I’m staying with a cousin in New York for a few days and have been able to experience Verizon’s FiOS internet service for the first time. FiOS is the first commercial offering of FTTH (Fiber To The Home), although availability is still very limited. Verizon has several different packages ranging from 5mbps down/2mbps up all the way to an incredible 30/15. Compare that to your traditional ~5mbps/384kbps cable line and you’ll see why I’m bouncing off the walls here.
Verizon FiOS modem/router. As for the coax line coming from the back, that is post-ONT.
While cable lines have yet to be used to their full potential, as referenced by this post highlighting developments with DOCSIS 3.0, FiOS’s fiber optic line is here and now to the select few. The reason FiOS is only for the select few is that, unlike ubiquitous coaxial cable lines, fiber lines must be manually installed at each residence (not cheap).
The particular package I’ve been using is rated for 15mbps down/2mbps up. A bandwidth test from speedtest.net backed up these claims, although a few days prior to running bandwidth tests to take screenshots, I had seen speeds of 16 megabits down. I also tested the connection by uploading a 423MB file to my S3 account and it was carried out at a steady 570KB/s to my delight.
On the downside, Verizon’s DNS servers are fairly slow. Fortunately, I’m an OpenDNS user so I didn’t have to deal with that. CNET gets into details regarding FiOS’s slow DNS:
Verizon’s Fios network and its DSL (digital subscriber line) service actually had the worst response times of any broadband provider measured. According to VeriTest data, the Verizon Fios service had an average DNS response time of about 180 milliseconds.
For those interested in getting FiOS and lucky enough to have FiOS availability, installation isn’t exactly a breeze. In addition to the individual fiber optic line needed in your residence, you’ll need to have an optical network terminal (ONT), battery backup, power brick and large modem/router combo installed. Neither of those are small devices. However, for more than triple the speeds you’re getting now, I don’t think anything as trivial as that would stop you. Don’t let those great bandwidth speeds get to your head though, rumor has it that Verizon can block certain (80, 25) ports at their discretion so you can’t use all that bandwidth to, say, run a server.
Verdict: When is FiOS coming to my neighborhood?
Who’s your current ISP and would you switch to FiOS if you had the chance? I’m on a Comcrapcast cable line and would switch to FiOS in a heartbeat.
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I have Comcast too, and would switch to FioS immediate if I had the chance — the 15/15 would be perfect for me. Too bad I’m in Colorado with no FioS in sight…
Since I am in the Southeast I will never get to experience the pimpness of FiOS. Unless Verizon buys at&t that is. Either way, I can’t say that I would immediately switch.
How is the reliability of FiOS? Is it crapcastic?
I don’t think I am one to vouch for FiOS reliability as I’ve only tinkered with it for all of 2-3 days.
Regarding the reliability of FIOS, it stinks.
I’ve had Verizon FIOS for over a year. It’s not noticeably faster than cable and their customer service is truly awful. Recently I didn’t receive email for four days because one of their servers was down. Attempting to contact anyone about it was a nightmare, and when I did get through, I was repeatedly given information that was flat out wrong. Verizon wasn’t even trying to fix the problem themselves, they’d hired an outside contractor to try to do it–an outside contractor that Verizon’s own tech support didn’t have much contact with. One of the things Verizon tech support told me was that when they got the server working again, my missing emails would come through. Nope, another lie. The truth was that four days of my personal and work emails disappeared into the ether. Beware of Verizon FIOS.
My parent’s place has had it for over a year I think. Dad’s holding back for a while though, waiting for Verizon TV offering to become available as well. He wants the whole package, TV, phone and internet (to completely drop Comcast!)
Also, girlfriend’s parents just got it hooked up this week. It took weeks though for all the lines to get put in! Lotsa digging too.
Anyways, not getting it in the city (San Fran) for a while. It’s much easier to get it in the suburbs… bleh. Jealous.
P.S. I’m still trying to setup Slingbox at Mandy’s parents’ place ;) That fast upload speed will come in handy for streaming across the country.
First I gotta get the box though…
I’m on the edge of my seat waiting for FiOS. Back in May, Verizon ran fiber cables right down my street. Curios as to when FiOS would arrive, I asked the Verizon Tech and he claimed by July.
