Verizon Launches Cheap Gigabit Internet Service At $70/Month

A few months ago, Verizon tried to trump its competition by boosting its top internet speeds from 500Mbps to 750Mpbs. Apparently, this wasn’t enough as the company just announced that it would be offering 1Gbps speeds. What’s more, it is going to cost half of what its previous offer was asking customers to pay for.

According to Verizon’s own announcement post on the new offer, the download speeds that consumers can look forward to can reach 940Mbps, with upload speeds of up to 880Mbps. The base price stands at $69.99, though, the carrier is also offering a triple-play bundle that costs $79.99. Unfortunately, it seems the blinding fast service isn’t available everywhere at the moment.

“Fios Gigabit Connection is available to over 8 million homes in parts of the New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Richmond, Va., Hampton Roads, Va., Boston, Providence and Washington, D.C. areas – that’s a more than one million home increase from the Instant Internet footprint with the Washington, D.C. and Providence markets getting access to Verizon’s top Internet speeds for the first time,” the post reads.

On that note, Ars Technica reports that the $69.99 package is only available to new FiOS customers. This was not made clear on the announcement post by Verizon, which is a little disconcerting as it hints at a deceptive marketing scheme. This is further exacerbated by the fact that the rate is supposed to increase once the promo period ends and customers will need to pay an additional $10 a month for the router.

More than that, it would appear that depending on the bundle, there are hidden fees and additional charges that consumers might not be aware of. What’s worse, some of those charges aren’t even set since Verizon itself doesn’t know how much it will be billing customers in cases where agreements expire or promotional periods end.