 Review by KCrimson 
UPDATED: 200 days ago
member for 8.7 years, 3756 visits, last login: a few hours ago
 Brooklyn,Kings,NY
 $65 per month (month by month)
 about 7 days
 "Excellent speed and latency. Phone service bundle is good value"
 "News server has spotty completion, speed is too variable"
 "20 megabits/sec X 5 megabits/sec with phone service (unl. loc & LD) for $65. Excellent"
| Pre Sales Information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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The worst part of the experience was getting ahold of a human being when calling Verizon to find out more information. I live in NYC, they have no TV available here yet, as there is no franchise agreement. When calling Verizon to find out about a package including FiOS, phone and DirecTV the voicemail system was put into a loop, as this doesn't fit the typical customer's requests, and none of their departments seemed to know WHO to transfer the order to. To make a long story short I finally got hold of SOMEONE who set me up with the $65 FiOS/Phone package - including 20 megabit downstream / 5 megabit upstream, and phone service with unlimited local and unlimited continental US long distance. This is similar to the double play package from Cablevision, but includes more bandwidth and a news server that's not choked at 60kbps per connection X 2 connections, as Cablevision's outsourced news server connections are. Neither provider (CV or Vz)have excellent Usenet service, but I'll take Verizon's any day. I set up a separate DirecTV account, with discounts that totaled more than the $6 "bundle" that was available for Verizon customers, due to my status as a current cable customer (I don't understand the logic, but that's what how it worked out!). Anyway, no more Cablevision in this house, the internet experience is about the same with the added bandwidth, the TV service is MUCH better with DirecTV, and the phone is the same.
The install was very smooth from Verizon. He'd have been done in about 3-4 hours had he worked straight through, but he stretched it a bit by leaving for about an hour. I had more trouble with DirecTV's installer - they delayed and then re-scheduled our installation, and then when they showed up they told us that we were supposed to supply our OLD boxes (from 3 years ago), something that we SPECIFICALLY checked on the phone, AND we NEVER had DVR (or TiVO) service from DirecTV, so HOW could we have agreed to supply such a box?! After nearly canceling the order, everything was seemingly straightened out (I'll find out when I receive the first bill). Anyway, that's how everything stands right now.
I really like the web interface on the Mi424WR router. The ONT is wired to the router via coax. The installer was willing to use ethernet if I desired, but I really don't see a reason to do so. If I want to upgrade the router I can set the Mi424WR to bridge mode, so what is the advantage to ethernet for the ONT-Router run?
Wishes: I'm looking for 30/5 upgrade with no charge, as I believe Verizon should be offering this tier within the current price structure as direct competition to Cablevision's Boost service.
So now I've had the following broadband:
Cablevision w/ Motorola 3100 Surfboard - at that time (2000), I had about 5500kbps
Verizon DSL 1500 then upgraded to 3000 kbps
Verizon DSL back to 1500 kbps, when I moved about 8 blocks away I "didn't qualify" for 3000.
Cablevision again - Motorola 5120 Surfboard - topped at ~ 14500kbp downstream, not bad.
Verizon FiOS - current service as outlined above. I've got my fingers crossed that this will be a good change.
10/16/08 - A little over a year later and the service is quite stable. I've noticed only one or two brief hour-long outages during maintenance work in the area (perhaps due to the recent addition of TV offering in the area). My IP address has changed from a 97.x.x.x address to a block in the 98 range, and I've noticed a slight speed decrease from 20500kbps to about 19500kbps downstream (maximums). The Actiontec has a known flaw in its routing rules, applying classful routing rules to class C addresses with 0 or 255 in the last octet. If a firmware update doesn't fix the flaw, I'm going to soon request a new router (with a larger NAT table too, as the limited NAT table sometimes causes problems). These small problems aside, the service does provide me with a rock-solid and very fast internet connection.
The phone service is no different than the POTS service it replaced from a user perspective, and that is a great complement.
4/22/09 - I'm back with Cablevision - triple play. It was a decision based purely on price. The triple play (I replaced both the FiOS double play and DirecTV) is costing me about $50 less than I was paying for DirecTV and Verizon combined, and I'm getting more channels (including a year of the MLB baseball package and Boost). I'll be updating my CV review when I get a chance. I already miss DirecTV's DVR, and also miss the stable speed and lower latency that FiOS provided.
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