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This review covers two periods of service: First is my initial year in one apartment, second is after a move to a new apartment. First apartment, August 2011: Ordered FiOS Internet via the web site back when Frontier still used Verizon's back end. Television was completely blank; couldn't order. This was during Frontier's "dark" period of thinking it wanted out of the TV delivery business. Called to ask about changing the date because our move got rescheduled (this will become a theme), was proactively offered an $89.99/mo bundle for FiOS Extreme HD and 25/25 Internet, same price as in Verizon territories. Took that with glee, added three CableCARDs to order. Install was scheduled for 9 days in the future, or 2 days after move-in. The move-in install went well, except that our apartment had a shared ONT setup which made life very difficult. Speeds were limited to 20/5, though initially we didn't get anything better than about 16/4. Two weeks of troubleshooting later this was fixed when Frontier found a provisioning error in all shared ONTs that was putting people on a 15/2 tier with "fluff." After, the connection worked at exactly 20/5. TV service "just worked," and worked well. No STBs for our account, just CableCARDs. Did take a free HD STB for a month; Motorola STBs are junk, fled back to TiVo. At about month 9, the stupid VDSL bridge they used on the shared ONT started flaking out. Rebooting the bridge was the only way to get service restored. Lived with this because we knew we were moving anyway and didn't have the time to deal with it. During this period, all online services died after being moved to Frontier's back end systems. No more ability to send CableCARD refreshes via the Internet or even look at what features my account allegedly had. The bill was visible and could be paid; that's it. Couldn't even look up addresses online to see if they qualified for FiOS, which made move planning all the more fun. Second apartment, September 2012: Move set for a specific date, had to call Frontier and ask to change it three times due to--ah ha--changes in our move plans. Frontier was obliging each time. Finally set for the day after move-in. Tech arrived at 2PM for an afternoon appointment and immediately set about doing the ONT install. About three hours later, everything was done and services moved over. He even got the data service put on Ethernet, just like I wanted. Of course, everything moved EXACTLY as before, so I still had 20/5 even though we now have a dedicated ONT. Called Frontier sales on Saturday afternoon to get 35Mbps service. No problem! "It will be provisioned on Monday, tech might need to do some outside work," says the CSR. That's odd, but whatever. Sunday morning, shiny new speeds. Monday morning, tech is outside the apartment. He isn't needed; he thought he was there for a brand new install. Oh well, he goes away, speeds still fantastic. One thing of note: In the past, swapping equipment with Frontier meant asking for a box and THEN they'd take it off the bill. I dropped two CableCARDs and received two (gigantic) boxes for them, but noticed in the bill that printed a day later that the equipment was already gone. Nice touch, would be nicer to actually do those changes online without having to call someone. In short: - Rock solid speeds now that I'm on a dedicated ONT. - Friendly, if slightly untrained on FiOS, CSRs. - Reasonable price for the amazing speed and excellent picture quality. At this time: Comcast in this area charges $58.95 standalone for downloads of 30 burstable and 20 standard/uploads of 6. Frontier charges $59.95 for full-time 35/15. Comcast doesn't have an Internet bundle higher than 20Mbps ($119.95 for new customers; $139.95 after first 12 months of a two year contract), Frontier's 35 Internet and Extreme HD is charged to me at $134.95. - Symmetrical tiers have gone away. Customers can keep them, but "new" installs, like mine, get the new speeds of 15/5, 25/10, or 35/15. 50/20 is not offered in Washington. - Absolutely no online services unless you want Pac12. No HBO GO, no account changes, nothing. All their CSRs are in the United States (as of this writing) which is nice because you'll be chatting with them at least a couple times a year if you want anything changed. member for 24.7 years, 6811 visits, last login: 5.2 years ago updated 11.5 years ago |