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Review by millerzone 
UPDATED: 59 days ago
member for 5.1 years, 77 visits, last login: 9 days ago
 Kirkland,King,WA
 $107 per month (12 month contract)
 about 3 days
 "Reliable TV and internet, superior picture quality"
 "Cablecards cost $4/month each; support/service can be tough"
 "Truly"
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I've had FiOS internet for more than 3 years already, Started with business 15/2 w/ 5 static IPs and recently changed to residential 25/15 + Extreme HD.
Over the 3 years I've had FiOS internet it's been rock solid. The only outage I ever had was due to a fire in a data center in Seattle, and it was resolved quickly under the circumstances. Speeds are consistent and it. just. works. Over the years 15/2 became 20/5.
I recently decided to change to FiOS TV from Comcast and so I changed internet to residential at the same time, to take advantage of bundled pricing. The picture quality is truly better than Comcast, *especially* on less popular SD channels. On Comcast these sometimes looked like YouTube videos; on FiOS TV they are much clearer (and consistently so).
Finding your way through Verizon's labyrinthine call trees to get to the right people to place orders, get support etc can be tricky... but with a little persistence it's actually possible to get very good and very timely action. One key thing: get and keep the mobile phone number of any tech that comes to your residence. I used that to get delivery of a cablecard expedited from a week out to immediately -- the tech was at my house within hours of receiving my text message, having routed the order to himself.
Honestly at this point my only concern is that Frontier not screw up a good thing when they take over from Verizon in Washington State.
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Review by doug104
UPDATED: 61 days ago
member for 5.5 years, 43 visits, last login: 52 days ago
Bel Air,Harford,MD
$145 per month (12 month contract)
about 1 days
"Ordered it online on Wednesday, it was installed Thursday"
"only had it a week, but no bad points to speak of"
"Blows away the Comcast I had"
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I saw the cable being run through the neighborhood about a month ago, so I checked the website about once a week to see if it was available. It came back positive last week and I went through the ordering process online, which was easy and detailed. When I was done it came back with a schedule date and time which was LESS than 24 hours away. About an hour later I got a phone call confirming the order and the install time and the next morning the tech called and let me know he was coming, and in about 4 hours he was finished. He tested every cable termination and both of my PC's, which he also put wireless adapters on (free of charge). Of course they prefer to do as much wireless as possible, but I since changed them back to hardwired network.
The speed on the PC's is truly blazing, and tests at 25Mbps down, 15Mbps up, and frequently is faster than that. Downloads and videos are there in a snap. The TV, after Comcast and their crappy signals, broken pixelated pictures and unusably slow On Demand, I feel like I just bought a Porsche. The HD is extremely crisp and clear and in general all the TV's show a marked improvement in picture quality. All the features, remotes, menus are very good too. All in all it's the best move I've made in a long time. It was a pleasure to go to Comcast to turn in my cable boxes. I went from $100 a month just for Comcast TV with no movie channels, and now I pay $145 for excellent TV, light speed internet and telephone service. Hot Damn!
(only rated tech support a 3 because I haven't needed it)
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Review by jydogg
UPDATED: 63 days ago
member for 159 days, 202 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Taunton,Bristol,MA
$139 per month (12 month contract)
about 14 days
"Speed, picture quality, selection of video offerings"
"Billing department borders on criminally insane, tech support is from Mars..."
"Been stable for a while now, hope it continues, best value in town right now"
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Ordered FiOS in April 2009, delayed install until May 1st for personal reasons. Installer was top-notch and knew his stuff, and was in and out in just a few hours with all services working fine.
Order was FiOS HD Extreme Triple-play, with 20/5 internet and unlimited phone.
Actiontek rev. E router, 2 QIP-2500 STB, and 1 QIP-7100 STB were installed.
Service quality is excellent. Picture on the video service is better than cable ever thought of, and just as good as my off-air antenna on my local broadcast channels. Phone service is good too, no quality issues, and FAX works fine over the fiber. HS Internet has been mostly good, speeds are exactly what I ordered once I did the Windows tweaks.
The only gripes I have are the billing which is nightmarish and borders on bait-and-switch tactics, and the extreme lack of tech support. Also, some of the routing paths once your packets leave Verizon space are less than ideal. I wish they'd stop routing through Level3. Also, they need to get the QIP-7100 box to stop resetting every couple of days and losing the HDTV tweaks I apply to get SD video to pillarbox correctly on my Vizio TV.
