 Review by GeekNJ 
UPDATED: 282 days ago
member for 7.9 years, 4562 visits, last login: a few hours ago
 Waldwick,Bergen,NJ
 $45 per month (12 month contract)
 about 18 days
 "Fast and low latency"
 "Install was less then stellar"
 "Updated 11/2007 - Still fast and reliable"
| Pre Sales Information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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Placed my order online on 10/29/05. Got an email confirmation on Monday 10/31. Selected install date of 11/9. Sunday before install 2 folks came and ran the fiber from the pole to my house. Weds comes and the tech shows up on time. Needs to replace the overhead wire the prev techs ran over the weekend because they used underground wiring and not overhead wiring. Gets the ONT installed and cuts over my phones before heading to lunch. After lunch he finishes the install and I check my speeds - 4mb down - no where near the 15mb speed. Techs think it's my computer, which it isn't. We swap routers, cables, etc. 2nd tech shows up and we use his computer - 4mb down still. We reboot the ONT, PON and Controller (I'm the only one on it they say). No luck. Set me to 30/5 - my upload increases but download still the same. Techs leave for the day.
Over the next week, nothing much happens other then one tech swaps out the ONT and tests the speed and it's still poor. I'm on with the Fiber Solution Center in Virginia each day making sure they are working on it. Always start out with "Are you sure it's not your computer..." and I cut them off. I tell them where there's packet loss, etc but it doesn't register. I was getting about 8% packet loss to my first hop after the Verizon supplied router.
I finally get a good rep that understands and becomes my advocate, along with a Verizon employee from this site. It took a couple more days but he got the right people involved and listening to what I was telling them. Even though they had already swapped my ONT, they came out again and did it a 2nd time. Absolutely no difference - a waste of Verizon's time and resources. They finally started paying attention to my info and though I've been told there were 20 people on a conf call the final day, some were still questioning if it was a customer issue. Silly wabbits! After a week, they determined the likely cause within the CO and scheduled an overnight outage to resolve it. I woke up the next morning and speeds were pushing 15mb.
Since the issue was resolved, things seem fine. I don't really need email or web hosting as I pay for my own domain and hosting. Newsgroups aren't really important to me.
I didn't have any issues on Optimum Online where my connection was stable and speeds were fine, but I felt it was worthwhile to switch to become familiar with the technology (probably got more of a lesson then most) as well as do what I can to make sure each company feels pressure from customers to keep things as competitive as possible.
I'll update as time goes on or as service changes.
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Update 9/24/06 - Service has been relatively flawless. I've bumped up the connection reliability to a 5. Still on PPPoE though they supposedly are looking to convert to all DHCP. Had a phone issue last week where we had no service. Had to call two times and took a day but they resolved it on their end. Something to do with a switching error. I'm leaving texh support as a 4 rating due to multiple calls needed on our part to resolve a Verizon issue. Verizon's mail has had some issues but I don't use it and only know because of posts here which I then check to see if I'm also impacted.
Service was upgraded to 20/5 and all seems fine, usually getting that speed consistently throughout the day. I'm not impacted by routing issues like some others in the northeast with routing going through Texas for more local requests.
Update 11/12/2007 - Have had FIOS Internet service for 2 years now and ongoing service has been extremely solid. No outages that I recall.
Phone service (POTS) remains solid and reliable. Much more reliable then my copper was. It would go out whenever they did work on the pole outside my house.
TV service has also been solid though HD content is lagging behind Cablevision at this moment. Announcements from Verizon indicate 2008 should bring more HD.
Followup comments:  |  | INTREPID
Premium
join:2000-05-06
Cold Spring Harbor, NY | Re: great review Geek Good review. My FiOS install went fine - took about 5 hours (I have two phone lines and they had to run an inside line). I got 30 Mbps/5 Mbps when they were done. No problems...so far. | |
| 
rrRRR
|  promotions come back
 want to get a better rate,,, yes, all the broadcasters rates are going up in 08, but only by a few $$ .. with Comcast looking at cablevision, Verizon is trying to capture many customers with great offers and locked in rates, cable is under pressure loosing 500+ customers a day to Verizon, the only way they can keep their customers is through the disconect /retention department,,, usually they can only offer a 6month promotion, BUT,, if you call or schedule a installation with Verizon,, have a work order number... "" you call that department with cable,, tell them you want to disconect, tell them you are going to Verizon,, and give them the order # from Verizon-FIOS of all 3 services.. they then can offer you a 1yr. ( NEW ) promotion,, or in some areas out in LI, a 2yr is available..
want the lower rates before they go up- call today, get the work order number from FIOS - on ALL 3 services,, and they can make the offer, or else they can not do it..
 the pepople who work there are under a lot of pressure  , so much pressure, they keep having high turn over every month, due to the large amoutn of disconections,, look in the paper, every week for the past 6 months, they are allway hiring,, why is that,, they don't want to keep employees, it's cheeper for them to get rid of them and hire new for less,,, they will do what ever it takes to get rid of an employee after 6 months in that department, I guess right now - they are only focused on "trying" to keep customers, rather their employees... | |
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