 Review by Dogfather 
member for 4.1 years, 684 visits, last login: 2.9 years ago
updated 3 years ago
 Huntington Beach,Orange,CA
 $66 per month "Pretty fast, no traffic shaping or caps" "HORRIBLE billing, no binaries NGs, expensive w/o voice and contract" "Nightmare experience, overpriced, finally had to cancel over billing problems"
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Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:
(ratings well below consensus)
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UPDATE 1/29/09 - FINALLY got my refund for unused service. I sure wish everything had worked out 'cause the service was awesome. The billing was the only seemingly unfixable problem. I would still recommend FiOS but make sure every "eye" is dotted and every "tee" crossed during the order process 'cause once billing gets screwed up, it's nearly impossible to fix, and in my case, it ended up being impossible to fix.
UPDATE 10/22/08 - Oh well. Got my latest bill and it is just as screwed up as ever. I have no choice but to cancel. The service itself was fine but the ENDLESS billing problems make it a complete nightmare. If you get set up and your billing it right, you will likely be happy. But if you have your billing screwed up, be prepared for an experience similar to having your toenails pulled out.
UPDATE 9/15 - Recent billing history online is starting to show some progress. However while all my new charges have appeared none of the credits have as the rep said they should. Looks like I may not be out of the woods yet. We'll see when I get my first new bill. In the meantime seeing all the new charges and the high month-month non-bundled price in print, I'm just not seeing much value in the service any more. Add 3rd party usenet costs and the price increase to the high price and the value is killed. I don't give a crap that it's 20Mb, it's overpriced. Since I signed up I've have all these billing nightmares, wasted time on the phone, looks like 2 price increases, had to give up my phone number (to fix this mess) and they killed off the binaries groups forcing me to fork over dough for Usenet. Lame. Next week when I have an hour to kill I run the VZ gauntlet and drop another tier to 10/2 to try and get these high fees down a bit. If billing is fixed and they don't screw up over the next year I may consider doing a 1 year contract but with the nightmare they put me through there is no way I'm doing it now. It sucks that they rip you hard for wanting to avoid a contract. After my experience I now see why they need to trap people. Looking at other reviews, billing problems and install problems are very common. Verizon needs to get their shit together. The technology is sound but customer no-service is a total mess. I've never actually sucked dog balls, but I would imagine it's sort of like dealing with Verizon.
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UPDATE 9/12 - FINALLY, got service back up last week this time month to month without voice service and as before without their horribly overpriced TV service. I spoke with a supervisor who looked over my account set up along with billing and everything looks to be straightened out. They also claim that a credit for the cancellation fee they wrongly charged should appear. Of course given the absolute nightmare Verizon is I'll believe it when I see it. So after many many months of nightmare service I should be back to $66/mo plus any junk fees plus $25 for Giganews, a total which IMO is overpriced. When I originally signed up, good usenet servers were included. To get a moderate price on just the HSI you have to buy their overpriced voice service and do a minimum 1 yr contract which after all these problems I'll never do. And without the contract if I have any more problems they will be gone for good and I'll just use my 3G AirCard when I'm out there or go back to 15Mb Time Warner.
Current install is the same as the last.
Monthly Price: $65.99 (plus $25 for 3rd party news service)
CAT6 install
Router: Airport Extreme 802.11n
Tier: 20/5 month-month unbundled
Speed Typ: 19.5/4.5
Latency Typ: 20ms WC 90ms EC
While with FiOS I typically get my advertised download speed, as is fairly common with FiOS I don't see my full upload speed. On 20/20 I would often get 20/13 or 20/15 and now at 20/5 I get 20/4.5. I'm not sure why and at this time am beaten down to the point I don't really care. I just don't have it in me to run the VZ support gauntlet any more. Because of Verizon's high unbundled price I will likely drop down to the 10Mb tier once I get my first new bill reflecting my credits.
