It has been some time since major carriers like Verizon have promoted “unlimited use” plans for broadband.  Not too many years ago, providers used “unlimited” as a major selling point for those looking to escape slower, time-limited, dial-up access.  Today, Verizon is back pitching unlimited DSL at prices as low as $14.99 per month, if you still happen to have your Verizon landline.

Verizon’s DSL pricing changes include two new price tiers for current landline customers and for those who don’t want landline service.  No annual plan contracts are required, and prices are good for one year.

For Verizon landline customers:
500 Kbps to 1.0 Mbps – $19.99 ($14.99 when ordered online)
Either 1.1-3 Mbps, 3.1-7 Mbps or 7.1-15 Mbps (speed level will depend on line quality) – $34.99 ($29.99 when ordered online)

For those who only want broadband service, prices are considerably higher:
500 Kbps to 1.0 Mbps – $29.99 ($24.99 when ordered online)
Either 1.1-3 Mbps, 3.1-7 Mbps or 7.1-15 Mbps (speed level will depend on line quality) – $44.99 ($39.99 when ordered online)

Verizon really wants customers to order service online, and will throw in a free wireless router when you do.  Activation and shipping charges may apply.  Customers also get free access at Verizon Wi-Fi locations.

Verizon is pitching these services to customers who don’t want to deal with “clogged networks or exceeding monthly dial-up time limits.”

These prices are similar to discounts AT&T offered its DSL customers last year.  It’s an effort to maintain revenue and attract price-sensitive rural holdouts who avoid more expensive broadband plans.  Verizon simultaneously announced a new pseudo-“triple play” package for areas without its FiOS fiber to the home service that uses Verizon’s network for phone and broadband service, and DirecTV for television.

“We’ve enhanced the value and simplified our HSI bundles by pricing them aggressively and removing any contract requirements and early termination fees for Verizon services going forward,” said Eric Bruno, Verizon vice president of product management.  “With these refinements, our High Speed Internet service offers the best value in broadband.”

Bruno forgets when adding new DirecTV services to a Verizon phone and broadband bundle, a two-year agreement and early cancellation fees with the satellite company will apply.

Customers contemplating service who disconnected their Verizon landline can sign up for Verizon’s least expensive landline service — the one with no local calling allowance.  Outgoing calls are billed on a per-call basis in most areas, and the monthly charge for the service can be under $10, depending on the size of your calling area.

Verizon delivers fiber-to-the-home service over its FiOS network.

Verizon Communications says it will not run an Internet Overcharging scheme on its wired broadband customers.

The company that knows about investment and upgrading their networks like few others — bringing true, fiber-to-the-home FiOS service to customers across several states — says it has no need to impose usage caps or metered billing on its wired broadband customers.

“This is something we have looked at in the past, and we’ll continue to evaluate what’s best to ensure our customers get the best broadband service for the best value,” Verizon spokesman Bill Kula told Broadband Reports. “We have no plans to implement usage-based pricing for our fixed broadband customers,” Kula says.

Verizon’s announcement provides additional ammunition against AT&T’s unjustified 150-250GB usage caps over claims it faces congestion issues.

The company doesn’t share AT&T’s “congestion problem,” probably for two reasons:

1. Because it does not exist.
2. Verizon has upgraded their network to keep up with demand, winning new customers with their top-rated FiOS fiber to the home network.

Karl Bode sees right through AT&T’s arguments:

If you believe AT&T’s claim that the new pricing is about congestion and not about protecting U-Verse revenues from a Internet video — and many don’t — Verizon’s decision to spend $24 billion on upgrading more than half of their network to fiber to the home would make a Verizon decision to follow suit a very tough sell. AT&T has previously stated their last-mile customers see little to no congestion, and Verizon’s seeing even less.

Kula notes Verizon doesn’t oppose the use of usage caps, but their TOS allows them to handle any users they deem particularly gluttonous, and even then — Verizon makes it clear to us they’ve never disconnected one of these users. “Verizon terms of service were written in a way to allow us to terminate users if they violate our acceptable use policy, and excessive use ‘could’ constitute a violation,” says Kula. “However, we’ve not disconnected any consumer, small business or mass market customers to date.”

Stop the Cap! has never objected to terms and conditions which provide an escape clause for a provider that encounters a customer creating significant problems on its network, such as e-mail spamming, illegal activity, or causing serious problems for other users.  These terms and conditions are a part of every Acceptable Use Policy, and responsible providers don’t activate those provisions on a whim.

It’s too bad some AT&T customers can’t choose an alternative to a company who promised great things with U-verse, and then put unjustified limits on customer enjoyment.

This home in Silver Spring became fully involved in fire after neighbors couldn't reach 911 and had to rescue the 94-year old resident themselves.