** UPDATE 08/11/2009 **
Lately there have been MANY problems with FiOS TV - channels randomly disappear for days then suddenly come back. This is on all boxes. Verizon's tech support always claims there to be an outage in the area. I think they never take that banner off to cover their ineptitude. I am considering switching again due to my inability to watch what I pay for.
** UPDATE 09/21/2009 **
The situations have finally stabilized. The billing department finally got their heads out of their nether regions and my monthly bills have the correct amounts of both money and sanity. The TV situation has improved drastically as well, with no serious complaints on any channels I watch. Still some audio issues on some of the SD channels, but those problems are nationwide and I watch the HD versions of those channels which don't have the audio issues. The internet has been rock-solid as well, with no lousy routing or dropped packet issues. I stream a 3-hour radio show from here weekly for live broadcast at a high bit rate and it's been flawless.
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Review by bobbyinpa
UPDATED: 63 days ago
member for 8.8 years, 488 visits, last login: 3 days ago
Hershey,Dauphin,PA
$50 per month (month by month)
about 5 days
"Rapid installation and installed how I wanted it installed"
"First contact from Verizon forgot to enter order"
"Puts comcast to shame and then some"
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I placed the order initially on May 24th when Verizon called me and asked if I wanted FIOS (I was on their notification list). I spoke with a polite woman who asked me questions about my computer and you could tell she was reading a script. I was told to wait 48 hours then go to www.verizon.net/whatsnext to see how the order progressed. I finally recalled Verizon on June 7 and found out the order was never placed. This time I had a pleasant and apologetic man take my order and I asked for a June 12th installation, which they agreed. Verizon installed arrived at 9:35 AM and was finished by 1:00 PM. Everything worked fine and speed was very acceptable. Found out I am the very first person on my street to take the FIOS dive. Very happy I did not have to install software to use FIOS.
I have to give Verizon credit for great service during the installation and to admit they made a mistake in the first order. Router/modem is an actiontechM1424-WR rev C and is extremely easy to configure. I highly recommend the jump to FIOS and cannot wait until Verizon offers digital TV as the HD picture was fantastic at a friend's home.
7-15-07 Still solid and fast. Some of Verizon's test on their help site are quirky, but no matter to the ease of speed.
8-11-07 Nothing bad to say, just works and works fast with solid service. "Verizon seems to finally understand some of their help tests don't work as promised and now most do work fine.
11-16-08 Well, I have the entire package now, FIOS TV, FIOS internet, but I kept the landline but for 19.95 unlimited calls in the entire US and Canada to include US territories with no long distance charges made this irrisistable. FIOS TV is awesome, the clarity of the picture is absolutely perfect. Verizon came exactly within 5 minutes of their time to arrive, all four of my cable lines from Comcast were checked for signal quality and what lines did not pass were quickly replaced with new. All TV's now require a box, I got a HD box for the big screen including the DVR, got a regular box for the family room, and two baby boxes 4x4 inches and 1 inch high for the kitchen and bedroom. The remote controls the TV and when you turn off the TV the box goes off too. I thought HD from Comcast was good, but it does not compare to what I have now. Watching Discovery Channel wilderness footage can make you feel a bit unnerved as the picture seems to pull you in. We got every premium channel and with my 20-20 FIOS connection, and the landline I pay $220.00, I was paying Comcast 150.00 for a lot less. I say go for the whole package. We are highly satisfied and would recommend you give it a try. I have not had one day of FIOS interrupted service, something Comcast cannot claim in my area.
12-8-08 One month of Verizon FIOS TV and still very please. Never an outage, great clarity, HD is still tops. The only thing I find annoying is WGAL channel 8 has an annoying problem with the volume becoming low then back to normal. I have since taken the triple plan, so I went ot the 20/5 plan for internet. Comcast must be losing alot of customers as I see Verizon all over the place in Hershey. Thank God the competition has started.
9-21-09 Rock solid speeds, excellent tech support for the one and only time I needed it, and my friends are all wanting FIOS but they do not have it yet in their area. I am sold on Verizon. I have the freedome plan, free land line phone, Internet, and the full monty TV that has the best picture and sound. I even have my two cell phones in my all in one bill, so for a little over $300.00 a month I still save money and have more. Verizon has my vote.
Followup comments:  IDEL79
join:2002-01-04
Lebanon, PA | Fios I want to get verizon fios too  | |
| | DoRight
join:2007-07-20
Mechanicsburg, PA | Re: Fios Verizon is going to start updating the CO's in Palmyra, Highspire and middletown in the beginning of 08 with Fiber. It's about a two year project.. Not sure on Lebanon yet.. | |
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Review by kevin_pink
UPDATED: 64 days ago
member for 3.1 years, 81 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Bronx,Bronx,NY
Contract price not specified. (12 month contract)
"amazing (TV) picture quality and internet"
"pricing unknowns/concerns"
"get it if you can :)"
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I had OOL before this.. boy am I am happy that I switched (so far).
