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How an $80 FiOS Custom TV bundle wound up costing $140 a month
The new Verizon FiOS Custom TV package sounds like a great way to pay only for channels you really want to watch, which should cut your cable bill, right? It does, to some extent, but you might wind up paying more than you expect and getting less than you want. Here’s what I discovered when I pieced together a package, an experience that should give you an idea of what to expect if you’re considering FiOS Custom TV service and whether you can save any money.
I chose an $80-per-month triple-play deal with TV, 25Mbps Internet, and home phone. The TV portion includes a core program package, plus two smaller add-on packs of my choice. Of the 44 channels in the base package, only a dozen really interest me—local broadcast channels and six cable stations, including AMC, CNN, Food Network, and HGTV. The other 32 are a mix of foreign-language stations, shopping channels, religious channels, and others I never heard of.
For the two included channel packs, I selected Lifestyle (18 stations, among them A&E, Lifetime, and TLC) and the Entertainment Pack (10 stations, including FX, TNT, and USA). But we can’t live without news and business channels, so I added a third pack for another $10 a month (16 stations, including CNBC, Discovery, MSNBC, and National Geographic).
Unfortunately, ESPN and Fox Sports, among others, are in a separate 12-channel Sports Pack, which would cost an additional $10 a month. Since there are lots of games on the broadcast channels, I decide to risk a war at home and passed on sports, but other households might not be willing to.
Even with the 88-channel lineup I assembled, I’m still not getting a bunch of channels I currently watch, such as ABC Family, Comedy Central, and IFC (part of the 14-channel Pop/Culture Pack) and TV Land and Disney (12-channel Kids Pack).
Check our buying guide and Ratings for more information on telecom service providers for TV, Internet, and phone. And tell us how you plan to cut your cable bill.
So, how much did I save?
Time to tally up the bill. Including equipment rental (for two HD set-top boxes, multiroom DVR service, and a wireless router) and one extra channel pack, plus taxes, fees, and other charges, the grand total for this $80 triple play comes to $140.
That’s a lot pricier than I expected. And I fear we’ll miss the channels in the packs I decided to do without, along with others that aren’t available in any of these packs, such as BBC America. (SO much for Dr. Who and Orphan Black fans.)
Just for kicks, I checked out a standard FiOS triple-play package with Preferred TV, which has 290-plus channels, according to Verizon. It also has 50Mbps Internet, twice as fast as the Custom TV package. This plan was more expensive, $171 a month, but it would provide faster Internet service, which is increasingly important to our home, and a ton more channels, many of which I like. The $30 a month I’d save with FiOS Custom TV is nothing to sneeze at, but I’m not sure I’d be willing to give up so much in exchange.
So is FiOS Custom TV a good deal for you? It depends on what you watch, what you’re willing to give up, and how much you’re willing to pay for a month of entertainment. It’s well worth taking 15 minutes to build your own package, then compare it to a standard package as I did. I give props to Verizon for making it easy to configure a package online, and for providing a detailed, itemized breakout of the monthly bill so you know what you’re in for.
But this is clearly a case of buyer beware: All those extra charges do add up. That’s not unique to Verizon by any means. No matter what TV provider’s bundle you’re considering, be sure to check the bottom line before you sign on the dotted line.
—Eileen McCooey
Are you considering cutting cable-TV cord to save some money? Share your story with other readers in our forum.
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