Well, July past and now Verizon and my city government are in a legal dispute over taxes. Doesn’t look like we’ll have fiber until the issue is resolved. One day, one day…
I wonder how expensive the 30/15 line is… I’m practically squirming in my seat at the thought of that much raw bandwidth.
I wouldn’t dare take this chance to brag about my 45mb fiber connection at my home in Japan.
Broadband connections are fairly fast in general here in Sweden (24/3 mbit is very common), and in particular if you are a student. I have a 100/100 mbit fiber connection and am very pleased, it’s cheap too ~ 15$ a month.
Hello there!
Just found your blog while looking at random stuff because I’m awake an some ungodly hour of the morning for no apparent reason. I actually have Charter’s 10mb down/1mb up and get close to those speeds. I have speedtest results posted on my blog. Basically, I got 7562kb/s down and 985kb/s up. That was while streaming music and having other random crap running in the background, along with having the cable line split before it gets to the modem and router. Either way, it’s worth what we pay for.
Of course, we have the whole package (internet/digital cable/phone). I’ve always liked Charter. Esp. since they review your services and switch you to new promotions when the ones you’re using expire if you call. And no, I don’t work for them. I’m just an extremely satisfied customer who is elated that she doesn’t live in Comcast’s service area.
I thought you’d like to know what their speeds really are… because you know, I get that without having any extra lines run or anything. And I live in an 80 year old farmhouse in a rural area.
So no – I wouldn’t go with FiOS if it were offered here. Not worth the extra cost and trouble.
Man oh man… I’m jealous that you are even in the same state as FIOS availability… lol…
I’m a Comcraptastic subscriber down here in GA as well and would love to get my hands on FIOS – but, like Blake mentioned above, I figure its a long time coming. We’ll probably see some sort of “light Docsis 3″ implementation before we see FIOS.
*sigh*
Given my horrible experience with Comcast in the past (unwarranted collections agency calls and equipment failures) I would switch to Verizon in a heartbeat. I don’t care if it came with a exercise bike that I had to pedal to get those speeds, it would be worth it for that kind of performance around the house.
I have had FiOS Internet for almost two years and the TV service for about nine months.
FiOS DOES BLOCK ports 80 and 25. Not maybe, no servers are allowed. If they install FiOS with coax only and do not provide Ethernet to the router, you are then basically stuck with their router. After using their router, you do not want to be stuck with their router. The billing is a mess, the DVRs suck, the TV’s HD content is below most of the competitors at this point. The motorola STBs freeze needing regular reboots, they are slow and not too exciting. The Internet speed and service is very good.
I have had several friends already drop FiOS triple play to go back to cable or satellite. Seems FiOS is a next generation network built on yesterday’s equipment. FiOS has a long way to go to be compelling, the hype is amazing, but does not match the experience. Don’t get too excited, its just cable TV nothing more.
You are not limited to Verizon’s router simply because they do not supply ethernet to the router. Go ahead and use their box as the modem and attach the router of your choice to the Verizon box. Turn off the Verizon radio and clone the ip. You should be up and running on your system. I am using an Airport Extreme from Apple and have had little problem! For some reason I have had the radio turned back on for the Verizon box several times. I thought it might have occurred when Verizon pushed down an update, but have no proof of that. I did also change my DNS server and that made a huge difference in overall performance! I switched from Comcast about 6 months ago and have had no complaints!
I’ve had FiOS since May of this year, and I love it. We had one ONT (Optical Network Terminal) get fried because of lightning (I live in the lightning capital of the world), and Verizon’s DNS servers SUCK (using OpenDNS now). But other than that, it has been heaven. I get between 15 and 20 mbps down and 5 mbps up. It really shines when you’re doing huge concurrent downloads. Crank up those BitTorrent connection limits and watch a Linux distro download at blazing speeds, without adversely affecting your web browsing.
Note: I’m not using their TV or phone service, so I can’t speak to that. The Internet service rocks.
I’ve been trying to convince my dad to get FiOS in Annapolis for a while. Problem is, Comcast can compete. I get ~15mbps/~3mbps in Annapolis (and San Francisco) via Comcast, so it’s hard to justify the switch.
