Frontier offers revised pricing for FiOS, subscriber discounts

Frontier Communications (NYSE: FTR) is once again finding itself having to convince current FiOS TV customers that the service is here to stay. In a move to perhaps encourage Frontier's FiOS TV customers from defecting to cable, the ILEC has unveiled a series of new pricing plans. Under its new custom value pricing structure, customers will get a percentage taken off their bill if they subscribe to other services via FiOS TV.

"This is just our revised pricing plan and so, it's just simplified pricing and customer-friendly building," Frontier spokesman Matt Kelley told WANE-TV.

FiOS has been a bit of a thorn in Frontier's side. Serving existing FiOS TV and FiOS data customers in Oregon, Washington and Indiana was one of the conditions of purchasing Verizon's (NYSE: VZ) rural lines.

Claiming it lacks the clout to deal with the area's content owners, Frontier said it was forced to raise its FiOS TV rates 46 percent, from $65 to $95 a month. The FiOS TV rate increases in these states were significantly higher than Comcast's (Nasdaq: CMCSA) proposed 5 percent video rate increase.

For those customers who don't want to pay the new rates, Frontier began offering DirecTV (Nasdaq: DTV) satellite service for free throughout 2011 and then $63 a month after the period ends.

Comcast, not surprisingly, wasted no time in launching a campaign to entice customers angered by the rate hikes.

However, Kelley dismissed the ads as nothing more than scare tactics.

"There is no truth to the rumors that were put out in the market through advertising through a competitor," he said. "That was just an opportunity for them to try to scare people to drop the service."

For more:
- WANE.com has this article

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