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Review by bendychicken See Profile

  • Location: Winter Haven, Polk, FL, USA
  • Cost: $80 per month (12 month contract)
  • Install: about 14 days
VERY reliable fast connection. I can't even remember the last time it went down (that wasn't my fault).
HORRID customer service. Late on install. Repairs done poorly and usually late. Never attained contract speeds
Great hardware/network. Anything that involves talking to or getting work done by a human is god awful.

I've had the FIOS internet for more than 5 years. The connection has never gone down for reasons that weren't my fault (cutting the line with a shovel in the yard). Even back when I had the base fios package it blew the "competition"(as if we are talking about a free market here) out of the water in terms of speed and reliability.

That said, I have NEVER called in and got a human being on the phone in less than 1/2 an hour on the phone. Many times it's more like an hour. Their automated phone system is without a doubt designed to try and keep you from getting a human on the phone. It requires a LOT time and patience to get through the automated system to talk to a human. It's kind of funny how when you actually get through the "person firewall" they are ALWAYS "experiencing higher than normal call volumes" and you wait for a minimum of 1/2 an hour. My last phone call duration with them was over an hour with 45 minutes of that being hold time. Then when you do actually get someone on the line you must always give them all of the information that the automated "person firewall" has already had you enter(account number for example).

I upgraded to the 75/35 package a year or 2 ago and have never come even with 50% of that. Even with a brand new top of the line mac book pro with solid state drive and a hard wired ethernet cable I have NEVER tested out at higher than 20mbs down and 20mbs up. Last test I did just now was 17/12.5. The majority of the time I get with 10% of that test speed. I just spent the usual hour on the phone to get them on the line to downgrade my speed. Since I'm not getting even 1/3 of the contractual speeds why should keep paying the extra money for it? Of course they transferred me to tech support and the guy tried to tell me my router is old and that's the problem. First they wanted me to pay them $100 for a new router. I told him my current router is capable of 100mbps so it's pretty obvious that over a wired ethernet connection. So it's pretty obvious that ain't the bottleneck. He then tries to tell me than it's "old and worn out" and that's the problem. Now I know a thing or 2 about solid state electronics. They either work or they don't. There are no drives that get filled up here. It either works at 100mbps or it doesn't work at all. Anyway, reluctantly, I agreed to let them send me a new router (for free). I know it won't solve the problem and it's just a stalling tactic to keep me paying the higher rate for another month. I'll post an update if that magically solves the problem. My bet is my next update will be that I downgraded to a lower package because they are obviously throttling it.

Update: Well looks like I was totally wrong. The new router arrived a few days after I made the call to customer service. Speeds have improved. Last test I did was 54/23. Close enough. I'm going to stick with Fios for now.

member for 9.6 years, 1 visits, last login: 9.6 years ago
updated 9.6 years ago


VashTS
@65.35.159.x

-1 recommendation

VashTS

Anon

Really?

So you know you had slow internet speeds for over a year or 2 and just not decided to call? A lot of factors go into internet speed tests, I can tell you from experience you have to do it their way or no way. Im no tech but with my ISP I have to test on there speed test site and make sure im wired and have no other devices connected. I have had times the modem/router was the issue and replacing it fixed it, I hope that works for you.
fixrman
From a broken heart to a hole in the sky
Premium Member
join:2003-02-10
Hatboro, PA
·Verizon FiOS

fixrman

Premium Member

Bendychicken

I feel you pain. Verizon usually does a sond and a dance when you complain about not getting what you are paying for. My review starting with their DSL, then FiOS, Verizon Voicewing - all required at least one [long] phone call to get problems at their end straightened out. They just don't get it.
mdbrotha03
join:2002-03-28
Lanham, MD

mdbrotha03

Member

Wifi

You aren't going to get your rated speed using Verizon provided WiFi. I have the same problem with the 2.4GHz 802.11n router from Verizon. I get no more than 50Mbps up and down. I pay for 150Mbps up/down.

There probably multiple 2.4ghz WiFi signals interfering with yours. If you add a 5ghz access point to your network and connect to that signal or use Ethernet, I'm sure you speed problems will go away. I get 100Mbps from my phone connected to the 5Ghz signal vs 50 or less connect to the Verizon router.