Review by paulme 
UPDATED: 1.2 years ago
member for 2 years, 95 visits, last login: 17 days ago
 Kirkland,King,WA
 $39 per month (24 month contract)
 about 13 days
 "High upload rates, stable connection."
 "Dynamic IP, phone is over fiber now."
 "This is a great upgrade over DSL, and I had a great FIOS experiance overall."
| Pre Sales Information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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I’ve had DSL for a long time.
I’ve had it long enough that I had to setup my ISP separately from getting Verizon to provide the DSL circuit, and do the handshaking between the two companies. I’ve never messed with it since its always worked, and I couldn’t get Verizon to admit that they were providing me a DSL circuit even when given the circuit ID. I've been running a 1.5 Mbps /128 Kbps DSL connection, the upload rate has been killing me, and its way more expensive than the bundles that Verizon is selling now. When provisioning for Verizon’s DSL bundles Verizon claims that I can only get a 768/128 Kbps, when I know I have a better connection than that. Since I can’t upgrade and I don’t want do downgrade, I was stuck. I refused to go to Comcast and be forced into paying for cable TV when I don’t want or need it. So there I’ve sat for around 9 years… until some contractors started working on my street.
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4/2007 – Street work.
Contractors started marking up the roads in front of my house. I was a little worried at first since this usually means they're going to dig up the streets and make traffic suck. To my surprise they did some drilling and dragged conduit through the connections.
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6/2007 – Pulling fiber.
Couple months pass and they finish that up and (to my surprise) they start pulling fiber through the conduit. At this point I was getting really curious so asked who they were doing it for and why. They didn’t know why, but said that is was for Verizon. I did a little digging around the internet and found that Verizon was putting in FIOS in my area, so this was very likely FIOS. Anticipation was killing me from that point onward.
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9/2007 – Street work looks finished.
It finally looked like Verizon had finished their work on the cabling, and testing of the connections to the splitter.
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10/02/2007 – Web validation says I’m good to order.
The Verizon web validation system finally admitted that FIOS was available to my home. I was going to be gone for most of October so I didn’t order it immediately like I wanted to.
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10/21/2007 - Order date.
Got back from vacation and ordered FIOS over the web. It was easy to pick what package (5/2 Mbps) I wanted, and see what I was going to be charged ($39.99 monthly, with first month free, and next 6 months after at $29.99). At the end of the package selection I was able to select an install date. The soonest was about two weeks out, so I took that one. The interesting thing here was that it allowed the selection of an install window. I selected earliest possible (8am – 12pm), thinking that if something went wrong he’d have all day to take care of it. I doubt I’ll be first on his loop, so I’ll get to sleep in.
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10/31/2007 – Fiber pulled to house.
I was getting worried at this point since my yard had been marked for about a week already and I hadn’t seen anyone or gotten any calls about someone coming out to pull the fiber to my house. After getting home from work I decided to take a look around. I found that the fiber had been pulled that day, and the tiny trench that had been made was barely visible (it was dark out, still isn’t bad at all during the day).
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11/01/2007 – Install date confirmed.
Got a confirmation call that the tech was going to be out on the second.
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11/02/2007 - Install date.
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7:50am:
Tech calls, says he’ll be over at 8am. Didn’t expect this, so no extra sleep for me. Oh well, that just means I get done sooner than I expected.
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8:00am:
Tech shows up and we discuss what he’s going to do. He wants to use the existing coax cabling. I disagree and want to run a CAT5 line into the rec-room. He has no problems with that and gets started. I move some stuff out from the walls of the garage, so he can run the cabling.
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10:00am:
Tech lets me know that the hardware install is finished and we can move onto the software setup. He ran an firmware update on the ActionTec router, and then ran through the Verizon FIOS account setup over the new FIOS connection. This relatively simple, but was made annoying since the software kept hanging and needed to be restarted. We did the setup on spare system I have, if the software installed gets too annoying, I’ll just flatten the box and start over.
Since I have my own router that I was going to use, he let me know that I need to release the IP from the ActionTec to get a new lease on another network device. I guess Verizon binds on to the MAC for security, who knows…
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10:30am:
Tech is done, so I release the ActionTec router’s IP and plug the connection directly into my system. I jump over to speakeasy’s speed test and the connection tests out to very close to 5/2 Mbps.
After reading a couple of the reviews here of how bad the installs can look, I wanted to take a look before the tech leaves, he didn’t have a problem with that. The install is very clean, and professional. The ONT is install outside the house (in weatherproof housing) with the power feeding from the battery backup in the garage. I need to take some photos and post them in the review at some point…
I gave the tech a big thanks, and he went on his way. I wish that I could name this guy, he did a great job and I have no complaints.
