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The Verizon brand is toxic enough that even without hearing what this has to offer I have a negative opinion on it. For example, I've been so soured on the Veri

The Verizon brand is toxic enough that even without hearing what this has to offer I have a negative opinion on it. For example, I've been so soured on the Verizon apps that get installed to my phone without my permission (pre-installed apps on Android) it makes me incredibly hesitant to even look at adding another app to watch TV offerings I don't know about.

67726e 10y ago
Similarly, Verizon has the best coverage in my area and has begun unlimited plans. Regardless, I have such a negative impression of the company from all the stories I've heard over the years that I'd really only switch if I had no other option. Even then I'd be hesitant.
- sqeaky 10y ago
  This is my situation. Verizon has the best coverage in Omaha, but I would rather deal with not having cell service in the middle of nowhere on very rare occasions than deal with the kind of pain I see Verizon subscribers go through.
- JauntTrooper 10y ago
  Honest question - why is their reputation so toxic? Comcast, I get. Their business model inspires hatred. They lure you with teaser rates on internet/cable then jack up the price 100%+ after the first year, banking on their local monopoly and their customers' unwillingness to sit on the phone for an hour to jump through hoops and reduce that price to "just" a 20% increase. I've never had a problem with Verizon, though. In fact my experience has been modestly positive. Their cell coverage is good and consistent (no unwanted apps on my iPhone). When I lived back East, we were quite happy Verizon FIOS came to our neighborhood and gave us a superior alternative to Comcast. Are they behaving like Comcast in other areas without alternative internet providers?
  - 67726e 10y ago
    I suppose that's the funny thing, I've not had (too) many problems with Comcast. Then again I lost upwards of eight hours when I moved into my current house because their phone reps set up multiple accounts for me. With Verizon I've heard plenty of stories from friends of lock-in, specious fees, horrible customer service. All the fun stuff you hear from pretty much all the big players. Of course I'm talking strictly mobile service, which T-Mobile delivers adequately enough for me and has for the past five years. Phone service has been very word-of-mouth in my experience, and my friends with Verizon have scared me off of them for a long time. On the flipside T-Mobile did well at winning over a lot of folks I know.
  - metaphorm 10y ago
    > Honest question - why is their reputation so toxic? combination of factors. atrocious customer service is a major one. failure to bring FIOS to market at the scale promised to local municipalities is another big issue. generally bad pricing where they extract extra fees from you for absurd reasons is another (not that they're alone in that bad practice).
  - curun1r 10y ago
    From what I can tell, there's two sorts of Verizon customers/ex-customers...those who are happy with the service and those who've had to deal with their customer service representatives, especially as it relates to billing. It's saying something that despite having experienced their network coverage, and it is simply better than anyone else I've tried, I will never use Verizon again. Their service is that bad. In my case, it all started when a family member on our plan had her phone stolen a month before our hardware refresh date. I called them up to find out what could be done. Since it was an iPhone, they said I could only buy a new one at full price since Apple wouldn't let them do early upgrades. My suggestion (pay the ETF) was something they'd apparently never heard of, thought of or had any mechanism in place to handle. After several calls and getting passed around for a bit, one of their representatives had an idea. If I added a new line, swapped the number for a month I could then call in and have the contract switched over once the line no longer had an ETF. My only cost would be $40 for the extra unused line that month. That sounded reasonable...reasonable enough that I asked whether I could do it for all of the lines on my plan to keep the hardware refresh dates in sync. They said no problem. Fast forward one month, I call in to have the contracts transferred over. Their response, "we don't do that anymore." The best they could do was put what was now 3 unused lines on hold so I wasn't paying for them each month, but that would freeze the hardware refresh date/ETFs at the full 2 years. And even that could only be done for 3 months. I must have called them 20 times over the six months I tried to get the issue resolved and I spoke to countless supervisors. Nothing worked. The only solution I could find, which I told them many times was my option of last resort, was to switch to another carrier who would pay my ETFs. Their support couldn't make it happen. The whole ordeal cost me somewhere between $500-$1k. I'm now with a different carrier with an inferior network. I've missed a few calls on occasion and had some drop from time to time. But their support is friendly and able to solve problems. So I'm happy. I also know I'm not alone. In searching the internet for how to resolve these problems with Verizon, you see there are large numbers of customers like me who are subjected to their byzantine billing system and end up being given an endless runaround.
- metaphorm 10y ago
  Verizon's coverage is excellent but it's network is over-congested (probably from building out coverage without also expanding backbone capacity to keep up). If you were the only person ever on the Verizon network it would be the best in North America. As it is now though it underperforms almost everything in densely populated areas.
evan_ 10y ago
In the marketing I've seen they don't even mention that go90 is Verizon- this is the first I'm learning that.
- iamatworknow 10y ago
  The only advertising I see for it is during national NBA games, and I believe it's always stated as "go90 by Verizon" on there. I'm a millennial and I've never even been slightly curious as to what it is or does.
  - evan_ 10y ago
    I've seen TV spots as well as ads on podcasts- the most recent How Did This Get Made for instance has the host read an ad for a Go90 show he's on. It actually kind of made me want to watch it, since it had him and several other people I know from their appearances on that and other podcasts.
    - iamatworknow 10y ago
      Maybe it would be appealing to some people, but in the context of the NBA I'm pretty sure the ad was talking about getting "behind the scenes" access to players and game highlights or something. For me that niche has already been filled by sites like reddit.com/r/nba (where, honestly, a lot of NBA news sites are poaching original content anyway). I don't need another app cluttering up my phone for that stuff. I don't really care about what LeBron James has for lunch. And if I want to know what goes on behind the scenes in the NBA, I'm much more likely to watch a high quality professional production like the Toronto Raptor's "Open Gym" series that's freely available on YouTube. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I haven't been sold on what makes go90 worthwhile, and from the looks of it I'm not alone.