Internet is flawless (FAST & consistent, OOL could not match Either!); TV picture quality is as clear as anything i've ever seen. I have the 35/20 package but I get about 35/25. On NDT tests, the speeds are closer to 35/40.
»www.speedtest.net/result/569541970.png
The installers showed up at 8:33AM today and they finished in about 1.5 hours, very courteous and friendly; they seemed knowledgeable. The [standard (coax)] install was clean (ONT, battery backup, etc), they left a little mess from the hole they drilled in my bedroom wall but it was not a big deal.
The only negative thing I can say is that the wireless from the MI424WR is WEAK, I cannot pull more than 15/2 on wireless, but over a wired connection it is a solid 35/30+.
Router (MI424WR-GEN2, hardware version 'E') with latest firmware: 20.9.0
I had an old WRT160N laying around so bridged it with the VZ router, it is not so stable, it disconnects under heavy usage (above 30Mb/s) but it beats using the VZ MI424WR's wireless.
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 Review by linflas
UPDATED: 65 days ago
member for 10.2 years, 687 visits, last login: 1 days ago
Manassas,Prince William,VA
$89 per month (12 month contract)
about 7 days
"Great install, great speeds"
"Billing system needs a major overhaul"
"Awesome so far"
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I went with the 25/15 package bundled with my current land line voice service which was already with Verizon for $89.99 per month. The install was scheduled for a 1:00 to 5:00 PM window and the installer was at my house around 1:10 PM. He did a nice, neat job installing the Verizon equipment inside and out and the install took about 2 hours total. I've been up and online since then.
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 Review by rexbinary
UPDATED: 66 days ago
member for 4.8 years, 2405 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Plano,Collin,TX
Contract price not specified.
"Fast, low latency, more bandwidth for a better price then any competitor"
"None at all"
"Better then any Cable or DSL connection hands down"
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I've had FiOS installed since 8/1/05 and to date I have had no problems or issues with it at all. I have the 15MB down and 2MB up package.
The install took about seven hours as they had a little trouble going under the driveway with the fiber, other then that the install went smooth. They supplied a D-Link Router, but I am using an Apple AirPort Extreme router instead.
I am getting a little over the installed speeds both up and down. Gaming is very nice, on many first person shooter servers my ping is 3 or lower. I have been accused of being an admin on gaming severs because of my ping. 
I am very happy with FiOS and I would recommend it to anyone that has access to it.
UPDATE 10/8/06:
After having FiOS for over one year now, I am still just as happy with the service. I have experienced no losses of service, other then one brief scheduled maintenance that was in the middle of the night during the week. I have lost power twice since FiOS was installed, and my telephone still functioned as advertised, no problem. FiOS is unmatched by any other service provider in my area.
The service uses PPPoE. Some people tend to consider this a negative, as in theory the PPPoE induces overhead to your connection causing it to be slower then say a DHCP connection. I am consistently getting my full 15MB/2MB speeds as advertised, and my latency is extremely low. Rumor has it that at some point my connection will be converted from PPPoE to DHCP, I will update my review then with any differences or lack of differences at that time if/when I am converted to DHCP.
UPDATE 8/29/07:
My service is still stellar. No outages or trouble to report, technical or billing. Still getting full speeds and low latency. No throttling or bandwidth shaping that I have detected. I am still on PPPoE, and the last I heard they decided not to convert original customers to DHCP as it was just unnecessary work and cost. I have no complaints about that at all, as it has caused me no grief of any kind. I simply cannot express how happy I am with my FiOS service.
UPDATE 4/15/08
I upgraded to the 15/15 service on 11/26/07 which costs me $59.99 a month. The service is still outstanding, and I would never purchase DSL or Cable again by choice. Still no outages to report since 8/1/05.
UPDATE 10/19/08
Everything is still working perfectly. Still running 15/15 package with my Apple AirPort router. No outages to report. To say I am pleased with the service would be an understatement.
UPDATE 8/10/09
I have upgraded to the 25/15 package. Everything is still working great and no outages to report. But on this upgrade, I having a hard time reaching my maximum bandwidth. I have called Verizon twice to verify I am provisioned correctly and I have also ran the FiOS Optimizer under their favorite operating system Windows. I am still investigating if it is an issue on my end, and I will report my results.
