 Review by WileEC 
member for 11.2 years, 1172 visits, last login: 282 days ago
updated 1.2 years ago
 Yonkers,Westchester,NY
 $120 per month- (12 month contract)
 about 3 days "Gobs and gobs of the finest, low latency bits racing to and from my PC" "the installation process can be a tad involved" "If FIOS is available in your area, GET IT!"
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(ratings match consensus)
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April, 2005:
I was probably one of the first people to get FIOS in Yonkers back in April 2005. I got it literally the week it became available from the Tuckahoe CO. I ordered it online, and to my surprise, they scheduled me for installation the same week! The Verizon crew that did the installation couldn't be nicer. But there was an installation delay due to a clerical error in assigning me fiber from the wrong pole. So they installed the ONT and ran the ethernet cable to my machine, but I would have no connection until the next day. But sure enough, they came back the next morning and finished the installation. I had the 15/2 for $45/mo w/1st month free. Amazing speed! I was coming off of Optimum Online who had jerked me around one too many times, and whose speed had declined to an average of half of what I had started with (it was down to around 5/1.. sometimes it was even worse than that).
My experience with FIOS has been great ever since. I get very low pings to game servers. In fact I'm usually the one showing the lowest ping on every server I join. I can upload to my hearts content and not have to worry about being "capped" as I was on Optimum. The service has been up 99.99% of the time, with only a few brief outages due to scheduled maintenance (which they don't lie about, again, unlike Optimum)
Recently I upgraded to the 30/5 service for $55/mo in a 1 year contract. Loving it! There is so much bandwidth available to me! I can easily download 4 or 5 files simultaneously and fill up the pipe. Occasionally, I'll hit a site with exceptional bandwidth that can fill it with one file, like ATI's website.
I have called the FIOS tech support (called Encore) on the two occasions and I had no problems with them at all. I thought they were much better than the support I got from Optimum. When I upgraded to 30/5, the Verizon reps were very helpful and took care of everything. When I got home from work that night, I had 30/5.
I see some people here have complained about PPPoE, but I don't know what their problem is. Considering that the router handles all of that, I don't see what their problem is, other than complaining to complain. I don't expect to notice much of a difference if Verizon switches to DHCP.
My best advice is that if FIOS is available to you, get it!
UPDATE: 7/30/2007
Still absolutely, completely satisfied! The FiOS 30/5 has been solid, reliable and SUPER FAST!!! The only bad thing is now I'm thinking that I want MORE bandwidth. I'm still waiting for their TV service to become available in my area, which is unfortunate... the availability of the FiOS TV service is hampered by local/state government regulations and local/state government hands that need greasing. But I said it before, I'll say it again, if FIOS is available in your area, GET IT!
UPDATE: 5/1/2009
FiOS TV!!! Yay! I finally dropped CV and went for FiOS TV!
A few weeks prior to the install, I replaced a few runs of RG59 with RG6 Quad. I purchased two 100' coils of very high quality, solid copper core RG6 quad shield cable from Amazon for $40 ($20 per 100') (»www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000BTBMU2). I also purchased a set of tools for installing compression connectors on coax for $35 from Amazon (»www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000934F3Q). That kit works great! If you can follow instructions you will get very professional results (the VZ installer was impressed!). I also purchased a mixed bag of attenuators and a low pass filter for the TiVo having done extensive reading on using TiVos with FiOS TV. In addition, I purchased the TiVo HD and a 1 TB WD drive to replace the 160 GB drive that it comes with. It's less expensive than purchasing a TiVo HD XL and you get the same results. So I made the RG6 runs in the weeks prior and then installed and activated the TiVo HD the day before my FiOS TV install date.
Since I already had FiOS for internet, it was a matter of installing the STBs, VZ DVR and the cablecard for my new TiVo HD. The installer arrived at about 9:30am. I put in the actiontec router and he wired the ONT to to coax for TV (I have ethernet for data). He then installed and provisioned the STBs and VZ DVR. Finally we worked on getting the cablecard activated in my TiVo. The cablecard took a few attempts to activate properly. Aside from that, everything went smoothly. The install took longer than I expected at about five hours, but then we were bullshitting a lot.
After the installer left, I optimized the signal strength to the TiVo using the attenuators and installed the low pass filter. The TiVo works great and so far I have not had any errors.
The picture quality is phenomenal. My HDTV looks outstanding and even the 20 year old NTSC TVs look amazing and clean on FiOS TV. No interference. No dot crawls. No snow. No ghosting. No anything except perfection on every TV in the house. I'm happy with the channel lineup and the STB and VZ DVR are easy to use. The TiVo HD works great on FiOS and I like that I can copy content from the TiVo to my PC.
So far, one week in, I cannot be happier with my decision.
I plan on putting my personal router back in as primary and bridging to the Actiontec for MoCA to feed the STBs and VZ DVR. Hopefully, that will go well.
UPDATE: 2/22/2012
Recently, I changed my data service from 30/5 to 50/20. The faster speed is definitely worth the price increase associated with it. Since I got FiOS TV, I've had to replace the VZ DVR twice as I've now had two failures. The first time was during the hot summer and I didn't realize the dust buildup on the fan and cooked the hard drive. After that, I raised up the replacement DVR with rubber feet and added a silent, but effective laptop cooling fan to the top to draw more air through the unit. The second DVR failure was when they upgraded the system software to 1.9. For some reason, that DVR didn't take the upgrade and instead failed. Other than those two incidents, the service has been good with almost no downtime. Still recommended.
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