67726e 10y ago

Similarly, Verizon has the best coverage in my area and has begun unlimited plans. Regardless, I have such a negative impression of the company from all the stories I've heard over the years that I'd really only switch if I had no other option. Even then I'd be hesitant.

sqeaky 10y ago
This is my situation. Verizon has the best coverage in Omaha, but I would rather deal with not having cell service in the middle of nowhere on very rare occasions than deal with the kind of pain I see Verizon subscribers go through.
JauntTrooper 10y ago
Honest question - why is their reputation so toxic? Comcast, I get. Their business model inspires hatred. They lure you with teaser rates on internet/cable then jack up the price 100%+ after the first year, banking on their local monopoly and their customers' unwillingness to sit on the phone for an hour to jump through hoops and reduce that price to "just" a 20% increase. I've never had a problem with Verizon, though. In fact my experience has been modestly positive. Their cell coverage is good and consistent (no unwanted apps on my iPhone). When I lived back East, we were quite happy Verizon FIOS came to our neighborhood and gave us a superior alternative to Comcast. Are they behaving like Comcast in other areas without alternative internet providers?
- 67726e 10y ago
  I suppose that's the funny thing, I've not had (too) many problems with Comcast. Then again I lost upwards of eight hours when I moved into my current house because their phone reps set up multiple accounts for me. With Verizon I've heard plenty of stories from friends of lock-in, specious fees, horrible customer service. All the fun stuff you hear from pretty much all the big players. Of course I'm talking strictly mobile service, which T-Mobile delivers adequately enough for me and has for the past five years. Phone service has been very word-of-mouth in my experience, and my friends with Verizon have scared me off of them for a long time. On the flipside T-Mobile did well at winning over a lot of folks I know.
- metaphorm 10y ago
  > Honest question - why is their reputation so toxic? combination of factors. atrocious customer service is a major one. failure to bring FIOS to market at the scale promised to local municipalities is another big issue. generally bad pricing where they extract extra fees from you for absurd reasons is another (not that they're alone in that bad practice).
- curun1r 10y ago
  From what I can tell, there's two sorts of Verizon customers/ex-customers...those who are happy with the service and those who've had to deal with their customer service representatives, especially as it relates to billing. It's saying something that despite having experienced their network coverage, and it is simply better than anyone else I've tried, I will never use Verizon again. Their service is that bad. In my case, it all started when a family member on our plan had her phone stolen a month before our hardware refresh date. I called them up to find out what could be done. Since it was an iPhone, they said I could only buy a new one at full price since Apple wouldn't let them do early upgrades. My suggestion (pay the ETF) was something they'd apparently never heard of, thought of or had any mechanism in place to handle. After several calls and getting passed around for a bit, one of their representatives had an idea. If I added a new line, swapped the number for a month I could then call in and have the contract switched over once the line no longer had an ETF. My only cost would be $40 for the extra unused line that month. That sounded reasonable...reasonable enough that I asked whether I could do it for all of the lines on my plan to keep the hardware refresh dates in sync. They said no problem. Fast forward one month, I call in to have the contracts transferred over. Their response, "we don't do that anymore." The best they could do was put what was now 3 unused lines on hold so I wasn't paying for them each month, but that would freeze the hardware refresh date/ETFs at the full 2 years. And even that could only be done for 3 months. I must have called them 20 times over the six months I tried to get the issue resolved and I spoke to countless supervisors. Nothing worked. The only solution I could find, which I told them many times was my option of last resort, was to switch to another carrier who would pay my ETFs. Their support couldn't make it happen. The whole ordeal cost me somewhere between $500-$1k. I'm now with a different carrier with an inferior network. I've missed a few calls on occasion and had some drop from time to time. But their support is friendly and able to solve problems. So I'm happy. I also know I'm not alone. In searching the internet for how to resolve these problems with Verizon, you see there are large numbers of customers like me who are subjected to their byzantine billing system and end up being given an endless runaround.
metaphorm 10y ago
Verizon's coverage is excellent but it's network is over-congested (probably from building out coverage without also expanding backbone capacity to keep up). If you were the only person ever on the Verizon network it would be the best in North America. As it is now though it underperforms almost everything in densely populated areas.

evan_ 10y ago

In the marketing I've seen they don't even mention that go90 is Verizon- this is the first I'm learning that.

iamatworknow 10y ago
The only advertising I see for it is during national NBA games, and I believe it's always stated as "go90 by Verizon" on there. I'm a millennial and I've never even been slightly curious as to what it is or does.
- evan_ 10y ago
  I've seen TV spots as well as ads on podcasts- the most recent How Did This Get Made for instance has the host read an ad for a Go90 show he's on. It actually kind of made me want to watch it, since it had him and several other people I know from their appearances on that and other podcasts.
  - iamatworknow 10y ago
    Maybe it would be appealing to some people, but in the context of the NBA I'm pretty sure the ad was talking about getting "behind the scenes" access to players and game highlights or something. For me that niche has already been filled by sites like reddit.com/r/nba (where, honestly, a lot of NBA news sites are poaching original content anyway). I don't need another app cluttering up my phone for that stuff. I don't really care about what LeBron James has for lunch. And if I want to know what goes on behind the scenes in the NBA, I'm much more likely to watch a high quality professional production like the Toronto Raptor's "Open Gym" series that's freely available on YouTube. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I haven't been sold on what makes go90 worthwhile, and from the looks of it I'm not alone.