UPDATE 9/12/09
Lightning Strike! Sounded like a bomb went off in my backyard. Took out all the FiOS equipment plus my router, two switches, and the ethernet port in two of my desktop PCs.
I called Verizon Friday night. They quickly concluded I would need service and scheduled a technician for Sunday morning. To my surprise the technician arrived about 7pm Saturday night. I was very pleased.
The technician said my FiOS equipment was five generations old and replaced all of it including the battery. It took him about an hour to complete the work. I replaced my old router with an Apple Time Capsule 1TB, and I replaced my old switches with Cisco 5-port 1GB switches.
I am now getting my full 25/15 speeds. I do not know what corrected the issue but it could be one of three things.
1) The ONT had never been reset since it was installed in 2005. Maybe if I had reset it, which I planned on trying, could have possibly corrected my speed issue.
2) My five generations old FiOS equipment was replaced with current equipment. Maybe my old FiOS equipment just couldn't handle those speeds.
3) My router was replaced with a much more current router. Maybe my old router couldn't handle those speeds.
It could be a combination of 2 and 3 as well. Either way, Verzion's service was outstanding. Not only am I back up and running quickly, but I am now getting my full speed.
Followup comments: 
MDuke
@verizon.net | Rate Increase! I simply cannot express how happy I am with my FiOS service. You may want to hold your applause for them. I just received notification of a rate increase to $62.99! 15/2mbps | |
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Info Junkie
@verizon.net
|  FIOS and Apple Extreme Base Station (AEBS)
FIOS is now installed at residences with an Actiontec router and if installed as per usual via a legacy coaxial wall connection (the old cable jack) then you must use the supplied router. All is not lost though as you can bridge another router to the ActionTec router via an ethernet cable going from the WAN port of the new router to the LAN port of the Actiontec. Below is a description of my setup and I hope it is helpful to anyone who might come across this thread:
Whatever you do - do not follow complicated and non-functioning instructions for turning your FIOS router into a bridge (they're all over the Internet, as are complaints... perhaps once valid, now they are outdated and don't work at all - don't touch your Verizon Actiontec router's settings). As I suspect many have done, I followed one set of instructions only to have wasted over 1.5 hours. You see the problem is that once you follow those instructions the "default" settings cannot just be re-initialized without problem (I wish someone else would have told me this - it was an assumption I had made, and it was wrong!). You end up having to contact Verizon for them to release and renew your DHCP lease for you. A huge pain in the butt. The reality is that in this snapshot in time all you need to do is literally plug your AEBS into one of the ActionTec LAN ports, configure your AEBS to work as though it is on a LAN and Bridged, and you're good to go after then just turning off the wireless signal on your Actiontec.
Other lessons learned are that
1) sometimes upon changing AEBS settings in the utility program (such as channel to use) the router disappears from view. All you need to do is push the pin-button for 1 second (no longer or you'll lose your settings) and it soft-reboots which then makes it appear. Someone else figured this out for me but I figured I'd post it here... seems that the manual soft boot does something important to bring the AEBS back online.
2) perhaps obvious, but for whatever reason I had a senior moment about it, you need to realize the WEP password you create for the AEBS is case-sensitive. I couldn't get one of my 2 PCs to connect, and spent an embarrassing amount of time virtually getting Cisco certified in network knowledge only to realize I hadn't considered case-sensitivity of the password.
3) Setting up a USB Printer to work with AEBS and my two PC's (using Bonjour) was a piece of cake. You don't need to do anything funky with the latest firmware edition of AEBS. Just install Bonjour on your PC's after setting up the AEBS, and then use the Bonjour printer wizard to identify and configure. Simple as that. | |
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mkremer
@verizon.net | Re: FIOS and Apple Extreme Base Station (AEBS) One question I can not find an answer for; how does one "turn off the wireless signal on" the Actiontec from the mac?
Thanks. | |
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rexbinary
Mod King
Premium
join:2005-01-26
Plano, TX | ActionTec Router Yes that is correct, my fiber comes straight to the house. There is no coax cable used. So I don't have one of the ActionTec routers. I just plugged my Apple Router in and it worked. | |
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Theherofalls312
@verizon.net
| Re: ActionTec Router I got verizon fios just a few days ago. I'm an avid online gamer and with Verizon Fios I can't play anything. My latency shoots up to 4k ms, and I got disconnected from the server before I can do anything.
Does anyone know if FioS has an internet amplifier? | |
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 Review by mrchris
Posted: 66 days ago
member for 7.1 years, 3294 visits, last login: 3 days ago
North Babylon,Suffolk,NY
Contract price not specified.