I so want it too. They are not in my area of Ohio ( Cincinnati ) yet :-( but I am on their list, so lets hope it works and they alert me.
Check out my download speed.
http://www.speedtest.net/result/194093922.png
Way higher than FiOS.
It is because we (UW) are on internet2.
sucky upload
Not sure why all the Comcast bashing here. My experience with them when I switched to cable from Verizon DSL was way better, and I’m talking from a customer service standpoint. I’ve had a few heated support calls with Verizon that have made them my #1 most hated company. Although their DSL worked ok. Comcast support is much better. Someone mentioned equipment failures. Is this their fault or Motorola or whoever supplied the hardware? Comcast always replaced modems / cable boxes at no charge if I had a problem.
I have Cox, and the upload is just terrible. Download is fine, but I’d definitely jump to FiOS at my first chance.
I’ve tried FiOS in a few different locations (I go to school in Massachusetts but my house is in Annapolis) and I really didn’t notice a difference from my Comcast connection. Similar to Mike, I get about 15mb/2mb on my cable line. Plus, at least in our area, the Comcast tech support is really pretty good (far better than Verizon’s). Plus, I have a friend who has the full TV, phone and Internet FiOS package and it goes out on him all the time. Since the cost is about the same, and the line speed seems to be about the same, I see no reason to go through the hassle of switching.
@Sharvil – that’s cheating. :-) that’s a non-residential, campus connection. if we start comparing university connections…
It’s all over my area, but naturally not in my neighborhood. I’d switch in an effing second if available.
I would dump Charter in a heartbeat to get at a service like this!
Depending on your location, Verizon also offers a 50MB download speed. If I recall, it’s about $99/month. I have the 20MB download speed and consistently score around 17MB download speeds on those online tests. I have had the service in two locations for nearly a year and have had to reboot the wireless router only twice. The service itself didn’t drop – the router just needed to be goosed. That is better than ANY other ISP I’ve ever had. Faster and more reliable. I heart my FIOS!
You can appreciate Comcast when you had BellSouth DSL in 2000. DSL at that point was fairly new to the home. We had BellSouth for about 10 weeks. No lie, it was down for half that time. We paid next to nothing since we got so many service credits. At one point it was down for nearly a month straight. We ditched it and got something else (Earthlink maybe, I can’t remember) and it worked fine from that point on while we were at that house.
Anything would be better than the fairly paltry internet connection available to me.
A fairly typical broadband connection in the UK is about 2Mbps, in reality very few people actually get anything close to that… 1.6Mbps is probably closer to the mark.In Sweden, Korea and Finland I could get 100Mbps… in Korea for crying out loud, and for less than I am paying now.
I chronicled my dislike of UK Broadband here: http://wilcosworld.co.uk/2007/08/31/broadband-in-the-uk/
I have FiOS and I am ready to go back to Cablevision’s Optonline. Yes, download speeds are fantastic, however, I own a Cisco router and much rather use it, than Verizon’s crappy one. Also, the NAT tables are far too small causing timeout problems constantly. If my dad is watching streaming video (youtube style stuff), my net is toast. And he is using WiFi while I am hard-wired into the modem.
Another problem of course is Bit Torrent. I can get incredible download speeds, however, if a torrent is coming in, the net is done for until the torrent stops.
Phone service is fine, so no complaints there, the TV quality is awesome as advertised, however, the DVR blows. They don’t give you CableCARD by default so I think that needs to be requested. The tech that came in was rather clueless and spelled bad too I might add. Had to swap out my cablebox because it didn’t work first time. He had to call another guy up to finish up, because he was there most of the day.
I think I’ll sacrifice some download speed and be very happy to go back to CableVision.
Interesting. I have experienced NONE of the problems Jonathan reported.
I do know, however, that FiOS is still very new in most areas and in some cases the person you get for the installation may be doing it for the first time.
I don’t believe anyone mentioned AT&T Uverse? Its a fiber network. I got fiber to the node(not home) however in new neighborhoods they are installing it to the home! I got it because I could get more channels that way than with Comcast. Overall its fine and about the same speed as Comcast.
