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Verizon FiOS...Who's Switchin'?

SamIchi

SamIchi

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Aug 1, 2004
2,716
137
So Verson FiOs is available in my area. We got a call from them, it's double our Road Runner speed, for the same price. Anyone else getting this? I know it's not avaiable averywhere, but I'm lookin forward to the faster speed.

39.99 for Up to 10 Mbps/2 Mbps compared to Road Runner's max 5Mbps/384 kbps for 44.99. And it's $29.99 for the first 6 months + free installation. I read and saw that there are big boxes they install in the home but better bandwidth is all I care about.
 
I've been dying for FiOS, but they don't offer it here yet even though our local Verizon data center has the equipment. My new house is currently wired to be able to make the switch extremely easily. I hope they wire it over here soon.
 
Hummer said:
I've been dying for FiOS, but they don't offer it here yet even though our local Verizon data center has the equipment. My new house is currently wired to be able to make the switch extremely easily. I hope they wire it over here soon.
Click to expand...

Yea I saw them installin their stuff near my house about a month ago, I was pretty excited, they gave us a call yesterday letting us know it was available.
 
If they ever install it here, we'll be switching the first day. Currently we have Comcast for $60.95 a month, and its 4Mb down/384Kb up. Luckily my dad's work pays for it. But what a ****ing rip off. The day something cheaper and faster comes here, we'll be switching instantly.
 
i would totally get fios if i could, but it isn't offered in my city. it is, however, offered two cities away (less than 10 miles!) but not here. faster downloads and faster uploads for cheaper pricing. who wouldn't jump on that?
 
When I had mine installed a long time ago, they told me I was the 4th house to ever get it. I can tell you without a doubt it's the best service I've ever had from an ISP. It's only gone down once that I've noticed... for under 10 minutes.

The speed is great. I have the 15/2 plan, as well as FiOS TV, which is also head and shoulders above everything else in my area (Northern VA/DC). They don't care what you do as long as you don't run a web server. I've moved hundreds of gigabytes of data (and that was just the first month) -- and I've never even received a warning. They installed a box near my power meter in the back of my house, and a white big box in my kitchen where it comes in. They gave me a Netgear router (which I gave to my younger brother).

Last November I had FiOS TV installed. They gave me an Actiontech router which is actually very nice. It looks like a PS2 with a big antenna. Lots of control features for the router. The signals from the SD and HD -- are both definitely better than anything I've had on Cox Cable and Dish Network. But the on-screen guide BLOWS.
 
SamIchi said:
So Verson FiOs is available in my area. We got a call from them, it's double our Road Runner speed, for the same price. Anyone else getting this? I know it's not avaiable averywhere, but I'm lookin forward to the faster speed.

39.99 for Up to 10 Mbps/2 Mbps compared to Road Runner's max 5Mbps/384 kbps for 44.99. And it's $29.99 for the first 6 months + free installation. I read and saw that there are big boxes they install in the home but better bandwidth is all I care about.
Click to expand...
Glad to see things improving.

However, I am surprised that FOIS is so slow.

Here in Japan, true FTTH is 100Mbps.

VDSL is around 50Mbps.

ASDL is around 24Mbps.

Slow ADSL is around 10-12Mbps.
 
FiOS is great; the people who sell it to you are MORONS.
The guys who came to our neighborhood promised me an N router - all I got was G (and I can find no N firmware upgrade) - and was promised the faster speed (but they gave me the slower speed, which is at least the speed of Comcast, so I'm not complaining).

You might ask why I haven't done anything about it for all these months, but the service is actually in my woman's name, not mine, so they won't talk to me. She doesn't understand any of this, so I keep trying to get her to put my name on the account. Doesn't really matter, I suppose. Service is still great. But, oh yeah, techs and customer service reps of Verizon are MORONS. Did I mention that?
 
I got this a few months back, and its been great. Its actually very reliable unlike my previous ISP. The speed is (obviously) great, and I haven't had any issues where I would need to get Tech Support, but if I did, a family member work at Verizon.
 
