 Review by Phil 
UPDATED: 252 days ago
member for 8.4 years, 3423 visits, last login: a few hours ago
 Camarillo,Ventura,CA
 $87 per month (24 month contract)
 about 14 days
 "Fast upload speeds, great picture quality, solid service."
 "Yet to receive first bill, pre-install"
 "Verizon has the best TV/Internet offering available in the US today. Cable cannot compete on their dated infrastructure."
| Pre Sales Information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
(ratings match consensus)
|
Verizon's picture quality crushes my previous Time Warner service. With Time Warner I got pixelation, black screens, green screens and poor picture quality overall. At some point during my Time Warner service SD feeds were compressed to make room for HD channels and suffered noticeably as a result. And this is really where Verizon shines, the infrastructure.
Verizon is investing some serious cash to bring fiber directly to each and every home versus the cable companies only taking fiber to the neighborhood and the coax from there to the home. It's clear who the winner here is.
Moving on, cable companies have embraced packet shaping, looking at what is traveling across their network and make adjustments to it. This means that certain types of traffic get less priority over others. This is another tactic employed by the cable companies to manage available bandwidth over an aging infrastructure. Again, Verizon wins here as they are not throttling, packet shaping, etc, nor do they need with the their fiber infrastructure.
Next, caps. Verizon doesn't have them, some cable companies do and others are going to add them. Although cable companies will have you believe caps are for the betterment of all their subscribers, the bottom line is caps are a way for cable companies to try and protect their original source of revenue, television. That's right, caps are being put into to place to prevent people from using their Internet connection to watch the latest movies and television. Verizon has no caps as of now (and I hope they keep it that way).
And what else can I say, Verizon offers fast speed packages and not just downstream speed. They offer 20Mbps symmetrical and 50/20 packages, however I have the 20.5 package. This is another example of where Verizon FiOS shines, the upload speeds. Cable continues to boast fast download speeds, but offer nothing for upload. They have things such as powerboost which boosts the speed of a download temporarily while then reverting to slower speeds. The funny thing is with cable, the faster speeds allow one to hit their caps faster than ever.
Below is an earlier post I made about the initial ordering process:
»Re: [northeast] My Jaw Will Drop, My Pulse Will Race....
"I'm in nearly the same boat as you with my install scheduled for the 21st of November. Only difference is I'm switching from Time Warner and don't subscribe to the additional premium movie and sports channels.
I initially ordered online, set the date for the 21st with an install time between 8AM-Noon. I get a confirmation e-mail from Verizon showing an install window of 8AM-5PM. So already I'm having to correct this multi-billion dollar corporation's mistake. So the guy I speak with is very helpful, but in addition he informs about the $79.99 15/2/Extreme HD package that is mentioned nowhere on the web site. So my order gets updated (still includes the 1 year free DVR, 1st month free on both Internet and TV) and I get a new order number. I'm told about the web site to check the status »www.verizon.net/whatsnext/.
Later that day I go to this site and enter the 7 digit order number the rep gave me. Wait, seven digits? It says right on the site that it should be 9 digits. On the phone for the second time, maybe 10 minutes on hold, I get what sounds like some stoner teenager who informs me that the other rep forgot to give me the first two characters, "0C". I try again and it works.
So I'm glad the install window was wrong because I got into the bundle promo and now have a new install window of 7AM-9AM (the web site only offers install windows of 8AM-Noon, Noon-5PM or 8AM-5PM. One has to call to get 2 hour install windows).
All of this will ultimiately be going into my FiOS review."
So as I discovered above, it may be best to call and speak to a Verizon rep when ordering service as you can get a better deal and narrow down the install time window. I'd also recommend to anyone getting service to schedule it first thing in the morning. It took almost 7 hours for one Verizon tech to install my service.
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of Verizon FIOS |
|
Verizon FIOS
(158)
(157)
(171)
(114)