Back in May it was noted how Verizon was doing something interesting in Tampa to try and grab market share from cable: they were offering no-contract FiOS to customers. In other words, users in Florida are now getting the same triple-play pricing as users that used to have to sign contracts instead of being penalized roughly $25-$30 extra for no-contract.

As Verizon shifts from expanding FiOS into new markets to upping subscription rates in already deployed markets, apparently Verizon found that their long-term contracts and ETFs, which telcos imported over from the wireless sector, was a deterrent to many customers moving over from cable.

Verizon has reached out to us to note that they’re now taking this idea nationally in the hopes of ramping up subscriber numbers. “Basically we are taking the program in Florida you wrote about recently and going national with it,” Verizon’s Robert Elek tells Broadband Reports. “The name change from Verizon’s FiOS Service Commitment to FiOS Worry Free Guarantee is really the only change from what we’ve been doing in Florida,” he says.

According to Elek, the results in Florida and Pennsylvania “exceeded what the company was expecting,” so going national “seems like the natural next step.”

As part of the deal, users who don’t sign a long-term contract won’t have to pay more and they’ll receive a guarantee of their initial price for one year. They also won’t have to pay an early termination fee (which was raised to $360 earlier this year). After Verizon’s announcement of the new strategy in Tampa, cable competitors like Bright House Communications accused the telco of simply copying a practice cable operators have been using for years.

Users interested in the whole Verizon release can find it here.

Link to the original article…

At launch, Google took heat for a number of things related to their Nexus One Android based smartphone, including the fact that customers who canceled service early faced $550 in fees – a $200 ETF from T-Mobile, and a $350 Google “Equipment Recovery Fee”. Which was more than the phone even cost. Responding to these criticisms, sluggish Nexus One sales and the FCC’s recent inquiry into ETFs, Google says they’re lowering the Nexus One “equipment recovery fee” from $350 to $150 and talks about the decision to the Wall Street Journal:

A Google representative said the company had been working with T-Mobile to lower the equipment fee. “Google’s overall financial philosophy with regard to operator service plans remains unchanged: We make no profit from commissions from operators or from equipment recovery fees, and our recovery fees are based on operator charges to Google for early termination of service,” the company said in a statement.

Another criticism of the Nexus One launch was that Google was only offering e-mail support (with turaround response time of up to 24 hours). That’s also changing, with TMO News indicating that Google has officially launched phone support for the Nexus One in the US, 888-48-NEXUS (63987). A third major criticism of the product was that the phone struggled to obtain 3G connectivity, even in markets where T-Mobile 3G service exists. That problem was apparently fixed with a recent firmware update, though some connectivity complaints persist.

Link to the original article…

In what appears to be a promotion gone wrong, Cox Communications has accidentally offered free PlayStation 3′s to every Cox customer in Arizona that signs up for service or upgrades existing service. The deal was supposedly intended only to lure in new Cox customers, but Cox’s marketing team accidentally sent the flyers out to all customers.

Yep, they screwed up.

Judging from posts in the Broadbandreports.com’s forums, Cox did try pretty hard to honor the deal, which requires users sign a 12 month contract (and Cox’s ETF is roughly equivalent to the cost of a PS3). Some users who tried to get in on the deal late (and via word of mouth from customers who got flyers) aren’t getting PS3′s, and have complained to the Consumerist about Cox shutting down the promotion.

So, if you’re in Arizona, did you get one?

Link to the original article…