Verizon Offering Discounts to Customers without Land Lines

The Associated Press reports that Verizon Communications Inc. is preparing to offer discounts to their wireless customers who subscribe to Verizon’s Internet or television services but who do not have a land line phone.

An increasing number of households are giving up land lines, preferring instead to have cell phones as their primary source of telephone communications. As a response to this, Verizon plans to implement a Flex Double Play bundle within the next week. This bundle plan will in turn offer discounts of any where from $8 to $12 each month for subscribers who combine a Verizon Wireless plan with either broadband or Verizon’s FiOS TV.

The Associated Press went on to reveal that approximately one in seven households in the United States are now without a land line.

A spokesperson for Verizon said that they “remain very bullish” about people having and/or keeping the traditional, copper based land line phone services, the company does understand that more and more people simply prefer to rely solely on cell phones and mobile devices.

The discount will apply only to certain DSL and FiOS services. The DSL service which offers downloads at 3mb a second and the FiOS broadband service – which operates on fiber optic – which offers downloads at 20mb per second qualify for the discount. The faster services – DSL at 7 megabits per second and FiOS at 50 megabits per second – will not be eligible for the discount. It also will not apply to the television service Verizon offers through DirecTV.

However, by bundling FiOS TV with wireless and broadband, consumers can save up to $8 each month.

Verizon is not the only wireless provider offering deals like this. AT&T started doing so last year, for people who preferred to sign up for wireless services instead of the traditional land line.

(June 17, 2008)