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 Review by jtimson 
member for 12.7 years, 2250 visits, last login: 153 days ago
updated 2.9 years ago
 Tuckahoe,Westchester,NY
 $49 per month about 7 days "Speed, speed and more speed" "some billing/cs issues that took way too long to fix" "good value"
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I had been having problems with my phone line for some time, so the prospect of going to fiber was intriging. I had OOL, but never seemed to get the speeds that everyone else posted. The installation went well, two gentlemen showed up, one for the outside and one for the inside. It took about 4 hours to get it all done, the authentication server was down. After that it worked great. I had a couple of snags, but the tech support was great. I had two phone lines and eventually needed to drop one, of course it was the one with the FIOS connection. That began a living hell for about a month. I was bounced from department to department for hours. It seems the disconnect from the old line kept going through without an accompanying reconnect being placed. Every 3 or 4 days I would lose my service. Once it was finally straightened out it has been great. I recently upgraded from 5/2 to 30/5 and all I can say is ..wow...
5/23/2006: Since VZ has upgraded 15/2 to 20/5 I downgraded to save $10/ mth.
5/26/2010: Now VZ upgraded me to 25/15 and I get free Wi-Fi in the NY area...it's pretty cool. I was traveling to the UK and had some time to kill at JFK, I was able to connect and use my VPN client to log in at work and do some last imnute work before I boarded.
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Review by VikingLoki6
member for 11.3 years, 14 visits, last login: 2.9 years ago
updated 2.9 years ago
- Trenton,Mercer,NJ
- $40 per month
- (12 month contract)
- about 5 days
- "Fast, reliable and consistent service"
- "Understaffed and incompetant technicians in Trenton NJ area."
- "Excellent technical product but incompetant local techs can ruin it"
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I've had Verizon FiOS since it was introduced in Trenton several years ago. The FiOS service from a product viewpoint is excellent. Very consistent 20 down 5 up, low latency. There really isn't much to say, it's just always there, always fast and always works. That is until...
Here's my major problem with FiOS. The local technicians in the Trenton NJ area are understaffed and incompetent. I've lost all services on 4 different occasions (lasting 24-48 hours each). Not because there was a problem with my ONT or even in my house at all, but because an local technician broke my fiber line back in the CO. Being a Network Engineer who works with fiber, I know this is a result of sheer sloppiness and carelessness. I'm very patient and understanding when I know techs are dealing with something outside of their control, but this isn't outside of their control. Keeping your cabling neat and organized prevents this from happening. After complaining heavily with customer service (using exact technical terms) I received a visit from a senior technician who admitted that the local tech slammed my fiber line in the rack door and cracked it. That's incompetence. Any competent fiber tech knows to never impact or severely bend a fiber line because the glass fiber will crack and light won't pass through it. (outside of that fiber is very durable) I'll bet you anything that my fiber line leads to a rack in the Verizon CO that looks like computers vomiting spaghetti.
Whenever a local tech breaks my fiber line, it always takes them at least 24 hours to "send a technician out" to address my issue even though the problem is in their CO. The first 2 times they wanted me home to look at my ONT only to say "Hmmm. Doesn't seem to be anything wrong here". The following 2 times I gave customer service an earful if they insisted that I be home. The latest time, the tech broke my fiber at 10:44am Wednesday. I reported it at approx 7:00pm. After arguing that the problem was not in my house and I did not need to be home, they got around to repairing it at 1:47pm Thursday. The tech promptly broke it again at 2:34pm. At 3:45pm Customer Service told me they can send out a tech at 10:00am the next day. They got an earful about their incompetent techs. I told them that I was getting home at 6:30pm and if my fiber was still dark when I got there I would spend my time deciding which one of their competitors I should do business with. My fiber was lit at 5:05pm.
Bottom line, the FiOS product is spectacular but my local technicians are incompetent and need to be fired. If I had good local technicians who didn't break my fiber line in the CO, my FiOS service would have been consistently fast, reliable with a 100% uptime for the 2 years or so that I've had it. So, I definitely think FiOS is the best way to go from a strictly technical product point of view, but your mileage may vary depending on the skill of your local technicians.