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UPDATE 8/22 - Got 2 automated emails indicated that my services were disconnected and they're sending a box for the actiontec. Once they show receiving it I'll give it another few days and then enter a fresh order. In looking at my DSL webmail which was a good indicator that the DSL account was still active, the username no longer works and neither does FiOS. My phone number is disconnected when I try and call it which surprised me since I figured they had to clear the DSL provisioning before killing off the number. But like most of my experience with Verizon, I got dinged for the cancellation fee (showed up as $99 pending on my CC) which I was told would be waived. Maybe they just put a hold on it until they get their router back but who knows. Rather than go back to VZ for voice, I'm going to go unbundled for $58 and just use my cell. Hopefully I'll be back up in time for Labor Day weekend which is the next time I plan to be out there.
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UPDATE 8/14 - So I'm following 1 agent's advice and am canceling all services and once everything goes through, I'll reorder. The ongoing problem is my service is divided up and they can't get everything combined so it's being billed separately with no way to correct it. In order to fix it, I had to remove all services so they can "rebuild" the account, whatever that means. The major consequence other than an estimated 2 weeks of down time is that I'll lose my phone number. That sucks but I'm left with no other choice. Every month I call and every month I'm told the problem is fixed but it never is.
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I was very happy with my Roadrunner 15/2 service for a long time. At the time it was slightly cheaper than FiOS and very reliable. But when Time Warner started traffic shaping and talking caps I figured it was time to cancel. So I first dropped CATV for DirecTV and then Roadrunner and Time Warner VoIP for Verizon FiOS. Ugh, didn't realize the problems I was in for.
Pre Sales (1): Their database was completely messed up and showed I already had FiOS so they couldn't place the real order. It took a few weeks to get that fixed so that an order could be placed. Once fixed I ordered online but instead of upgrading the DSL service I used as a backup for Roadrunner, the created a new account and to this day still bill me for both despite numerous phone calls. The site didd detail what plans and prices were available along with all the terms.
Install (2): A few days before my install date, they trenched and brought fiber up to the house. My CWA installer did an excellent job with the install. The day of the install it was well over 100F and without question he did my requested twisted pair install through the attic which had to be 130-140F. He offered his CAT5e that he carried on the truck, but I had a bulk box of CAT6 with wall plates so that is what I opted to use. The install was clean and as good as an install could be. The install took about 2-1/2 hours total (about 20 minutes of which was the in-house cable pull) and far exceeded my expectations. Unfortunately while my installer was absolutely stellar, whoever entered my order hosed my account royally, resulting in a multi-month nightmare that was only corrected by canceling all of my services and reordering (details below).
Reliability (4): According to router logs, low down time, no packet loss and I always get close to my advertised speeds. Local latency runs in the 10-15ms range (used to be 10ms). Latency to servers farther away (eg 600 miles), like DSLR's SFO destination are about 20ms. Cross-country latency runs in the 80ms range. Pretty good and slightly better than what I had with Roadrunner. Even with the slight increase in latency, tasks requiring low latency like gaming run very well.
Tech/Customer Support (1): This is where everything goes wrong. After completely hosing my account they continue to bill me every month for DSL that I don't have. Every month I sit on hold or bounce from place to place and after hours get a credit and they claim it's fixed. However the very next bill, there it is again, another charge for DSL and my FiOS HSI billed at the unbundled rate. I had one support agent that the fastest way to fix it would be to actually cancel all of my services and reorder. That's insane.
Value for money (1): 20/5 for $53 (after bundling discount) is pretty good but the billing nightmares kill the value. It's been months and still their billing problem persist like herpes. Because of the billing problems I'm billed the unbundled rate for HSI ($58) plus another $33 for DSL I don't have and haven't had for a long time, totaling $91/mo for 20/5. Ouch. With the killing off of the binaries newsgroups I'm shelling out $25/mo to Giganews, so now we're at $116 instead of the $53 I originally signed up for.
Hardware: Being a CAT6 install I'm using my own router (Airport Extreme N) instead of the VZ provided Actiontec.
Package: Started with 30/15 and 50/20 for $145 (supposed to be $140 but again, billing problems) but after finding very few servers capable of offering downloads that fast I dropped to 20000/5000
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