After that phone conversation (for what it's worth after about 20 minutes on hold the rep I spoke to was very friendly, knowledgeable and apologetic. Which only continues my experience of Verizon people being very nice and helpful, but the company as a whole is terrible) I called my DSL provider to see what they could do about setting up a "dry loop" DSL line. This is DSL service without the need for a dial tone on the line. 25 minutes of investigating later, it was clear a dry loop service was not possible , as far as I can tell because Verizon said-so. Neither was wholesale Fiber, which they do in some areas, but not mine. Even though my apartment is already wired for FiOS.
Amusing side-note:
A few weeks ago I got a telemarketing call from Verizon trying to get me to switch to FiOS to "save me money". I decided to humor the guy. I mean, if I could get 50MBps fiber service for the same number of dollars I'm currently spending, I'd be up for that.
First though, I wanted to tackle the whole "blocking port 80 etc" issue. I can't find reliable information anywhere about whether Ports 80, 25 etc are blocked on FiOS. I know they are unavoidably blocked on residential Verizon DSL lines (which is what differentiates their Resi/Commercial services, as far as I can tell). The telemarketer got flustered and said he'd have to check. After a minute or two on hold he got back to me saying he talked to someone in tech support and told me that when the installer shows up, I should just tell him what port I wanted to use in my apartment and he could set that up. I then proceeded to inform him it was not a physical device but rather a portion of the software used in networking protocol. He put me on hold for a few minutes again and then came back, apologizing that he couldn't find anyone that knew about these "ports" and that I should just ask the install tech.
Next we covered the "saving money" angle. I currently pay a total of around $70/month to Verizon and my ISP for what amounts to just my internet connection. $24 (phone bill) + $2.88 (Supplier Surcharge Recovery Fee tacked onto my DSL bill by Verizon) is paid to Verizon, who's services I do not use, and I don't appreciate being forced to pay them for services I neither receive nor want from them (yes, I get phone service, but only receive calls for other people on it).
The telemarketer was only able to offer about that much per month for just internet and phone (and free installation of a first and second computer(!)). Combined with my general dislike for the company and absolutely no answer on the blocking port 80 question, I decided to decline the "generous" offer.
Again, what really gets me about this, is my total lack of options. If I want home internet, I can either keep doing what I am, which seems overly expensive, as I'm paying almost $30/month for services I don't need or use. I could switch to FiOS, essentially rewarding Verizon for having excessive control over the phone network, or go with Comcast digital cable/voice which just seems like trading one huge telco for another which sets arbitrary bandwidth caps and may or may not be filtering/throttling connections.
Sigh. All I want is reasonably priced internet, without paying for services I don't want. Is that too much to ask?
