT&T because they have no contract and the quality of service was better,
and is still better, then Charter. If Charter sends an advertisement to me doing this
same thing and my bottom line will be cheaper, I’ll try it for the 3 months, and see if
it’s worth it. It is up to the consumer to be responsible and decide if they still want
service after the 3 months. The ISP shouldn’t have to baby sit them and call them
at 2 and half months says “hey your trial is about to expire in 2 weeks, are you still
happy with your service?”
The people who pay for internet service are hopefully grown, working, and at
least high school level educated adults who can tell whether or not they like the
service and if they want to vote with their dollar and take the dollar else where or not.
Unlike what I did at the time, they also are responsible for reading the contract that
they are signing, which at the time I was an idiot and didn’t do. I learned my mistake,
and moved on.
3) the taxes and surcharges:
They will always be there. Every ISP has them. Frontier is no different. Singling out
Frontier seems a bit unfair.
However, I think it is very wrong that they don’t include the full price after taxes, surcharges, and
fees up front. But then again, they would never make a profit if they did that would
they?
That’s my two cents. Also, I’m sorry if my comment posting is a little screwed up, my
browser (fire fox) seems to be acting up on me today.
- Lance
1) The modem rental fee runs month-to-month and even well after the modem is paid for (and you can be assured they are paying considerably less than the retail Tiger prices you quote, particularly for Speedstream modems that apparently were discontinued — at least in the retail market), you are still paying. At the end of the contract, if you don’t return the modem you’ve paid for more than once over, Frontier could subject you to a nasty un-returned equipment fee equal to, or more than the price of the modem bought new, which earns them even more money. It’s profit padding pure and simple on a product they could easily sell to customers as an option. Purchasing one yourself that they’ll provision is not consumer-friendly and very few bother to try.
In Rochester, at least, the competing cable provider does not charge any equipment fee at all, and customers can swap the modems out whenever problems exist.
2) To stick an early termination fee on a service trial at the 91 day point is shady. When you talk to Frontier by phone, and I have repeatedly, the Peace of Mind service is marketed to customers in these terms, “let me get the Peace of Mind service set up for you, okay?” I’d have less of a problem if a customer saw that $10 fee on their fourth month bill and realized it wasn’t a free option, as most will likely do, and then call to cancel the service with no penalty. Instead, they face a $50 termination fee.
Let’s be real. That is designed to make you keep the service for the entire term, even though you don’t want it, because otherwise you’re throwing $50 down a rat hole for nothing.
It’s very easy for consumers to forget about the trial and be committed to paying for the service going forward. But they should be out for only a month or two worth of service, not $50 + those months of already-billed service.
3) The early termination fee or contract commitment is there for only one reason – to try and compel you to remain a customer. I don’t have a problem with it if the terms and conditions are presented up front, on the same page as the promotion (not on the reverse side in light gray print and in smaller type) so the consumer is fully aware of what they’re getting into. I always read the fine print on these types of things, but I’m a consumer reporter so I’m already well aware of the implications of not doing so.
Customers should not have to scrutinize telecommunications deals with a fine tooth comb.
“However, I think it is very wrong that they don’t include the full price after taxes, surcharges, and fees up front. But then again, they would never make a profit if they did that would they?”
If they did so honestly and charged a fair price, they would. This isn’t entirely their fault. I have a problem with phone companies having to charge taxes and certain surcharges that cable providers do not, just because they were around when the taxes and fees were established and cable providers were not (at least in the phone business). There should be a level playing field here (preferably without the taxes).
I like to support the little guy when I can, and Frontier certainly is a smaller player when compared with Verizon. But a festival of fees doesn’t make it easy.
Well, these loops that Frontier put in there I could see coming a mile away. I’m curious though as to what kind of speed this package would give me. My Frontier line is already on Frontier MAX and Frontier refuses to give anyone anything faster than 3Mbps/384kbps in my area except for businesses who will get 6Mbps/768kbps service. Rochester NY isn’t that far away from here either.
Those modems that Frontier hands out aren’t too friendly to the PS3s and Xbox 360s as over at DSL Reports I get a lot of topics popping up about people asking for help with NAT3/Strict NAT with the SpeedStream SE567s. I always tell them to go pick up a new modem and a router, or a modem/router combo that works much better with game consoles and to send the Frontier supplied modem back to get their bill lowered.