The only problem is that I also use the Tmobile HotSpot and it will hardly ever connect to the At&T “gateway”. Anyone else having this problem?
I live in Midlothian VA and swited to FIOS from Comcast. What a difference! I absolutely love it. I got the base package as far as speed goes and cant imagine needing more.
I had verizon Fios installed in a brand new Oregon apt complex in late 2007. The speeds are wonderful but the router drops VOIP calls for me when I dial into conference calls which is often. You have no options when it comes to routers. Actiontec is a very small company with no VOIP stuff built into it. They don’t even have a firmware page for my router. Support is lousy. They hang up on you. You can’t pay bills online unless you have phone service with them.
Just had fios installed yesterday. Love it! I’m getting up to 22,000 KBS down and 3500 up. I live in northern New Jersey
WARNING- the router’s firewall was pre-configured to accept ping requests..
Not good! To change this- go to the firewall settings in the router, remote admin, and un-check the Allow Incoming ICMP Echo Requests box.
I am not sure why they allow pings. Maybe for support..
Other then that security hole, I am VERY happy.
Hi, I found your site while searching for FiOS reviews. It sounds like FiOS is a great offer – thanks for your review. I was wondering if you could explain more about why OpenDNS is better than the DNS that Verizon uses? I looked at the OpenDNS website, but I still don’t really get what makes it different (other than the fact that it has built-in adult filtering – that’s pretty cool).
I have FiOS available in my area, but I’m currently with Comcast. I’ve had no real issues with Comcast so I haven’t been in a big rush to switch, but I’ll call Comcast tomorrow to see if they can match Verizon’s price; if so then I’ll stick with ‘em, but if not then Verizon will soon have a new customer.
My dad tells me that when Verizon brings FiOS to our neck of the woods, he’ll consider switching to it not specifically for internet service, but to get real HDTV.
Currently, we have DirecTV satellite TV, Verizon 768 kbps DSL, and Verizon local phone service. We are holding off switching to DirecTV HD because we don’t want to be stuck in a two-year aggreement on DirecTV HD when Verizon FiOS comes to our area.
VErizon is horrible at DNAS because just plainly it sucks i play PS2 online and Verizon fios keeps telling me that i have no connection so when i run a test it says the network connection is timed out. i can not get pass this error please if you know anything about this reply and help im am really upset with verizon fios. it had my emotions up for it and then it let me down.
im haveing the same problem can anyone help me i cant get this dum ass fiios to work with my ps2 to go onliine i should just fucking switch to IO cable this is bull shit man im fuckin pissed off if anyone know how to get it to work please email me at ADR152005@yahoo.com please
I have comcast. I live on an Island and the owner of comcast lives here as well. The comcast triple play was first released in my area as a trial, comcast spend 6 months rewireing the hole island with fiber optics and have drop boxes all around the island, the cable modem i receltly got never goes below around 22mbps for upload and 8mbps for download. insanely fast. compared to my verizon dsl going at 768kbps
I just had my Fios Internet and phone installed. The tech was a good guy to work with. The only drawback I had was that he came right at the end of the two hour window period. However, I was happy to see my cable go away. Fortunately, I was able to do a speed test with my cable modem and my newly installed FIOS Internet as I had not shut off my cable modem service with Charter. Wow! What a surprise blazing speed with my hard wired computer at close to the promised 15/2 speed which I ordered. Tests ranged from 14/2 to 15/2. As for the wireless, speed was still good but not as my hard wired computer. I guess it also depends on how old your computer is. My brother’s laptop got at least 13/2 speed and my old Compaq ranged from 4/2 to 9/2.
The sales rep was great. She offered me the various options and whenever I had a question just to test her, she was very courteous and answered my questions with no b.s. answers. I guess it just depends on what FIOS office you get. When I called the general FIOS number listed on my bill, they couldn’t really help me with pricing and didn’t have access to the special price packaging. Funny thing is that they had to refer to my local FIOS service number (local as in State). So glad I got connected to my local FIOS customer service/sales center in Ca. I spent at least 45 minutes with the sales rep on the phone discussing various packages and in the end was happy with my deal. I’m saving at least an extra $20 a month on my phone/internet bill. Glad I switched even though I was a bit apprehensive with having to have a power supply to make my system work. Oh well, we deal more with Earthquakes in California. NOt that many to worry about.
