I had Verizon a few years back. I switched from Optimum when I called Optimum to try and negotiate down a 30% (I think - was long time ago) increase and they told me to go pound sand. Then at end of Verizon contract, they wanted a 50% increase (I think - was long time ago) and when I called to negotiate they told me to go pound sand. So I switched to Optimum. They just had to drop off a cable box as all wiring was there from years before. Verizon left the cable from the pole and the fiber to cable box all connected in my basement and they sent me a shipping carton to mail back the DVR box. Time spent on the phone 10 minutes each vendor.
Last year Optimum hit me with a 20% (I think ) increase. Just so happened Verizon came to my front door and explained how since all they had to do was enable the fiber to cable box and give me a DVR box they could give me a rate below the pre-increase optimum rate.
I called Optimum and told them I was cancelling. They offered to not increase my rate. I told them that unless they dropped even that rate by 30% that they could go pound sand (I pulled the 30% out of the sky as I really have been getting tired of pulling this crap every year). They said - can't do that and the best they could do was 10% below so I told them to go pound sand and disconnect next week. They said how about we give you 20%. Go pound sand. Ok we can do the 30%. Time spent on the phone 10 minutes.
So now I have an inactive setup (fiber to cable interface box and the cable to pole) for Verizon and an active setup for optimum (a parallel cable to the pole).
To make a long story short - I don't see why I couldn't have both services active.
As an aside, Newsday sent me a letter last Jan increasing my monthly rate from $38 to $45. I called them up and told them that their paper had shrunk so much that it wasn't even worth the pre-increase rate and I'll just get my news from online, the WSJ and a local weekly. So they offered me $35/month. Go pound sand. To make a long story short, I now pay $15/4weeks. Time spent on the phone 10 minutes.
To sum up: I now have more money to help out needy AMP and escort girls (just the kind of charitable guy I am).