 Review by Mike 
UPDATED: 168 days ago
member for 9.1 years, 5478 visits, last login: a few hours ago
 Pittsburgh,Allegheny,PA
 $69 per month (24 month contract)
 about 2 days
 Verizon
 "It's finally active. Surprisingly reliable."
 "Customer Service"
 "They're still scum bags."
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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Update 06-05-09.
The 7mb package is finally available in my area. I checked after the front page story about expanding coverage.
The first person I talked to was the beginning of my problems. All I wanted to do was to upgrade my DSL from 3mb to 7mb. What I did not know is that the rep eventually tacked on 3 extra services ($50 more a month total) and attempted to change my phone service. On top of that, the aggressive up-selling really began to flat out anger me. The cherry on top is that he did not complete the order right and someone called me about three hours later to fix his mistake. I've been getting at least two phone calls a day and I got 4 emails from them as well about random upselling and information about other services. I am really trying to be patient here and it's not working. Through three VZ Direct forum posts and 6 customer service calls, I think I removed all the BS services I did not sign up for. On top of that, they sent me the same exact modem I had for no apparent reason.
All I wanted was to upgrade my service and I had to deal with 4 days of awful customer care. VZ should be glad they're the only game in town. What a flat out garbage customer service.
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Years ago Verizon sucked hard. The work on their network has changed the general opinion to they hardly suck. The sales guy lied and said I could get 3mb/768k as I live just under 11k feet from the CO and that is the absolute cut off. 11,001ft would have to go through living hell to get this connected. Covad says I'm 7k feet from the CO. I get to have 1.5mb/384k. You explain it.
It was a very simple bait and switch. Now, I live at 11,552 feet. My CO decided to pack up their things and move about 552 away from me. Supposedly there is work on FIOS and RTs in my area. By living here for many years, the last Verizon truck I saw was when an AT&T truck ate a telephone pole.
I can't say anything really bad about Tech Support or Billing. I had simple issues, under 2 minute hold time during prime hours, and talked to "phone nice people". Though I did find it amusing when someone in billing said "oh damn" and had a muffled laugh when my exact, pin pointed by NASA CO distance was not what I was told. Though I called for a DSL install, I was also offered Satellite TV, Long distance, wireless service, ect... In fact the guy had so many offers I ignored him until he said "Sir?" in a Brooklyn hoodlum accent and I reply "No thanks, just wanting DSL".
The main reason why I switched ISPs was because I wanted the speed upgrade. Sure my old ISP had a 2ms ping out to the backbone here in Pittsburgh and Verizon is giving me a 47ms ping... outside.. to the backbone... in Washington... they refuse to remove interleave. I like playing online games so ping is a great deal. The nifty little Westell status monitor indicates that I am interleaved and want to move to fastpath encoding (Verizon has a cute marketing name of Fast Packet) and they won't touch it. Instead of my 19ms ping to my world of warcraft server, it's around 290ms - 160ms. I sense a disturbance in the force. My old ISP was nearly doubled this price for the same speed.
The Services; Suck. If you make a mistake on the order, I have been explained more or less "tough crap". The account setup program is fairly neat but there is no way to skip from "Welcome to the internet for people just born" to online account setup. So I sat for about 5 minutes clicking "next" until I could get to the last part of the setup program.... the account.
How Verizon could stop being scum bags;
Bait and Switch usually pisses people off.
I want my 3mbs downstream on fastpath encoding.
Allow.. this might sound odd.. the ability to change account settings.
Other than that, I'd be happy.
Until then, Verizon still blows.
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It's been over a year. I been updated to 3mb/768k on fast path. how about that? I was correct a year ago... they still suck. Phone support keeps transferring each other back and forth until you get someone who is only half slow.
Though I do admit when I posted in our Verizon direct forum, I got quick help and it was mostly accurate. Thanks to them my line is upgraded.
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Another year has passed (nov 14, 2007) and I'm updating my review. I had an issue with the old modem dying and instead of fighting phone techs, I went to our direct forum. I'm raising the tech support ranking just on the experiences in the Verizon Direct forum alone. I'm rather pleased with the experience. Other than the issue with the modem, the service is reliable, but relatively slow compared to the national bar.
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