“I have seen the light with Verizon Fiosâ€
I called Verizon FIOS to order phone, internet, and cable prior to my move in. My Consumer Order Summary was dated 3-28-08, and the scheduled installation date was 4-7-08. I reviewed the e-mail and all looked well. I move into my new house and install date comes. They setup an 8 AM-noon window. I already had the Optical Network Terminal unit (ONT) in my house, so I figured this would be cake for them. I am a Sys Admin at an ISP, so the internet stuff I could do myself with ease.
On install day, no one showed, no one called. I had my mobile with me at ALL times. So around 1:30 PM I called Verizon to see what was going on. If something came up, I had a week off to move in and if they needed to come by in a day or two, I was totally cool with that. After about an hour on hold I got in touch with a “state level” dispatcher. That said that there were “no facilities available for my order” and I was called. Nope, I wasn’t called; they did have my cell (which I had with me all of the time) in their records. I wanted them to come out later in the week if possible since I was home. They said that their next available time for me was 4-12-08, which was a day where I was going to a wedding. The next available time after that was at the end of the month, on a work day for me.
Basically because they did not show up, or even notify me with a reason, they put me at the back of the line. I was trying to escalate my request and the support only gave me unreasonable dates and that “no facilities available for my order” BS. I later wanted to get my copper line put back so I could at least get phone service, and after a long wait in hold they gave me the end of the month as a date. Basically I was being run around in circles and being shoved to the end of the line because Verizon screwed up my installation. I was told the only way I could get it sooner is if I “knew an installer who’d do me a favor,” and I was pretty much screwed with the window of time I had to get the service installed. The salesperson fed me a load of bull and the installer didn’t even call me with a reason. I tried to figure out what “no facilities available for my order” meant, and why this was such a problem since I already had the ONT in my house. Half of their work was already done.
The same day, I called a local cable company who installed my phone, internet, and cable the next day. They showed up on time and did the normal pre and post appointment verification. I unplugged the ONT in my house and let the battery go out. Verizon gave me such a lousy customer experience I swore I would never do business with them, and be sure to let other people know about their awful customer service and commitments they setup and do not honor. Verizon screwed up prior when they bought Bell Atlantic, and screwed up our perfectly find DSL service I had around 98/99. My money is going to a competitor, and Verizon won’t see it because they have abysmal customer service. I am certainly interested in fiber optic lines connected to my house, but so long as Verizon is the only provider, I will happily do without.
Herndon, VA
I have verizon FIOS. the speed of the internet is amazing as long as you don’t have to deal with the customer service. This is the worst customer service a human can ever get. Their customer service is the test for your patient and the way you handle anger and frustration. if you have short temper like me, don’t even try it. You have to wait for 40-50 minutes to get the real person to talk to you. That is not it, in the middle of the conversation, the phone got cut off. Don’t even dream about that the representative will call you back.You have to start it over again. after I was on the phone for over 2 hours, no issue was solved. no matter how fast the internet is, it is not worth you to raise your blood pressure for it.
I’ve had Verizon FIOS for about 8 months and am very pleased. I just paid this month’s bill of $119 which covers Internet, TV, and VOIP with international dialing. I have 3 computers and a NAS disk hooked up by wire to their router, and a laptop with wireless. Everything works great – very few problems since the installation and good response from techs (all friendly, knowledgeable, and English is their native language!).
The installer knew his stuff great for TV and phone, mostly OK for internet though I had to help out a bit. My previous setup (RCN) had the cable modem in the basement and Cat-5 running up to my router in the den upstairs where the computers are. I had thought the Verizon would replace the cable modem and I would keep my router in place. Nyet! The Verizon is a router as well so I had two routers fighting for control of the network, assigning IP addresses, etc. Configuring the old router to “act as switch only” – the installer’s suggestion – did not cure it. Solution – run out to Staples and replace the old router with a $20 switch. All fixed .