Since I’m going to be using my own router, I took the ActionTec out and put it into a drawer. The tech told me that I need to have the router if I want to get FIOS TV, so I’ll keep it. I then released my system’s IP and plug into my router, set the QOS settings for the proper speeds to not choke itself, then do the speed test again, and everything matches up.
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11:00am:
Hooray! I’m done, and more importantly I'm happy!!!
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I have to say that this is the best experience I've ever had getting my internet connection setup. I doubt that it could have gone better.
The only thing that concerns me is that the phone is now over fiber as well, so its dependent on me providing power. The batter backup claims an 8 hour life. I think I'll add my own UPS to that since power went out for a couple days last year.
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11/20/2007
Checked my phone bill on-line today and found that I was being billed for the DSL for the full month still. I kind of expected this to be the case. Though, when talking with the installing tech he had said that it would be automatically switched over. It seems that this would normally be the case, but only if I were using Verizon as my DSL ISP (which I wasn't).
A quick call later, the whole thing has been (supposedly) sorted out. I fully expected to be waiting on hold. Oddly on dialing the billing number I immediately got someone who saw what I was talking about, had a reasonable explanation, and claims to have fixed the issue (pro-rated DSL to 11/2).
I'll hold judgment on if the billing has actually taken care of until I can see it on the next month's billing correctly.
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01/10/2008
Looks like the billing person did actually fix my DSL billing issue, and refunded my account for the amount that I shouldn't have been billed. I'm really impressed. This isn't what I'd normally expect. 
Anyway... I called verizon about some random FIOS question and got bounced around their phone system for 50 minutes while they tried to decide who would answer me... This is what I normally would expect. The actual amount of time I was talking with people was maybe 10 minutes. Ah well, not every call can be a winner.
Oh yeah... no issues with my FIOS. Still running great.
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07/18/2008
I'm still happy with my FiOs connection.
There have been a couple unannounced down times, but they have been short, and after midnight, so wouldn't bother most people I think. I happen to be an after midnight type of guy though, so I was there for it. :-P
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08/21/2008
Finally got around to calling Verizon about the change from 5/2 to 10/2 in my area. The person I got ahold of was local (in Everett of all places...)
The call lasted about 18 minute and 20 second:
3 of those minutes due to digging through the phone options.
10 minutes waiting
5 minutes talking to the sales/tech guy.
Turns out that it isn't an automatic upgrade when they upgraded the service level I'm at. I think that this is more due to the pricing change from when I initally ordered FiOs to now 39.99 to 42.99.
Anyway I was given the option to upgrade my service to 10/2 or leave it at 5/2, to upgrade it would cost 3.00 more a month. I decided to do it, why not... more is better, right??? :-P I know I said I wouldn't... but why not...
While the guy was setting this up, he offered me the options of signing up for some other services, wasn't pushy about them, just let me know that they were there:
Virus and Firewalling software
Starz online media access (this is apperantly a station, who knew!)
FiOs TV pre-sale (for when they get the service working in the area, soon...)
Didn't take him up on anything else though.
It was a good call. Fairly short, the guy knew what he was talking about, and wasn't pushy about selling me services. Good job verizon.
Followup comments:  
z00keeper
@verizon.net | verizon fios Nothing can touch Fios .... at least for now. Best TV qualty, Best Internet speed, Bar None! | |
| iansltx
join:2007-02-19
Golden, CO | 10/2? Looks like Verizon has upped their lowest speed tier on FiOS to 10 Mbit down, 2 up. On the other hand, the price has gone up to $43 a month. Will you be taking advantage of the faster speed, outta curiosity? | |
|  | paulme
join:2007-11-06
Kirkland, WA
 ·Verizon FIOS
1 edit | Re: 10/2? Hmmm... hadn't noticed that they'd upgraded the offering in my area.
When I'd called them (FIOS support) before my random question was about what would happen if they upgraded my service level in the area. At the time, they stated that I would get the same upgrade when it happened. I'll need to check this when I get home.
If I'm not at that level of service (10/2) I'll give them a call to see whats happening. Then post the results here.
Honestly though, if they want more money for it, I won't do it. 5/2 is really quite fast, and I really switched to FiOs to get the increased upload speed. | |
| cybercrimes
join:2003-12-24
Phoenixville, PA | router broke my router was locking up on me a few times a day.then i have to rest the router every time.ended calling verizon told them abot it and ther going to send another router out
verizon has good customer support.no down time | |
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