UPDATE 5/24/2010
Fiber went dark again on 5/23/2010, within 30 days of the last total service failure. I'm so accustomed to fiber breaks by now that I have internal and external connectivity monitors going. The issue was reported within 10 minutes of connectivity failure, but again technicians are not available for 24 hours. Tech support call was a 1 hour conversation (not hold, conversation). First escalated to an "escalation specialist" who seemed so unable to do anything that I had to ask him exactly what is an escalation specialist is capable of doing. Escalated again to the technical support supervisor. Again, he was unable to do anything except provide all employee identification numbers. Most surprising was that the technical support supervisor was unable to initiate any contact with Customer Service regarding my chronic issues. So far, 24 hours and the fiber is still dark. More updates to follow.
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Review by FIOScam
member for 3 years, 0 visits, last login: 3 years ago
updated 3 years ago
- Abington,Plymouth,MA
- $101 per month
- (12 month contract)
- about 4 days
- "Untouchable for speed, reliability...so far"
- "FIOS is expensive and you cannot revert back to DSL or dial-up."
- "Good system, expensive, but cannot revert back to cheaper connection"
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The part that gets me so upset is that Verizon never revealed that they were going to remove the existing, solid-wire pole connections to my home. In fact, I was assured by the Verizon sales rep. that if I was not happy with FIOS, that I could change back to DSL. I took his word.
Well, that was an untruth; I discovered that fact on my own when I tried to revert back to DSL. I was curtly told, "the lines belong to us(Verizon), they're ours to take down".
Here's the thing. I have what's called, "Fios Double Freedom", which is telephone and internet for which I pay $90.00 a month but, on top of that, Verizon adds another $10 or more in various taxes, fees, and various other extra charges.
This past month my bill topped $101. That's a staggering increase from the $36.00 I payed for FIOS when I changed over from DSL several years ago, and a really huge increase from $14.00 for fast dial-up.
The lesson: Know this, once you FIOS, there's no going back to "DSL" or "dial-up" and your stuck with ever-increasing costs - unless you opt for satellite or cable - which are no bargain either.
So what's my issue? Simple economics; I'm now a retired senior citizen with a paltry fixed-income. I know, that's my problem, but being told the truth in the beginning would have made this particular review unnecessary.
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 Review by N3OGH
member for 9.5 years, 3319 visits, last login: 1 days ago
updated 3 years ago
- Philly burbs
- $160 per month
- (12 month contract)
- about 10 days
- "Speed, Picture quality, call quality"
- "None as of yet. This $hit rocks"
- "Best Internet, phone, and TV service I ever got"
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Only had the service since Thursday. So far hands down the best Internet, phone, and TV experience I've ever been offered. Tech showed up a few hours late on Thursday, but the window was 8 to noon. Showed up well before noon. Tech was knowledgeable and polite. Did a great job on my install. Copper lines were left in place and ONT was mounted in my basement, so the outside of my house looks no different. Signed up for the "triple play" Internet, Phone and TV. approx $130 a month. No first bill yet. Just came off Comcast. Offering of HD channels from Fios is nothing short of INSANE. The Weather Channel in HD? Fios HD offering blows Comcast away. I had both services this Thursday and did a side by side. The picture quality on Fios is just hands down better than Comcast. Channels offered for the price is a no brainer. Verizon offers no price increase guarantee for 2 years. Internet is BLAZING fast with 25/15 service. So far phone service is pretty solid.
Tech doing instal was polite and called a few hours afterward to confirm everything was good. Nice follow up. Probably the best customer service experience I've had in a while. I will update review when I get my first bill as I've heard about the nightmares associated with Verizon billing. But, so far so good.
Bottom line. If it's available in your area sign up. I doubt you will be disappointed.
Edit: Got my first regular bill and it's as it should be. No billing bogeyman for me. First DVR I got had some issues and they swapped it out via UPS quick enough. No issues since. Multi room DVR is nice bonus, but the bottom line is the insanely fast internet. I'm the network admin at my part time job, and we are stuck on Comcast Business class. My home FiOS blows it AWAY. Small outfit, only one or 2 people on line at a time so it's a fair comparison.
Again, bottom line: FiOS just rocks. If you can get it, get it. I seriously doubt you will be disappointed...
Still happy with Fios almost a year later. Connection is rock solid and fast. Still no billing issues. Everything Verizon promised they delivered. Speeds are awesome and the multi room DVR is great. TV has fantastic picture. I will have been with Fios a year in August and to be honest I probably would not move someplace I could not get this service if I could at all avoid it.
After 9 months of service, this is the best Internet, TV, and voice service I ever had. FTTH is truly the bomb. I feel for those who can't get it. Some day everyone will. But for now I'll repeat myself. If you can get Fios, get it. You won't be disappointed.