I mentioned my old service was RCN – boy, the worst of the worst. TV fuzzy, pixillating, freezing, saying “off air” for major channels, and support from women in the Philippines with little clue…internet down at random intervals – When I returned my gear to the RCN office I was one among many! Someone in line commented on the much sharper TV picture, which I also noticed right off. RCN called and tried to get me to re-sign with a price slightly lower than Verizon – I wouldn’t go back if they paid me!
I have been using Comcast for quite awhile, and though it seems fine, I am waiting for Verizon Fios to come into my area so I can have super-breakthrough speed.
I believe Verizon Fios will change the internet world and cable will have to up the ante if they want to stay in the game… Just my take, but we will see…
Fios is coming to my area in Jersey and I can’t wait … Crapcast has pretty much owned our tv rights for as long as we’ve been in the area (15 yrs)…
Verizon gave me $3500 and it was the worst customer service experience of my life.
We’ve just installed Verizon Fios and the TV picture is great, the internet speed ok- we have the lowest level, but our phone system is terrible. We have a radio station in the background playing on our phone lines. And…the Verizon technical support is horrific. They say they are keeping call notes but then when you call back they are not in the system. We’ve scheduled 3 days when Tech’s were supposed to be here and the first time the schedule never made it into the system…the second time it made it into the system but the operator didn’t click the right button to dispatch the call. The third time the operator told me the tech would be here between 8:00 and 12:00 p.m. and now after my third call they’ve told me no it was between 8:00 and 5:00. What a disappointment
Comcast is the devil. I recently got FIOS Internet and TV with 250 regular channels and 90 HD Channels and an Internet download rate of 20mbps and upload rate of 5mbps. When I tested my comcast speed at testmyspeed.com it ran at 645mbps download! FIOS is 3 times the speed of comcast. Also, my comcast bill is 225/mth and with FIOS I am getting better service, more channels, faster internet, all movie channels, internet security software, etc. for 150/mth. I am saving 70 dollars with Verizon and for the best product out there. What a deal!!
I live in Pennsylvania and have had verizon fios for only about 3.5 months now. It is absolutely horrible!!! I switched from comcast thinking i would get a better deal and better customer service. First, i was ripped off by verizon because they told me I signed a 2 year contract. I dont remember signing or seeing anything that spoke of a contract, otherwise i would have told verizon to take a hike then. Second, their phone service is awful, and full of static, connection to the internet is ok, but the faster the service, the more money you pay. comcast isnt like that. Not to mention, my email has never worked since day one. And lastly, omg, on demand movies -you cant even hear when you watch them, it skips every other word and we have to turn the tv volume up to full blast and still cant hear anything.BUYER BEWARE!!! in short, I HATE YOU VERIZON , TAKE YOUR FIOS AND SHOVE IT!!!! IM CONTACTING MY LAWYER ABOUT YOUR STUPID CONTRACT AND VERY POOR SERVICE.
ps. the hardware connection to dumb fios looks like a 911 dispatch unit in my bedroom closet!! lights lit up all over the darn place!!!! have to pull the covers over our head just so we can sleep!!! try selling your house with that junk in there.
If you think that fios is that great you are sorely mistaken. First they tried to tell me that I did not pay my bill and cut off my services when I explained to them that the bill had been paid and faxed them a copy of my bank statement showing proof that wasn’t good enough for them. Afterwards I went for over two weeks and lots of time and money to get nowhere. I still had to pay for services that I was not receiving and when I called about this I was told too bad, I was also told that if I didn’t like it then I could have the equipment taken out of my home for a substancial charge. So I warn you if you want fios DON’T DO IT all they will do is take your money and give no service. I am currently looking for a replacement for fios no matter what it cost! Don’t waste your time or money on this company in the end you will be the one getting burned!!!!!
