 Review by stray 
Posted: 2 years ago
member for 8.7 years, 3286 visits, last login: 9 days ago
 Warren,Somerset,NJ
 $45 per month (12 month contract)
 about 9 days
 "Good Install, Fast Transfer, Low Pings, Very Reliable"
 "Lost my copper"
 "Very happy, good value"
| Pre Sales Information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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Ordered FIOS 15/2 on 4-15-06. Installed without any problems on 4/24/06. Standard ONT and Dlink DI-624 router. Free install and $45/mo. with 12 mo. agreement. I've now been using FIOS for almost 5 months.
Had an all-day install window, but the Verizon installer (not a contractor) came at 9am and worked till about 4pm with a lunch break. I've got a 300' above-ground run from the pole on the road. The installer ran a fiber line, and left the copper until everything was working at the end of the day. Took a couple of hours to install the ONT and battery backup. My installer was very helpful and flexible about running inside wiring. Ran a line from the ONT to a new wall jack near a kitchen cabinet, on top of which we put the wireless router (centrally located in the house.) He then put a second wall jack in the same location and ran a backhaul CAT-5 to my ethernet switch in the basement, thus tying into the existing house network. Most of the wire runs were in the open rafters of my basement. No extra charge for the extra work. The installer took the time to understand what I wanted and explain what he was doing. Good job!
After the installer verified that my phones and internet worked, he removed the old NID box outside the house and took down the 300' copper run to the pole. While I'm a little nervous about power outages, I've always got my cell phone and my wife is an EMT with a battery run police transceiver. It'll be OK, I suspect.
I ordered 15/2 PPPoE service and the speed was rock solid. A few weeks later, VZ changed this price tier to 20/5, and a quick call to them got my line up to speed. To date the speed has been consistent, no outages that I've detected, and pings have been excellent.
I don't use VZ's email servers. VZ news servers are fairly slow, so I've hung on to my Usenetserver.com subscription. I get about 2.4 megaBytes/sec. download from Usenetserver (that's a DVD in about 35 minutes!) I have 3 Vonage phone lines. All have worked just fine (a few Vonage related outages, but nothing attributable to FIOS.)
I switched from Optimum Online where I had contracted for 8/2 speeds for a few years at $50/mo. I was basically happy with them, although for the past year or so, afternoon and evening speeds were lagging down to about 4/1. OOL had infrequent, but annoying outages every 2-3 months. The switch to FIOS reduced my bill by $5/mo., increased my speeds to 20/5, and so far has been more reliable.
I've really noticed the 5mbit/sec. upload speeds, as I maintain several websites with video content. It's great to be able to upload these videos to my host (1and1) at high speed.
Usually I'm not so gushing in my reviews, especially one about Verizon who I've had quite a few unhappy experiences with over the years. Nonetheless, every aspect of FIOS has been really good, from the order taking to installation to customer service to the exceptional internet connectivity. Who woulda thunk it?
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