Verizon Offers DSL Straight Up

19 Apr, 2005 at 8:21pm ET Article published in Tech

Verizon customers in 13 states can drop their wireline phone service while retaining their broadband connection, a spokeswoman for the regional telecom said.

Standalone digital subscriber line (DSL), sometimes called “naked” DSL, is aimed at subscribers who are happy with Verizon DSL but want voice service from a wireless carrier, Voice over IP startup or cable operator.

“We’ve been working for some time now to redesign our legacy DSL systems to accommodate customers who want to purchase DSL from us but who do not want wireline phone service from Verizon,” said Bobbi Henson, a Verizon spokeswoman.

The offer, which became effective this week, is available to current customers who have DSL and wireline service from Maine to Virginia and will allow subscribers to port their local numbers to another provider.

New York-based Verizon plans to expand its naked DSL offering beyond its traditional Northeast footprint in the “near future,” but there’s no set timetable, Henson said.

The cost is the same as Verizon’s current DSL prices: $29.95 with an annual contract; or $37.95 for a month-to-month agreement.

Good for you Verizon. Maybe others will be forced to follow to compete and quit forcing people to pay for services that are not necessary. -KF

Source: Internet News

Comments

19 Apr 2005 ~ 10:51pm Camman More of Verizon's desperate attempts to grab some customers. DSL is losing the broadband war to cable modems very badly. The price may be slightly cheaper on DSL in most cases but it my area Comcast high-speed cable service is at 4.5mbps and DSL is at 1.5mbps, no contest, its worth the extra few bucks
20 Apr 2005 ~ 7:19am KingFish 4.5 mbps? wow, that's pretty good.
20 Apr 2005 ~ 9:17am GHoosdum To me it's not worth the extra $65/month that I'd have to pay to get cable instead of DSL for even 3X the speed. Cable is $5/mo more than DSL here, plus I'd have to get cable TV for an additional $60/mo (that's the cheapest package offered by TWC around here for digitial cable, and they don't provide analog cable any more). I'd think twice if the cable company would also consider stripping cable internet off and selling it as a seperate service.
20 Apr 2005 ~ 9:30am primesuspect You have to have TV to get cable? I pay $50 a month for Wide Open West cable. I get 6000/512 and I don't have TV. If I wanted to pay another $40 or whatever I could get TV, but they do offer just internet, a la carte style.
20 Apr 2005 ~ 10:16am KingFish 50 bucks a month for stand alone 6000/512?

/me kicks bellsouth
20 Apr 2005 ~ 10:26am primesuspect www.wideopenwest.com
20 Apr 2005 ~ 12:14pm BlackHawk
20 Apr 2005 ~ 1:02pm Animal shocking website
20 Apr 2005 ~ 1:38pm KingFish We need wideopensouth. I hope this is the direction that companies take as I'd love to ditch my phone service for something like skype or vonage while keeping the excellent dsl service I receive. It's not as good as 6000/512 though. I think wimax providers will bust this market wide open when the equipment rolls out en masse.
20 Apr 2005 ~ 1:38pm primesuspect Curious name (wideopenwest) considering that we are an eastern state
20 Apr 2005 ~ 1:40pm KingFish wideopenmidwest?
23 Apr 2005 ~ 11:24pm yagga 5Mb down 512+Kb up
TWC
Standalone if I want to cancel cable
sub $40 if you count the penny

...and best of all no montly caps (It's the American way!) and I get the rated speeds and more!

What's this about not liking their phone service? A phone is a phone isn't it? You plug a phone into a phone jack, pay like $30 a month, and you are 100% guaranteed to have working phone service 100% of the time regardless of everything including natural and worldly disasters. Ahh, me happy me doesn't get attached to strange, expensive, and unrealiable phone things like phone over cable lines.
24 Apr 2005 ~ 12:54am Thrax

primesuspect wrote:

Curious name (wideopenwest) considering that we are an eastern state

It started in Colorado.
24 Apr 2005 ~ 9:54am Kwitko In NYC, you can get a la carte 5000/384 cable for $45/month. Since I have cable TV I pay $40. My father's cable company gives him 10000/1000 for $30/month with TV.
25 Apr 2005 ~ 9:00am GHoosdum

D00D wrote:

5Mb down 512+Kb up
TWC
Standalone if I want to cancel cable
sub $40 if you count the penny

...and best of all no montly caps (It's the American way!) and I get the rated speeds and more!

What's this about not liking their phone service? A phone is a phone isn't it? You plug a phone into a phone jack, pay like $30 a month, and you are 100% guaranteed to have working phone service 100% of the time regardless of everything including natural and worldly disasters. Ahh, me happy me doesn't get attached to strange, expensive, and unrealiable phone things like phone over cable lines.

Good point on the phone over cable lines - Zanthian has VOIP service for his phone, and he has to do 11-digit dialing locally, his phone number shows up as an 'unknown' cell phone number on caller id rather than his name, and when he calls out there is too much noise on the line for him to hear the other person. Curiously, when I call him, there is no line noise. The signal quality is noticeably diminished, though - his voice sounds much more 'tinny' to me over his VOIP line than it does over a standard phone line, or even over a cell phone line.