The Frontier Piece of Mind is one thing I for sure wouldn’t need as well. I have nothing important on my PC, and if I do, it’s backed up multiple times both digitally locally and off site and via hard copy.
So yeah. Nice little loops to slap people with extra charges with. I’m sure many would only get the service and use it to it’s advantage without the extras, maybe use the Frontier mail. More likely, people get the service and continue to use something like AOL, or they’ll just get it to check their e-mail. I do love the part where Frontier states that their service doesn’t slow down when others are on. DSL Reports gets threads with people complaining about night time slow downs all the time. It’s always due to a lack of bandwidth in their CO which is one thing Frontier needs to improve on, as well as offering faster speeds as well.
Some of your statements are misleading in the way you present them.
You wrote: “4. The promotion is available to new customers only, and you are required to bundle it with phone service -and- pay installation fees for that phone line, if you don’t have one already.”
That suggests to me that only customers new to Frontier for phone service are eligible for this DSL promotion from Frontier. That’s not what I get from Frontier’s advertising:
Frontier wrote: “New Frontier Residential High-Speed Internet customers only.”
It makes sense to me that they would offer this to new HS Internet customers only, rather than to those who already have Frontier residential HS Internet service. But their statement does not say this promotion is available only to those who are new Frontier customers, meaning not available to those who already have Frontier phone service.
Frontier also wrote: “New Frontier customers will be required to order phone service where installation charges will apply. New Frontier customers are subject to credit approval.”
Credit approval is standard for new phone service, is it not? And, if one were to order Frontier HS Internet service, yes, one would have to also get Frontier phone service if one does not already have Frontier phone service. And, yes, installation of new phone service incurs an installation cost, does it not?
“If you don’t have one already” should have made it clear the promotion was accessible to existing Frontier phone line customers. I am one myself and received this promotion targeted to our household, so it would have been a waste of their time to mail something targeted to us and not be able to qualify for it.
The offer also promotes free installation, but fine prints the part about customers having to pay an install fee for telephone service, if needed. Credit approval can impact whether you can get a phone line or not, but is also contingent on whether you can qualify for a promotion. Let’s say your credit is poor. Frontier and other phone companies can require a deposit from you to obtain service. However, they can also disallow you from participation in this promotion (or any other) based on credit worthiness and/or payment history, deposit or not.
When I went through our trial of DSL service back in the spring, I very much remember the representative having to verify our payment history with the company before they would even permit participation in promotions on offer.
Installation charges are not always charged by service providers, who can and do waive them as part of promotions.
When one accounts for all of the terms and conditions, and the fact they are there by design to maximize potential revenue from customers, it turns a nice sounding deal into a potentially costly one for those who do not carefully review every part of the fine print.
All that I can say is, do your homework!!!!!!! A simple serach will show you that numerous attorney generals have gone after “frontier” for “misleading” advertising. If you were one of the lucky ones that got screwed, Frontier refunded the difference and knocked $17 your bill for the rest of your contract…. The total cost they had to refund $300,000. This only applies to the people who knew about it and filed a claim.
I for one, like to SAVE money, so I am always shopping around. There is an old saying, you get what you pay for! Out of all the companies, I liked verizon the best! Since they shut down in my area, i had to switch to suddenlink. More like suddenCRASH. The internet was out more then it is on. We got a bundled package for $99 (tv,internet,phone). After all the taxes, $120. Recently, we dropped everything except internet. At first we were told it would be $30. Its actually $65 without the bundle. The lady was very RUDE saying that once you unbundle, you can never rebundle! What kind of crap is that????? She even did a poor attempt to talk smack about the competition(oh we had several customers who went to so and so and they came right back).Blah blah blah! We actually have better internet without all the other crap! We decided to give the old netflix a try and so far are very happy! Magic jack is a joke but it is nice to have! So we now have internet tv and phone, all through the computer. We are saving roughly $500 a year (woo-hoo vacation money). Now if we could just quit smoking, we could save maybe an extra $2,200 a year. damn dirty habit!
Just because of all the misleadings from frontier, they will never get my business! I cant do business with a company who tries to take advantage of their customers….. Shame on you frontier! My wife and I have joked about moving to tennesse because they still have verizon….. : )