I've got the 20/5 package and haven't had any problems except for a few setup issues almost two years ago.*

And sushi: yeah, we know. :)

*Edit: and one issue last year when a truck clipped the fiber-optic line to my house. But I don't count that... could have happened to cable, too.
 
I switched from Comcast to FiOS last November and couldn't be happier. With cable my download speeds would slow to a crawl every evening from six to ten P.M. and occasionally it would just go out all together.

TV service isn't available in my town yet.
 
jsw said:
And sushi: yeah, we know. :)
Click to expand...
Glad that you noticed! ;) :p :D

You know, in the early nineties, Japan had terrible communication capability. During the 1200-2400 baud modem days, I could barely connect at 300 with my friend to do computer to computer chat/sending files/etc. It sucked!

Then the government put forth a direct effort to improve the infrastructure. Today, Japan has some of the best infrastructure around -- at least in the Tokyo area. And I've been hearing talk of even higher bandwidth connection speeds. Which will be nice to have! :)
 
Well, I have Verizon DSL..... I'm sure that someone will come along and tell me how much better FiOIS is.

All I know here in L.A. is not to switch to Comcast/Time Warner/Road Runner - there's been a lot of complaints about them here.
 
I've had FiOS (data only) for a couple of months now and it has been great, but then again so was their DSL. I've got the 15 Mbps service and it works great for downloads from major sites, some other sites are more limited on their end so the improvement is not as great.

The only downside of the switch for me is that all my boxes are connected to the 'net via wireless now since the only logical place for the FiOS router is an a room that already had Cat5. So when the wireless is wonky, I actually get less raw speed. :(

One of these years I'll pull out the Cat5 in my office from behind the bookshelf and return to some semblance of normalcy...

Also, the Actiontec router supplied is horrible. I've turned off it's wireless and put my old trusty WRTT54g behind it. If the Airport Extreme would handle MAC address spoofing, I'd be all over it.

B
 
sushi said:
Glad that you noticed! ;) :p :D

You know, in the early nineties, Japan had terrible communication capability. During the 1200-2400 baud modem days, I could barely connect at 300 with my friend to do computer to computer chat/sending files/etc. It sucked!

Then the government put forth a direct effort to improve the infrastructure. Today, Japan has some of the best infrastructure around -- at least in the Tokyo area. And I've been hearing talk of even higher bandwidth connection speeds. Which will be nice to have! :)
Click to expand...
Gotta love our government. They've been saying that for years. "Oh yes!!! In my term, we will have broadband available to everybody, even people in remote locations, and everybody will have broadband that is accessible to everyone on every budget." Yet, none of that crap that comes out of their lips comes true.

Our power company said they were doing a survey on the availability of BPL back in October. Yet nothing else has been said. And don't even get me started on AT&T.:mad: And people wonder why I hate corporate America? :rolleyes:

So here I am, sitting in front of my computer with a dial-up account that sometimes feels like I'm back from when we first got our first dial-up account, 10-12 years ago. And it will probably remain that way until I go to college if somebody doesn't go ahead and stand up for us.

Anyways, to the main point. I've heard good things about the FiOS service, just not so great about the installation quality, like them ripping the copper out not cleanly at all. But I think you'll be good.
 
I've heard FIOS is PPPoE just like Verizon DSL, is that correct? If that's the case I will not be switching to it. We had Verizon DSL for years before we got Road Runner and PPPoE caused more trouble with just about everything than you can imagine. I'd prefer the direct cable connection to a PPPoE nightmare any day, even if it's slower.
 
ITASOR said:
I've heard FIOS is PPPoE just like Verizon DSL, is that correct? If that's the case I will not be switching to it. We had Verizon DSL for years before we got Road Runner and PPPoE caused more trouble with just about everything than you can imagine. I'd prefer the direct cable connection to a PPPoE nightmare any day, even if it's slower.
Click to expand...

What's the difference?
 
SamIchi said:
What's the difference?
Click to expand...
PPPoE comes from the PPP standard, which is mainly known from dial-up. So in this case, PPPoE makes you authenticate yourself everytime yo want to go on the internet, just a like a dial-up modem, while a direct cable connection or something similar is always on, no authentication needed.
 
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