"Fast"
"Unknown at this point"
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Got it today (9/18/2009) and so far it's blazing!
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Review by Dooly00000
UPDATED: 67 days ago
member for 4.9 years, 31 visits, last login: 2 days ago
Flushing,Queens,NY
$54 per month (12 month contract)
about 2 days
"Friendly setup teams; FiOS"
"Wasn't price I expected; took a while to set up (definitely longer then any other service I known)"
"It's FAST, with waits worth it... but... definitely time-consuming (especially waiting) and pricy (as of yet)."
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This is/was FIRST DAY REVIEW, PLEASE AWARE!
Amend included
I MAY UPDATE FROM TIME TO TIME, BUT FOR NOW, THIS IS REVIEW I MIGHT STICK WITH. IF YOU WANT MORE SERIOUS REVIEW AROUND MY AREA, READ OTHER ONES OR WAIT FOR ME TO EDIT.
After couple month of "Verizon FiOS will be available on Flushing, NEW YORK!" banners and witnessing FiOS cable setup right front of my house, my wait time of approximately 3 months felt like three years. With constant failure of Earthlink + Time Warner cable mix (upload speed of 50KBPS WTH), I was ready to switch to even DSL if nothing were to happen...
Just the same day I was about to give up, I received the phone call; I think at this point, I am well aware of fact that I probably am one of first one who have FiOS in Flushing. YES!
So, after calling and told them "I'll consider about other packages and call you back", they actually constantly called me back until my answer was definitely "no". And that answer was even coerced out of me. I feel like I was forced to make this choice, even as I was well aware of the fact that my family will not need other two service; I only need INTERWEB... oh wait... (***/*****)
And then I have waited 2 days for setup; not bad, right?
Tiring time consuming wasn't there... setup part was.
Good warning to those who plan to have it: They WILL drill your wall, in case you're not aware yet. And this wasn't even my apartment. Surely, I talked to my landlord and got their permission, but that huge terminal setup (in fact, setup crew had to go around the backyard and go through the fence to set up against the wall, area that wasn't even jurisdiction of my landlord's) took a long time; I think that took least good 2 extra hours. After they brought the cable over and drilled the wall, they plugged in the terminal, and wired the router and gave me handydandy (notebook!) NO STEVE, THEY GAVE ME WIRELESS ROUTER! **gasp** this wasn't what I read! I thought everyone got wired!
Made my life easier; they even helped me set up most throughout my Laptop and my PC (though all they did was just told me what to do, but WEP part is IMPORTANT to Wireless as everyone knows)
Immediate connection test ran approximate ten times showed Up/Down average of 20/20mbps. Wait, I thought I ordered lower end. That's helluva faster then what I know.
So for all those following three, so far, I have given *****/*****
for value for money, as I said, for me, price wasn't what I expected. 54.99. It could be well as that because I have no other service with Verizon. But I do have cell and they said discount can be applied after I do some bill combining. So we'll see then. Until then, my FiOS bill is 54.99 + tax.
Surely faster then what I been having at Cablevision and TimeWarner+Earthlink. Definitely fast. But I just wish it was slightly cheaper... 49.99 will blow me, personally... but that much is my opinion. And I even got setup fee and router fee taken off my bill. Can't complain further.
Slightly bitter but I think FiOS deserves it; definitely cheaper then even Cablevision's 29.95 Optimum deal. (After all, speed what I have is... what, about 4x faster?)
Verizon, loose bit of bubble on market please... but definitely, I think I'm a content customer as of now.
AMEND 01: After couple time of net blinking, and when router completely failed to cycle, I decided to call Tech Support.
There, after couple of ongoing talks, we found out that maybe something was faulty in my house.
They called Techie, and about in hour, he showed up on my door.
After couple clashins, when we innitially thought ONT had problem, the problem was couple blocks away, where bad fiber was there, being repaired same minute.
He was then talking about how my neighbor, who recently also ordered his FiOS service and had problem, seen him outside and goes "Oh, so you guys repaired FiOS?"
Verizon is slow on updates, this goes to show, but at least they were doing something about it (and many were not afraid to admit...)
I'm happy with service, now that net does not blink anymore (while I'm using it, anyhow) and there's nomore redlight on ONT. But I'm still monitoring.
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 Review by Niarlan
Posted: 67 days ago
member for 7 years, 2348 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Manville,Somerset,NJ
Contract price not specified.
"Rock Solid and Fast"
"initial billing snafu's"
"Best for the bucs"
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Speed is as advertised and I've yet to have an outage in over a year of service.
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