 Review by Cuchulainn 
UPDATED: 37 days ago
member for 7.7 years, 606 visits, last login: 21 days ago
 Chevy Chase,Montgomery,MD
 $125 per month (12 month contract)
 about 20 days
 "Blazing Fast, Reliable as All Get Out, Neat, Clean, Fast Install"
 "wish the tech support was better. Actiontec hardware s**ks"
 "absolutely the dog's bollocks! smashing!"
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(ratings match consensus)
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I am so glad to be back in the USA and to have reliable broadband! Tony Blair can witter on all he wants about 99% broadband coverage in the UK, but it is all a load of garbage.
About a week before I moved, I saw that FIOS was available in my neighborhood. A ten minute call to Verizon confirmed this, placed the order and scheduled the install for the week after I arrived in the US. Yes - ten minutes. Not ten minutes on hold. Not ten minutes navigating the IVR system. Not ten minutes talking to someone in India. Ten minutes - BAM!
Install scheduled for a Wednesday between 1 and 4. On Sunday (yes, Sunday) the Verizon tech came to pull the cable from the street. I have overhead lines so there was no digging or anything. Bang on at 1:15 on the Wednesday the techs arrived and got straight to work. By 4pm it was all up and working. No holes, no sleeping technicians, no splitters.....just pure speeeeeeeddddd!!
Aside from a few initial hiccups with the Actiontec router there have been no problems. My speeds are bang-on consistent 15/2, even in the evening. I just found out FIOS tv is available; once I am done with renovations I am ordering it - sayo-friggin-nara Comcast!
UPDATED 4/27/09 - I am still very satisfied but a recent tech support experience of mine echoes some of what I've read in this forum. On Tuesday night I got the usual "THE INTERNET ISN'T WORKING..." from the PITA...er...the wife and kid I mean. Sure enough it wasn't. A series of reboots (router three times, desktop four times) confirmed something was wrong - each time I rebooted I'd get a different set of lights working. Router is an Actiontec POS ML424WR and from what I'd read here the fallout rate for them is pretty high. Called FIOS tech support and got "Henry" who was about as bright as a bag of wet sand. Although I explained the symptoms and what I'd already done, he would hear none of it. Went through 30+ minutes of "is the computer turned on?" "OK...click on My Computer.." nonsense. Henry would not listen to anything I had to say; by God he was gonna run the playbook even though it was clear as a bell that we had a hardware problem and I was gonna need a new router. I finally got fed up and asked (politely) to be transferred to someone else - and Henry hung up on me after asking me several times "well, what's the resolution, bright boy,,,,huh??"
I called back and after getting an IVR response which told me there was a problem and a tech would be arriving tomorrow (total BS of course) I got through to Will who wasn't much brighter but managed after 5 minutes of testing to determine it was a hardware problem (SURPRISE!!) and schedule a tech to come out the next day. Sure enough it was the router; they replaced it and it's all been fine ever since.
Bottom line - it's still the same clueless Verizon techs at the other end of the line. But at least they're rude/clueless/indifferent/hostile (use your own adjective) in clear, plain English. Wonder how long it will take for FiOS to get outsourced to India, China or one of the "Stans".
UPDATE: 10/04/07 ADDED FIOS TV: It's been a week now since I've had FiOS TV and it is SO much better than Comcast! Install was clean and quick - the technician (Adam) was helpful and even showed me a few less than optimal connections I'd made on one of my TVs. The whole process took 2.5 hours (1 HD DVR, 2 normal and one HD box) and I am very satisfied so far. The picture quality is fantastic and I love being able to stream DVR content to other TVs. Some minor annoyances with the guide but it's nothing that won't get solved with a bit of time on my part. Great service and great price point - same service as Comcast but $20/month less.
UPDATE: 01/22/08: I'd meant to update over the holidays but just got too busy. Service has still been good but I had a brief spate of issues where the Coax LAN connection would cut out every 12-24 hours. It would usually restore itself after an hour or so -or several reboots if I was awake. Spent an hour and a half on hold with tech support one Sunday night and did manage to get someone who told me it was "an issue" and that they would "look into it".  Verizon seem to have fixed it on the head end - I reported the issue and never heard back but a tech did come out to check the wiring a couple of weeks ago and found nothing. All in all I am still satisfied.
UPDATE: 6/18/08: No complaints. Connection has been rock-solid for months now. Router now has a Sonos box, NAS and a network printer attached and all are working fine. Assigning each a static IP is tricky but that's about as hard as it's been. I am so happy Comcast is out of my life!
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do not have a clue-verizon