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 Review by darcilicious
member for 12.3 years, 4268 visits, last login: a few hours ago
updated 3 years ago
- Forest Grove,Washington,OR
- $120 per month
- (24 month contract)
- about 19 days
- "Overall alll, easy online ordering. Getting 14Mb/s (down), 13Mb/s (up)"
- "Typos on website, poor website design overall when ordering/reading up"
- "Truly impressive speeds!"
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May 17, 2010
Well, the transfer to Frontier is just around the corner (as early as July 1 and no later than Aug 1) and I'm dreading it. To date we've had zero issues with Verizon.
Last fall we went from no-contract (with price guarantee) for phone/tv/internet to just tv/internet with two HD set-top boxes (non-DVRs). We have the Extreme HD 2009 plan with 25/15 Internet (that's actually provisioned for 25/25) for $120/mo (including and fees/taxes) and could not be happier.
We also have two external recording devices (Hauppauge HD-PVR with SageTV and HAVA HD Wireless with Windows Media Center) and rarely if ever have guide issues that some Vz customers still experience from time to time.
Expect a new review shortly after the move to Frontier 
May 9, 2009
Well, it's almost a year and a half and overall I'm still extremely pleased with the service.
Internet is rock solid (free upgrade to 20/20 package from original 15/15 last June) as I expected it to be. Actiontec has performed fine for both wired and wireless devices (four towers, up to four laptops and two iphones at any given time on our LAN).
Overall, the television service has been more than adequate. There were a few bumps along the way from about July 08 - Nov 08 as Verizon deployed numerous new channels, including many HDs -- primarily confusion about how existing customers were or were not to be grandfathered-in with their original (contracted) price while being able to get all the new channels. In the end, I'm paying the same price for TV with many many more HD channels than what were available when I originally signed up (e.g. everything but the premium channels like HBO, Showtime, etc).
There are a lot of complaints about the guide and/or set top boxes and I supposed I'd have some if I had the DVR but I don't so I've been satisfied overall with the quality of the plain HD STBs (we have two).
Let me just sum it all up by saying: I laugh every time I get a flier in the mail from Comcast. No way, no how are we ever going back to them 
Dec 26, 2007
On Monday (Dec 24), around mid-morning the contractors showed up to pull the fiber cable through to the house/garage. They had to dig under the raised bed a bit but only to find the conduit and pull the cable through I think.
On Monday afternoon, we received an automated call confirming the Wednesday installation appointment. After listening to the faux-friendly voice drone on a bit, I finally had the chance to confirm by saying YES and then hung up. About 20 minutes later we got another call, from a real Verizon person this time confirming the installation date and time (8a to 5p, probably showing up closer to 8:30a).
Our part of the prep was pretty minimal -- identify a 3-prong electrical outlet in the garage (for the ONT's battery backup) and have a place identified for the router to be installed. The house is already wired for both coax (split at the Comcast drop) and cat5 (split from where the copper enters the house). We opted to have the new ACTIONTEC router installed there as well if we could. Of course, we didn't prep either of these areas Tuesday night 
With the holiday season and all, we've been sleeping in past 8a so we set an alarm for 7:30a. We weren't out of bed 5 minutes when the phone rang; it was the tech saying he'd be there in abut 15 minutes. He arrived in about 10
So we showed him what we had -- including the mostly wired house and the dual-WAN router for both Comcast broadband and Verizon DSL. He said it'd be no problem to have the new router installed where we have a router, a WAP and two broadband modems -- talk about decluttering!
By 8a, the tech was in the garage working on the ONT install. Oh, and he did mention that for him, the Internet connection would be a breeze but the TV was new for him and might take longer
Initial Internet working within 90 mins. The tech mentioned to us that we're the first on our block to light up Take THAT Mr. and Mrs. Jones! We'll be doing more fuzting with the router later so that our computers have static IPs etc etc but for now? 15Mbs up AND down -- woo hoo!!
TV install didn't take nearly as long as he implied; there was a 20-minute activation wait-time but no big deal. Unfortunately, I goofed during ordering and didn't get an HD settop box  I called up customer service and they'll mail us one (2-day shipping even) with an RMA label to ship this one back. So by Monday we should have HDTV over FIOS. Sheesh
All in all, everything went very smoothly; the tech was friendly and helpful, pointed us to speakeasy.net speed test site (which I already knew about) and speedguide's optimizer but it's better to use: »www.verizon.net/optimizesettings !