well i am a verizon tech support agent base in san diego and i must say that the verizon services they re not really good some times depents on the area the cx are or the leght from the c.o. (cental office) to the house
must of the times the sales department just sale the services with out checking with us the loop lenghts and whe the cx call upset becusae the service is slow or not even have sync with the server (in cases of a adsl connection) and we check out the cx distance from the c.o to the house is more than 20.000 feet and that when the funny part came because we scalate the problem to the centyral office in the cx area then they supoust to call the cx an tell em what is the problem and what is the action to need to be taken but they dont these guys just close the tickets and put on the notes tested pass ok refer to tech support for follow up and after that the same cycle of going around start all over again so PLEASE DONT GET VERIZON FIOZ OR DSL IS REALLY BAD
PLEASE BE CAREFUL WHEN YOU INSTALL FIOS. THEY SAY NO TERMINATION CHARGES WHEN YOU MOVE RESIDENCE TO NEW AREA WIHTOUT FIOS. BUT WHEN YOU GO TO CANCEL , THEY CHARGE YOU TERMINATION FEES AND TRY TO PUSH THEIR HOME PHONE SERVICE DOWN YOUR THROAT.. PLEASE MAKE SURE THAT YOU ARE CAREFUL BEFORE YOU INSTALL OR SAY GOOD BYE TO 179USD WHEN YOU TERMINATE EARLY
I just had my Fios installed today. 25/25mbps. It has been running for several hours and I have since uploaded 15gigs and downloaded 6gigs. The TV service is great too. I am very pleased!
fios is great… until an upgrade/downgrade in bandwidth triggers a technician to manually reprogram the ONT
kiss low latency goodbye
no resolution
I don’t know what reprogramming your talking about.
Also… anyone that complains about the speed has to realize that its not always going to be super fast connected to a single server. Remember that you have a huge ceiling of bandwidth above. You can DL/UL many files at once to hit your peak cap. Cable certainly cannot touch this speeds you get with Fios.
I recently got in a battle which included the Better Business Bureau over a disconnect fee. Fios became available to my building, so I was excited to get rid of Comcast and try out Fios. It was about the same quality (problems like muting for hours at a time after rewinding DVR, etc). BUT, Fios was then not able to provide service to my building, for a reason that they could not explain. I was 6 months into my contract, and even though they weren’t providing me service, they still said I only had two options: keep the non-existent service and pay full monthly charges for the remainder of the 6 months (around $900) or pay $120 disconnect fee. After trying to convince them of their stupidity in requiring any kind of fees, I told them to bring a tech out to check it, and IFit was their fault and couldn’t be fixed, to cancel my service and take the STB’s back with them. INSTEAD I receive several boxes stating that I needed to return equipment to FedEx store – I checked, and my credit card was charged $120. I immediately contacted BBB and did not send in the boxes yet because that would be admitting that I asked them to cancel. Of course I got a call from a collection agency asking for the STB’s back and I found out Verizon had been charging me FULL price for a service that had been cancelled. Let me repeat – when all I should have been charged with was the DVR rentals (and I don’t think even that while my issue was being handled by BBB), they charged me for my entire service package. The service package that I could not receive even before I had talked with them, and now they had literally been charging for something they even knew they weren’t giving me.
Bottom line is they were horrible at 1. providing data service 2. fixing service 3. customer service 4. functionality of DVRs 5. money management 6. altogether, customer satisfaction. F-
I live in PA and we had Verizon FIOS it rocked! But we made the stupid mistake of switching back to Comcast, because a salesman came out and told us they had upgraded thier service and were randomly checking with people to see if they would switch services. We did and BOY was that a big dumb ass mistake!!!!!!!!!!!!! Because we had to go down to comcasts office and tell them we didn’t have internet service and told them the installer told us we could go there and they would give us the router we needed free. Well the people there said you have to go online to get it.
It was like HELLOOOOOOOOOOOOO we don’t have internet anymore How the hell do you expect us to do that!!!!!!!
Someone from thier company ordered it and it took a week to get it. And it works OK until the modem acts up and screws up the phoneline internet service and all. then if you have a cell phone you have to use it to call them to fix the problem and you use several of your cell phone minutes that you didn’t intend to use and get billed for them.
In Short if you have Verizon FIOS , Internet, Phone, and TV, when someone from Comcast comes and tries to get you to switch to them.
Take it from me and DON’T DO IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You will be very pissed off and think why the hell did I do such a stupid thing?
The best thing to do is stay with Verizon and those charges on thier bill that are negative ones for a long time, when they start to charge for those just cancel those, but keep everthing else.