Watching your Frontier bill slowly rise.

As February 2025 hit I saw my monthly bill from Frontier had gone up - this time moving from $89.99/month to $99.99/month. I was curious what my Frontier bill was when I first started with them and mainly outraged that every so often my bill increased with no change to my service.

Technically I was with Verizon FiOS way back in 2016 with a $49.99/month payment, but Frontier honored that plan when they took over for a solid 4 years. Saving the details - lets look at my bills all the way up to now.

• June 2016 - $49.99/month
  • Verizon FiOS
• August 2020 - $53.99/month
  • First price change after Frontier acquired Verizon FiOS
• March 2021 - $71.99/month
• April 2021 - $65.99/month
  • In February 2021, an increase in the Internet Infrastructure Surcharge was applied to your account in error. We have corrected the error and credited your account. Your next bill will reflect these changes. 
• September 2021 - $68.99/month
• December 2021 - $76.99/month
• May 2022 - $81.99/month
• April 2023 - $84.99/month
• March 2024 - $89.99/month
• February 2025 - $99.99/month

I was furious because you'd think in an evolving world of Internet infrastructure that everything should get cheaper over time. I mean if Frontier today is offering a 7GB plan for $200 - it doesn't really make sense that I'm paying $100 for 1GB.

So I went off to the website to find what the current rate of 1GB was so I could prepare to experience the stress that is Frontier support.

I was curious what this new "Broadband Facts" was as it clearly broke down the price and confirmed for me that "this is not an introductory rate". So I went off for some quick research on this new standard.

Pretty quickly I stumbled upon the FCC Broadband Labels which after being discussed in 2016 was finally enforced in August of 2024.

I'm a huge fan of these breakdowns because I remember the era of Cox Internet & AT&T which had data caps and consistent price increases that misled us college kids.

Towards the footer of the Frontier website is a link called "Broadband Consumer Labels" so naturally I clicked it and selected the 1GB product.

I'm so lost. This label says $74.99, but the homepage says $59.99 for the same plan! Granted the little UUID on the bottom of the plans are different.

• F0018802678ESG2V7ZT49MG8G3 - $59.99
• F0018802678SFM6MTM5H8NAHUT - $74.99

I guess Frontier didn't really care to accurately fill these out, because my 1GB plan clearly states no additional charges or changes after an introductory rate expires. Why isn't the FCC jumping on this? The entire point of these rate cards is to show the difference between the introductory price and actual price once the honeymoon period (12-24 months) expires.

How can Frontier do this? My rate was nearly double the advertised price, didn't match either of the 1GB rates and I've been a customer for almost a decade. I logged into my account to review my bill for details, but I was left with none.

I was expecting to see some charges for the equipment I have alongside the base price, but instead I got one lump sum with no ability to see what made up that payment. So now I was armed with the information I wanted - I was off to discuss this slow boil of price increases with Frontier chat support.

Now reading all these images would be kinda boring and make absolutely no sense, but the breakdown was:

• I argued that an FCC disclosure saying "No introductory rate", then saying there is one is misleading.
• Support agent agreed and couldn't do anything, but add notes to my account.
• They pushed me onward to call the loyalty team.

So I called the number given and after a small two minute wait was actually talking to a human who was friendly and nice. She understood and agreed with my talking points, but wanted to ask 3 quick questions before offering me a discount. Those questions were roughly:

• How is your internet service today?
• Do you have any dead spots in your home?
• Do you have any service interruptions?

I think this was an attempt to convince me into some upgrade path, but my 1GB plan is more than enough for even the 34 devices I presently have on my network. My service and speed was fine - so I was not going to be convinced for any upgrade.

She then mentioned I have some cost savings available if I pay via debit card or bank. A basic credit card has a $10/fee attached per transition pushing folks to a debit card ($5/fee) or bank account (no fee). This was the first time I had heard that after my years of price increases. Shame on me for not staying in the know for this cost savings as saving $10 over 4 years would have been nice.

She announced my new price for 1 year would be $44.99/month but I could drop it even further to $39.99/month if I paid via bank draft. I would be sent a new router that I pleaded to not send as it would stay in a box unopened, but alas I could not prevent the shipping of said router.

Before the call ended I asked the loyalty agent to fix the misspelling of my name (Connor vs Conner) that has been wrong for a decade, but not even that task is doable for the loyalty team - its still incorrect.

Now this was a combination of confusing and helpful.

• The base plan ($59.99) matches 1 of 2 of the broadband labels I found.
• I got a $5/month discount for auto-pay enabled.
• I got a $10/month discount for 12 months for loyalty.
• I will get an additional $5/month discount once my bank draft is confirmed.

So lets talk about this.

1. I've had auto-pay enabled since 2016 - why was this not reflective on my bill till now?
2. Why did I not know about the discount for bank draft / debit card?
3. Why there there 2 different broadband labels for the 1GB plan when both notate no introductory price.
4. If you subtract $25 (my discounts) from my present $99.99 plan - you get $74.99 which equals the 2nd broadband label.
5. So when my 12 month discount expires am I gaining just $10/month or moving to the more expensive base plan ($74.99) ?

So we figured this out. Despite Frontier and the broadband labels saying there is no introductory rate - there is.

• You pay $59.99 (introductory) then after 12 months pay $74.99 (+15) for 1GB.
• You optionally get a $5 discount for auto-pay.
• You optionally get a $5 discount for a debit card or $10 discount for bank draft.
• You optionally get a loyalty discount for calling and complaining.

So over the next 12 months I will save $720 from taking a monthly payment from $99 to $39. I'm not happy with Frontier as they hide discounts, clearly mislead people with the consumer labels that were built to prevent such misleading behavior. I guess I don't have to be mad much longer as the circle is completing - Verizon is re-acquiring Frontier after selling it in 2016.

Hopefully this acquisition doesn't result in rocky service for me, but I'm happy I finally took the time to reset my bill to a proper amount.