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Pathfinder5
Dazed Confused
Premium Member
join:2000-03-26
New York, NY

Pathfinder5

Premium Member

My building is being wired

as I type. I imagine I am about 8 - 10 weeks from being able to order service. I currently have TimeWarner cable and I would love to ditch them and go with FIOS but I am reluctant. I am a big fan of BBC and H2 and I understand that FIOS has neither in HD. If there are no plans to get them it could be a deal breaker for me.
Anyone have any insight as to whether FIOS will get these channels?
lijacobs
join:2010-07-30
Woodmere, NY

lijacobs

Member

FiOS is very slow to add channels. BBC HD is one of the most requested in the forums. In general, VZ does not add any compression to the content that they receive so the quality of most of their SD broadcasts is pretty good. I watch programming on BBC America fairly often and I use the # key to adjust the picture to fill the 16x9 screen. To my old eyes I find the difference from most HD broadcasts to be acceptable.

Pathfinder5
Dazed Confused
Premium Member
join:2000-03-26
New York, NY

Pathfinder5

Premium Member

That's good to know. Missing Dr Who would suck.
fotomatt1
join:2007-11-07
Easton, PA

fotomatt1 to Pathfinder5

Member

to Pathfinder5
said by Pathfinder5:

as I type. I imagine I am about 8 - 10 weeks from being able to order service. I currently have TimeWarner cable and I would love to ditch them and go with FIOS but I am reluctant. I am a big fan of BBC and H2 and I understand that FIOS has neither in HD. If there are no plans to get them it could be a deal breaker for me.
Anyone have any insight as to whether FIOS will get these channels?

I think 8-10 weeks is optimistic anyway..I was told the same thing when they started wiring my building 14 months ago! I'm still waiting! At least it looks like they finally completed the physical build-out this week, and now I'm just waiting for them to approve my building for service add it to the database....hopefully in the next couple of weeks and then I'm good to go! Verizon just might have BBC before your building is online anyway!

Pathfinder5
Dazed Confused
Premium Member
join:2000-03-26
New York, NY

Pathfinder5

Premium Member

Well the conduits are all in and the fiber needs to be pulled. As I stated before, this is the last MDU in Mt Vernon to be wired. I know that New Rochelle and Yonkers are pretty saturated also so I think that the crews are available to do the work. The biggest time consumer will be pulling the fiber into each apartment.
Getting into each apartment will be a nightmare.
fotomatt1
join:2007-11-07
Easton, PA

fotomatt1

Member

said by Pathfinder5:

Well the conduits are all in and the fiber needs to be pulled. As I stated before, this is the last MDU in Mt Vernon to be wired. I know that New Rochelle and Yonkers are pretty saturated also so I think that the crews are available to do the work. The biggest time consumer will be pulling the fiber into each apartment.
Getting into each apartment will be a nightmare.

Well, they don't usually pull it into each apartment unless an order is placed. They coil up a bunch of extra cable in the wiremold in the hallway outside each unit. When an install is being done they pull it into that unit and terminate it at an ONT in a closet, so you won't have that worry. The issue is the time frame between placing conduit and pulling cable. The conduit was placed by one contractor, and the next contractor didn't show up to pull cable for another 8 months!

Pathfinder5
Dazed Confused
Premium Member
join:2000-03-26
New York, NY

Pathfinder5

Premium Member

I went over that in the other thread. In this building they ARE running it to each apartment to a closet. No wiremold. Fortunately, the closet they are running it to has the cable and phone in it already so hook up should be a breeze.
fotomatt1
join:2007-11-07
Easton, PA

fotomatt1

Member

Wow...I guess that's lucky, although it could take forever for every tenant to let VZ into each apartment, unless the super is going to give them access. I just hope they approve my building for service soon!
sbernstein5
join:2005-01-18
10024-5650

1 edit

sbernstein5 to Pathfinder5

Member

to Pathfinder5
I switched last February, pretty soon after it was offered in my building, and even though there are some HD channels I liked a lot missing (Sundance, TCM, BBC America, Ovation) and no NY1 (which I really really liked), there are a ton of reasons that I would NEVER go back to crappy Time Warner, over and above the fact that my package ("Ultimate") is *$100* a month cheaper.

To start with:
Internet Service - speed (35/35) blows Time Warner out of the water. Both my wife and I do a lot of uploading, and her HD videos that she shoots with her flip-cam now take minutes to upload to YouTube, where as they used to take hours to upload over Roadrunner (I even had the turbo "speed boost" or whatever it was called that I paid a bit extra each month for).

Movie channels -- for less money I get MANY more movie channels than I had on TWC. I get the entire multiplexes of HBO, Showtime, Cinemax, Encore, The Movie Channel, Starz, Epix (which has a lot of good stuff) -- again, all for a lot less money that I was paying TWC and I only had HBO/Max/Show/Starz. And MGM-HD is not part of some goofy "HDXTra" plan I have to pay extra for.

HDNet / HDNet Movies -- 2 of my favorite channels which were lost in some silly dispute between Time Warner and Mark Cuban.

BBC World News channel (only in SD) -- makes up for missing NY1. When I want "real" news and CNN is just broadcasting lame Piers Morgan or some BS, I can always hit this channel for (usually) non-fluff news. It's a much more balanced view of what's going on in the world than any US-based news channel (except when "Sport Today" is on, as I couldn't care less about world sports -- or American sports for that matter).

DVR -- software is much better and comes with FULL support for adding external drives.

And most importantly -- picture quality! When they switch you from TWC to FIOS you will be blown away by how much better the pic quality is!
knarf829
join:2007-06-02

knarf829 to Pathfinder5

Member

to Pathfinder5
Hope you speak Spanish.
tnsprin
join:2003-07-23
Bradenton, FL

1 edit

tnsprin

Member

First some English channels have been added. True they were either regional or extra cost channels.

Second they have been hinting at some of the more demanded sometime this year. True, they have hinted before and the channels didn't come, but with Mpeg-4 finally being used, their is a slight chance they will come. More if they decide to bite the bullet and convert some of the existing channels to mpeg-4.