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Review by cchhat01 See Profile

  • Location: Elmhurst, Queens, NY, USA
  • Cost: $51 per month
Consistent speeds, speedtest are always fast, always on, 0 downtime
none that i can think of at the moment
get it if you can (afford it)!
Pre Sales Information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)

So I've had Verizon FIOS since Jun 2013. I only subscribe to their internet service as I am locked down to DISH Network for their TV package for a couple of years.

I have their 50/25 package and pay $49.99 per month. Recently, Verizon sneaked in a $1 fee and as such my bill has increased by a dollar but that's about it.

So far, we've had about 7 months of reliable service with ZERO downtime. I am really impressed. I previously had RCN Cable and was really frustrated with their peak-time slowdowns for nearly 6 months. Nothing was being done to fix these slowdowns and therefore, so I just pulled the trigger. I am paying a higher price (about $15/month more for introductory year) but the consistency of FIOS is the difference.

I've not really experienced any slowdowns. Speed tests are always consistently around the 58/38 Mbps range (added fluff).

I sometimes feel that there are peering issues slowdowns where certain sites load slowly at certain times in the day. And some sites I've noted are slower on FIOS than on cable (wikidevi.com for example). Not sure why. But overall I am satisfied. I am not sure I will continue service after the 1 year period as its simply not something I can afford to pay $80+ for 50/25 service. I will definitely try calling them around the 11 month mark and discuss continuing at the same rate for an additional year but I'm not holding my breath.

YouTube HD and Netflix SuperHD streams without any hiccups (so far).

Pre-sales: I'm rating this category as 3-star because of their "add-on-bogus-fee" tactics and here's why. I completed most of my pre-sales online and ultimately when it was time to select a date for installation, I decided to save the configuration and gave the sales team a call to see if there were any earlier dates available for install (sooner than the date available on their online calendar). They were accommodating and gave me an earlier date. Great. However, when I received an email confirming the install date, they added an install fee of $39.99 spread over 3 months. WTF? I called back and disputed it, clearly stating that this was wasn't present before. Their response was, we cannot remove this at the moment. However, after the install, they would credit me for the fee. Not happy with the response, I called again and tried speaking with another rep and again was told the same thing. I cancelled the order. Wasted a couple of days of time. Ultimately ordered FIOS completely online. No finagling with the billing etc by their reps. Everything was pretty smooth this time. Bottom line, If you can get the deals without calling customer care, ORDER ONLINE and save yourself from the low-balling of their sales team trying to sell you something you may not want. Of course, do this if you're well informed of what you want.

Install: Fantastic. The guy showed up very early (around 8AM). Was very courteous. I had a pre-wired FIOS installation from when we "tried" and cancelled before. I had also ran my own Shielded CAT5 cable from the ONT to my router. I told him I was not planning on using their router because of lack of 5GHz and the limited bandwidth on the 2.4Ghz Wifi. He was quite impressed with my WDS setup. He said that if I had wanted, he would have run a CAT5 cable himself (since I was getting JUST their internet services). Since all of the hard work was already done on a previous install, this was just a plug and play install for him and he was in-and-out in less than 20-25 minutes. Service was blazing fast since the first run.

Connection reliabilty: Has been rock solid (knock-on-wood) since install. Speed-tests are consistent. I have set up DSLR Smokepings several times and I barely see any packet loss through out my 14day smokeping. If your setup is in good shape, you will not have to worry about connectivity. THIS is why people want and go with FIOS. Because it is very consistent. No peak-time slowdowns (YET).

One odd thing that I have seen is that if I release and renew my IP through the router, there are about 10ms of discrepancies between the "Line Quality" test from lq2.dslreports.com based on the IP pool I am in and I have yet to determine the cause of this problem. So I wrote a script that releases-then-renews and checks pings to DSLR lq1 & lq2 until I am satisfied with the ping timings. If you have no idea what I am talking about, don't worry about it.

Tech Support: Its hard to rank them here because I have not needed to call them, EVER. But at a point in our previous usage of FIOS, we had to call them in for switching from COAX to CAT5 data on the ONT and they switched us over fairly quickly.

Value for money: I say this is the best thing you can get in my neighborhood. Sure Cable companies advertise similar speeds for less but in my experience, they dont come anywhere near FIOS. I don't have to deal with peak-time slowdowns. However it does become quite expensive after the first year so it is something for me to think about. I'll cross that bridge when I have to.

I will try to update my review whenever I get a chance to do so over the course of time.

UPDATE 3/13/2015:

I went to RCN for a while because FIOS pricing became ridiculous after a year. After a couple of months I came back to FIOS. 2 yrs agreement, 50/50 speeds and price of $39.99/month locked for 2 years. Can't get any better at that price. I had some hiccups during my first year with fios earlier (before I went to RCN). However, they resolved them within a couple of weeks (bad routing on their part which caused traffic on my path during peak hours).

However, since i signed up for the 2 years, things are always the same. always consistent (knock-on-wood). Still recommended as the best ISP only.

thanks,

cchhat01

member for 22.8 years, 4679 visits, last login: 303 days ago
updated 9 years ago


Xanax3MG
@verizon.net

Xanax3MG

Anon

Quantum 500 is Amazing

I have a USA Office in Zip Code 11530 -- Long Island, New York. I am connected by Verizon (FIOS) Quantum.

I have consistent local speeds of 500-525/100-115 Mbps. On SpeedTest.Net, I connected to the SoftLayer DataCentre in Amsterdam, Netherlands. I got a connection of 465 Mbps. inbound and uploaded at my full 100 Mbps. I need the speed to manage domestic and foreign dedicated servers.
I'm astounded. This is the very fastest Internet connectivity in North America that I have ever seen.
NYC Girl
Premium Member
join:2007-02-04
Bronx, NY

1 edit

NYC Girl

Premium Member

Yes

This is how they make their money. You sign up for one package with all kinds of discounts and when you get the comfirmation email there's a different price which has INCREASED.

I was thinking of switchjng back to optimum; HOWEVER, internet speed choices are either 15, 50 or 101. What Fios doesn't charge for optimum does, which makes up for the taxes optimum doesn't charge (20.00) from Fios.

They all suck and they know we need them.

anonomeX
@comcast.net

anonomeX

Anon

Funny thing...

When I got FiOS 7 years ago (early 2007), it was cheaper than cable and way faster. Now speed is almost irrelevant and pricing is fairly equivalent. FiOS also used to be completely reliable with no issues in getting to any sites (Netflix etc.); now there are nothing but issues (not technical issues really, just Verizon being penurious). I've switched [back] to Comcast and getting the same speeds for half the price (promo, but still cheaper for the next 2 years). For the most part Comcast has been very reliable in my area--no worse than FiOS. (Frankly, all Verizon had to do to keep me as a customer was to not jack up my monthly fee by $8 [with no prior notice]. I guess they just really did not want my business.)