More than 10,000 calls to 911 during last month’s blizzard on the east coast failed to reach emergency officials over Verizon’s network according to the Federal Communications Commission.  Even worse, terrorism experts suspect the 911 failures could impact the entire nation during a major disaster, weather event, or terrorist attack.

Last month, a Silver Spring residence went up in flames and neighbors had to rescue the 94-year old owner themselves after repeated attempts to call 911 failed.

The latest and most serious incident occurred in Washington, D.C. and its suburbs Jan. 26 when a snowstorm triggered more than 10,000 calls for help that never reached emergency responders.  The blame is being laid at the feet of one company — Verizon Communications.

All 14 circuits in the Verizon network that properly route all wireless calls in Montgomery County failed and nine of 10 Verizon circuits in Prince George’s County failed over a five-hour period on the night in question. This resulted in approximately 8,300 blocked 911 calls in Montgomery County and 1,700 blocked 911 calls in Prince George’s County that evening, according to Rear Admiral Jamie Barnett, Chief of the FCC’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau.

“I know that you will agree that any 911 call which is not connected can have serious consequences, but the large number of missed 911 calls on January 26 is truly alarming,” Barnett wrote Verizon. “The ability to call 911 is critical to the safety of the public. This is especially true during extreme weather events. The public rightly expects that they can use 911 to reach the appropriate first responders in an emergency. In addition to your written response, I request a meeting with appropriate representatives from Verizon within the next two weeks to discuss your resolution of this matter.”

Barnett and the FCC also expressed concerns these problems may not be an isolated incident, but could be a nightmare waiting to happen wherever Verizon provides telephone service.

Verizon blamed an equipment failure and an avalanche of calls for the problem.

“We have been addressing this issue directly with the counties involved, and will work cooperatively to address the FCC’s questions, as well,” said Harry Mitchell, a Verizon spokesman.

[flv width=”600″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Montgomery County 911 No answer.flv[/flv]

This YouTube video shows a 911 call in Montgomery County going unanswered for nearly a minute and a half.  (2 minutes)

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WUSA Washington 911 Service Problems 2-22-11.flv[/flv]

WUSA-TV in Washington has followed the 911 disruptions for several weeks now.  Channel 9 picks up the story starting with the fire in Silver Spring.  (6 minutes)

[flv width=”640″ height=”500″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WTTG Washington 911 Service Problems 2-22-11.flv[/flv]

WTTG-TV in Washington also reports on the frustration from 911 callers as well as city and local officials annoyed with Verizon.  (6 minutes)

Verizon Wireless isn’t entirely rolling out the welcome mat for new iPhone customers.  PreventCAPS, one of our regular readers, dropped us a note indicating Verizon quietly added something new to the terms and conditions for new customers as of Feb. 3rd, which just so happens to coincide with the date the company started taking orders for the Apple iPhone — it reserves the right to throttle your speeds and “optimize” your browsing experience with caching and network management techniques that could reduce the quality of online videos and other bandwidth-intensive graphics.

Important Information about Verizon Wireless Data Plans and Features

As part of our continuing efforts to provide the best experience to our more than 94 million customers, Verizon Wireless is introducing two new network management practices.

We are implementing optimization and transcoding technologies in our network to transmit data files in a more efficient manner to allow available network capacity to benefit the greatest number of users. These techniques include caching less data, using less capacity, and sizing the video more appropriately for the device. The optimization process is agnostic to the content itself and to the website that provides it. While we invest much effort to avoid changing text, image, and video files in the compression process and while any change to the file is likely to be indiscernible, the optimization process may minimally impact the appearance of the file as displayed on your device. For a further, more detailed explanation of these techniques, please visit www.verizonwireless.com/vzwoptimization

If you subscribe to a Data Plan or Feature on February 3, 2011 or after, the following applies:

Verizon Wireless strives to provide customers the best experience when using our network, a shared resource among tens of millions of customers. To help achieve this, if you use an extraordinary amount of data and fall within the top 5% of Verizon Wireless data users we may reduce your data throughput speeds periodically for the remainder of your then current and immediately following billing cycle to ensure high quality network performance for other users at locations and times of peak demand. Our proactive management of the Verizon Wireless network is designed to ensure that the remaining 95% of data customers aren’t negatively affected by the inordinate data consumption of just a few users.

These kinds of “network management” techniques, which include speed throttles, reduced quality graphics, and caching (which can result in stale web pages being served to your mobile device), are all made possible by the Federal Communications Commission’s failure to implement Net Neutrality protections for wireless providers.  While Verizon stresses it will treat all content to the same network management techniques equally, the “improved” broadband experience Verizon claims to offer is more likely to improve the company’s bottom line from reduced spending on network upgrades.