Next up, we're going to tweak the router so we have static IP addresses (internally), etc. Fun times!
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Dec 7, 2007
Currently, we have both Comcast (6/384) and Verizon DSL (3/768) [ »/comment/35140 ]. Overall satisfied with both but with to hardcore geeks in the house, we could always use more speed
FiOS recently became available and the online ordering deal for 15/15 for $65/mo (free for the first month, $50/mo for months 2-7) was too good to pass up. Considering what we're paying now for two ISPs, we'll be coming out way ahead, bit/s for bit/s
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 Review by Technogeez
member for 6.3 years, 1204 visits, last login: 2.2 years ago
updated 3 years ago
- undisclosed location
- Contract price not specified.
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:P
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Review by Tested
member for 5.3 years, 608 visits, last login: 22 days ago
lodged 3 years ago
- Plano,Collin,TX
- $55 per month
- (24 month contract)
- about 10 days
- "Very fast and reliable"
- "none that I can think of"
- "Love it!"
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I have very fast 35/25 service bundled with Verizon Fios TV for $120 a month
You get a free router with it. Very reliable service with few problems.
Only times I've had issues they were correctly quickly.
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Review by jeff3f
member for 3 years, 2 visits, last login: 2.8 years ago
lodged 3 years ago
- Pittsburgh,Allegheny,PA
- Contract price not specified.
- "clean installation, mostly works OK, fast"
- "amateur-hour problems with www site integration with services, username BS"
- "rocky start but the service itself generally OK"
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They buried my cable neatly, I was impressed. The installer was a nice guy and did a great job with making the new equipment neat and better he made the existing wiring (cable tv) much neater than how Comcast hed left it in years past (before I owned the house.
I'm mainly motivated to post by my grievances though. The main issue, is that I was (before Comcast) previously a Verizon DSL customer and had a username and so forth. During the fios install they made me choose a username and wouldn't let me choose the existing one that I currently use to access vz's web site. So now, I have two login ID's including a second-choice one I don't want, and neither works well. One logs into and brings up a fios style "my verizon" site but tells me my account information is not available. The other brings up an old style (ie same as before fios) page that lets me look at my bill my DVRs, etc, but lacks all the functionality I'd normally want (accessing the voicemail settings, email, etc. I have split functions, I can't get it to work as one, AND mostly I'm pissed that it looks like I'm going to have to fight to get/keep my favored userID.
Also, my install wasn't 100% smooth and the planned latest model DVR was swapped with an older style (5.1 sound instead of 7.1 sound--I have a 7.1 sound system) DVR. And there were problems related to the DVR being registered then swapped out during the install session.
Also, I had to open a ticket to get voicemail to work.
So, minor quibbles, but I'm pissed because it appears they didn't plan for the contingency of a former VZ customer coming back (for fios), and wanting his/her old username/email address back.
I've opened a couple of tickets, but only one resulted in an email confirmation. Will play along for a few days but am anticipating that somebody will try to tell me that the arbitrary username thing is fixed ("can't change" to the previous one). Will push them on this. So the service works in basic but the advanced features are not available and I'm overall annoyed by this because even a small amount of planning on their end would have prevented this. Aren't most of their customers already customers at some level (landline, DSL, etc.)????
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Review by kmss1
member for 11 years, 216 visits, last login: 224 days ago
updated 3 years ago
- Yucaipa,San Bernardino,CA
- Contract price not specified.
- (12 month contract)
- about 17 days
- "Nice fast connection that seems to stay 'up' most of the time."
- "Download speeds can be very 'choppy' during busy times."
- "Overall pretty sweet service!"
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Its a pretty nice service, but their tech support department has a bad case of 'head-up-ass' for the most part. Their installers are so busy that they have a tough time keeping their appointments.
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Review by bbking
member for 6.3 years, 299 visits, last login: 2 years ago
updated 3 years ago
- Cockeysville,Baltimore,MD
- $137 per month
- (24 month contract)
- about 1 days
- "Rock solid all three fronts (video, internet and telephone). Plenty of HD channels"
- "Too bad they got rid of the 2 year contract option"
- "If you have FIOS in your neighborhood please sign up. You won't be sorry. I am not having any billing issues."
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My speed: 25/25 with Extreme HD.
Good: Symmetric Speeds, yippie!
Bad: Took channels out of Extreme HD and put them in Ultimate HD
Bottom line: Still the "gold std." hope the pricing doesn't go off kilter
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