 Review by SixOfNine 
UPDATED: 1 year ago
member for 8.1 years, 3895 visits, last login: 1 days ago
 Sterling,Loudoun,VA
 $50 per month (12 month contract)
 about 20 days
 "Works as Advertised"
 "Not the greatest latency to my west coast game server"
 "Very Happy"
| Pre Sales Information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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Review Update on October 13, 2008:
Bottom Line: Still very happy with FIOS.
Changes since original view: In June 2008 I learned of a free speed upgrade, thanks to a thread in the Verizon Fiber Optics forum right here on broadbandreports.com:
»Verizon pushing FiOS internet to 50Mbps throughout US
My original FIOS contract had expired and I had to commit to another year, but I was upgraded from my original connection speed of 15/2 to 20/5.
About the monthly cost of $50: That's my guess at the price for the Internet-only portion of the service. Actually, I pay for TV, phone, and Internet service together as one of Verizon's "Triple Freedom" packages. Rounded up, the cost is $115. HBO, two standard set-top boxes and one Home Media HD DVR cost another $46. Some package credits lower the bill slightly and taxes and fee raise it, so the complete monthly bill comes in at about $165.
My Actiontec router died on me recently. I went through some tests with Verizon tech support and they decided to ship me a replacement router. They said "two or three business days," but it arrived the next afternoon, a very pleasant surprise.
The Actiontec router's user interface is quite friendly. As I mentioned in the original review, I particularly liked how easy it was to set up port forwarding for games (World of Warcraft, in my case). The router presents you with an extensive list of games to choose from and implements the required set of rules.
Setting up wireless security, WEP or WPA, is equally easy. The wireless connection sometimes acts a little hinky, but it might be channel conflict with my neighbors. Whenever the wireless connection seems to slow dramatically, changing the channel has fixed the problem. I think that my neighbors and I need to sit down and discuss channel allocation. 
Sometimes the wireless connection has failed to work completely and nothing but turning the router off and back on fixes it (and I have already experienced this with the new, replacement router, too). In general I have always found wireless to be a notch below hard-wired connections in terms of this type of reliability, and I don't know if this experience with the Actiontec is something worse or par for the course.
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Original Review:
When FIOS became available in my neighborhood, I jumped on it. I let a neighbor get it first to see if any neighborhood-related kinks needed to be worked out. I was an existing Verizon DSL customer and Comcast cable (they picked up Adelphia's subscribers) was the only other internet options besides satellite.
Advice: if FIOS is springing up in your area but the Verizon web site says that it is unavailable, call them and talk to a human being. If the human being says that FIOS is unavailable, ask them to double-check, citing the location of the closest neighbor with the service. That's how I got my order through. After all, my neighbor two houses down had it.
I ordered phone, Internet, and TV service together. The Internet connection is the 15/2 tier and it runs like a champ. I had occasional disconnect problems with my DSL connection, but the FIOS connection has been much more reliable, and performance as measured by speed tests has been excellent.
Installation was fine. Subcontractors came out a few days ahead of time and ran a cable from the street to my house (I have a 90-foot driveway). I was a little concerned about how close that cable is to the surface, but so far so good, and I guess I won't be using a core aerator on that section of lawn any more.
The installer knew more about the TV service than the internet, but he knew enough to get me up and running on everything. The Actiontec router is very straightforward to work with and the web interface includes a large number of packaged port forwarding options for online gamers.
My only minor beef is the latency to the west coast server on which I play World of Warcraft, which is frequently 200 ms or higher (I'm on the east coast). I realize that because of the distance some of this is out of Verizon's hands, but when I connect via other services my latency is better.
All in all, switching to FIOS was a no-brainer: speed and reliability get two thumbs up.
Followup comments:  supertech315
join:2006-03-01
Perris, CA | 59 Human Warlock ..clan Killem All I get the same ping here in california .. everything else as far as the speed is good ....weird | |
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