Like most providers, Verizon isn’t willing to be specific about what amount of usage is likely to trigger the throttle, why it needs to be maintained for the remainder of the billing cycle even when network congestion is not a problem, and what speed customers will be stuck with for the rest of the month.

Broadband Reports reached out to Verizon for specifics and discovered the provider has not actually implemented these measures… yet:

“The notice yesterday simply reserves the right for new customers or renewing their contracts,” Verizon spokesman Jeffrey Nelson tells Broadband Reports. “We’re reserving the right to actively manage the network in specific ways should that need exist – and only for customers who are under contract that includes that provision,” he says. “Because this is down the road – if at all – it’s too early to tell what those triggers might be, or what throughput limitations would look like.”

Verizon may be concerned about the potential impact millions of data-craving iPhone customers will bring to its network in the coming weeks.  Existing customers with Android devices or Blackberry handsets are safe for now — the provision only impacts customers who sign new contracts as of last Thursday.

Verizon says it will retain its unlimited data option (with the right to throttle service) for a “limited time only.”

Just shy of one month after adoption, the Federal Communication Commission’s Net Neutrality rules face a legal challenge by one of the parties that helped write them.

Verizon Communications filed suit Thursday in the same federal court that in April threw out much of the authority the FCC thought it had over online telecommunications.

“We are deeply concerned by the FCC’s assertion of broad authority for sweeping new regulation of broadband networks and the Internet itself,” said Michael E. Glover, Verizon’s senior vice president and deputy general counsel. “We believe this assertion of authority goes well beyond any authority provided by Congress, and creates uncertainty for the communications industry, innovators, investors and consumers.”

Verizon’s lead attorney in the case in Helgi Walker, who will be a familiar face in the court — Walker successfully argued the original case Comcast brought against the Commission for trying to regulate its Internet service.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski's cowardly cave-in on strong Net Neutrality was rewarded with... a lawsuit from Verizon to overturn the regulations the company helped write.

But Verizon wants an even greater shot at success, asking for the same panel of judges who ruled in the Comcast case to also hear its challenge.

“Verizon has made a blatant attempt to locate its challenge in a favorable appeals court forum,” said Andrew Jay Schwartzman, senior vice president and policy director of the Media Access Project.

Outgunned.  Again.

The earlier decision in the Comcast case not only stripped the FCC’s authority to regulate broadband under a regulatory framework established under the Bush Administration, it derided the logic behind it.  During arguments, the FCC’s general counsel acknowledged he was likely to lose the case, and actually asked the Court for guidance on how to write better rules.

Remarkably, Verizon’s legal challenge comes after the company worked closely with the Commission to moderate Net Neutrality regulations.  The rules issued in December exempted wireless communications and were criticized by consumer groups for not truly representing a free and open Internet.

Rob Pegoraro, a Washington Post columnist, was incredulous the phone company was spending subscribers’ money fighting net policies that nearly mirrored the voluntary agreement it reached with Google last year.

“Okay, so you’re going to spend some of my money to fight a minimal set of regulations written to stop you from tampering with my Internet access? How is that supposed to make me feel comfortable doing business with you?

“(Note to Verizon: You are not only an enormous telecom conglomerate, you are The Phone Company. You don’t get to say “trust me.”)

“Then I got more annoyed.

“The regulations that Verizon regards as an affront to the Constitution match up closely with the proposal that Verizon published with Google in August–a suggested regulatory framework that many people, myself included, criticized for its minimal restrictions on wireless broadband services.

[…] “And not only did Verizon think that its proposed set of rules would be good for business last summer, it did so as recently as 2:25 p.m. Thursday, when a post on its public-policy blog favorably cited those suggestions.”

Nate Anderson at Ars Technica isn’t sure why Verizon is spending time fighting rules it supposedly agrees with either, and he produced a chart proving it:

Excerpted below are the main Verizon/Google provisions, followed by their matching item in the FCC’s “open Internet” order from December. All are exact quotes.

Despite the perceived rush to court, legal challenges against the FCC’s Net Neutrality rules were widely expected.  The FCC continues to tell the press (on background), it believes it has the authority to enact Internet-related regulations and policies.  But many court watchers familiar with the District of Columbia Court of Appeals think it is more likely than not Verizon will prevail on similar legal arguments Comcast used to win its case.

What then?

Pegoraro: “I’d like to think that it would be fitting if the FCC responded by returning to the regulatory strategy it should have adopted in the first place: putting broadband Internet services back under a simplified form of the “Title II” common-carrier regulation that most operated under until 2005.”

“But if the FCC couldn’t find the gumption to choose that more aggressive but more legally grounded option before, why would it now?”