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Review by LurkerLito 
Posted: 2.3 years ago
member for 5.4 years, 1708 visits, last login: a few hours ago
 New Hyde Park,Nassau,NY
 $39 per month (12 month contract)
 about 4 days
 "Great speeds Up and Down with no Bandwidth caps at all"
 "Really long installation with an ugly box tacked onto your house"
 "Well worth the installation trouble for the speed and realiability"
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Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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As a long time and now former optimum online customer it was hard to imagine I would ever switch to another company for broadband but once OOL sought to institute bandwidth restrictions without any warnings, notifications or clarifications as to what they considered "too much", they left me little choice but to look for an alternative. Once the capping of the service happened, there was at least a year or two before FIOS was available in my area and it was a long wait since DSL was the only other alternative and going from OOL 10/1 service to DSL was just not going to happen.
The ordering process was very easy. I ordered over their website and it let me choose a install date right from the order form, so I chose the earliest available so it was about 4 days (2 business days). The Friday before the install I got a call to confirm the installation appointment, and that was it.
The install was long and very complicated and took a good 5 hours or so. First the ONT needed to be mounted outside onto the house. This is a rather large box and from this 2 wires had to be run. The first was a standard ethernet cable and the other was a power cable. The power cable powers the ONT which handles my telephone line and the internet line. The power line connects to a UPS then to a power outlet. The UPS is used to keep your phone and internet line active even in the event of a blackout. The UPS is not a standard one you would find at a computer store. It looks custom built for Verizon. Since the power to the ONT was run into the house the wire had to be stripped and assembled into the UPS. Similarly, the power brick is separated from the UPS and had a wire similar to the one run into the house stripped and assembled into the UPS and power brick. I am guessing this is to provide more flexibility on where the UPS can be installed. Next was the ethernet line. It wasn't that difficult once the power was installed. The installer just had to hook it up to the outside box and put a RJ45 jack on the wall. Once that was complete, I got the firewall/router provided by Verizon and I was up and running. The longest part of the installation was the running of the wires. If you are going to get this installed, try to plan where you want the equipment ahead of time and look at where the wires are going to be run. This will save you a lot of time.
Originally I wanted to use a different firewall the one that I bought for use with my OOL since I was very familiar with it and knew how to set it up properly. Even though I believe the FIOS service uses a DHCP to get a dynamic IP address, it just wouldn't work with my netgear firewall so I just opted to use the router/firewall that verizon provided.
The Verizon Wireless/wired router is very capable. It has all the tools to keep your network safe assuming you set it up properly. It supports a firewall and allows you to make rules of your own other than just the default ones. The wireless side supports 802.11b/g and supports WEP and WPA-PSK encryption along with limiting access via MAC address filtering and the connection type (ie only 802.11b or 802.11g or both can connect). Considering it came with the service I am quite impressed at the features of the router/firewall.
Speed wise I have the 20/5 plan and after running the speed tests I was getting 20.5mbps down and about 4.2 mbps up. A huge difference from the 10/1 I had with Optimum Online. The price is lower by $10 for the first 12 months than OOL since it is $39.95. After the first 12 months the price is suppose to go back to the normal $49.95 but I'll talk to them then and see if I can get another price break. OOL wouldn't give me any price breaks unless I switched over to their Optimum Voice service which I didn't want to do. Rumors were flying on the boards that with the OOL boost service the capping was removed but you had to pay an extra $15 a month which would have brought the OOL price to over $55 with tax. Not worth it if you can get the same service with no caps for less money. And by switching to FIOS I no longer have the port 25 block so I can now use the mail server on my website to send mail.
Overall I still would highly recommend FIOS over all the alternatives available in my area (OOL, DSL). The only real bad point of the service is the installation. It has to be one of the longest installation times I have ever seen and the box on the side of the house isn't really pretty because of the size.
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