Verizon FiOS - switching from cable to fiber optic as my ISP
But over the past two months, Verizon has been installing Fiber Optic on all the telephone poles in town. I had called 6 weeks ago, but was told that it wasn't quite available yet, and they were supposed to call me when it was... So a week ago, I emailed the rep, made the arrangements and was set up for an appointment next Tuesday for installation of FiOS service into my home. Now I have buried service into my house from the pole, so I was concerned about a big wire being drooped across my property, and that would have been a deal breaker. The rep insisted that it wouldn't be a problem. Well, THIS Tuesday, Verizon showed up to do a "pre install check" and actually wound up pre-installing the line from the pole into my basement via the underground conduit. Then yesterday, they showed up because "there was a problem with the light to the central office", but they didn't need access to the house, just the pole. Now it's waiting time. So why am I so anxious to get away from Charter Pipeline? When I returned from our trip 2 years ago, I didn't want cable TV, just internet access. There is no DSL available to me, we're way too far from the telephone company office. So they started me back up at $29.99 a month. But the speed of the connection had changed since I was gone. Instead of 1500/786 (download/upload, in kbits) the new speed was 2000/256. At the time, I was uploading lots of pics as people sent them to me, and the uploads were horrendously sloooooooow. A year or so later they raised the price to $39.99 (and raised the download speed to 3000. Uploads still 256. A month or two later THEY ADDED A $10 SURCHARGE for internet-only subscribers, to make my price for internet access essentially $50 a month. Internet access is not like cable TV; all I'm paying for is analgous to a dial tone. It's just "access". Cable TV, they have to pay for programming of all sorts, and fees and tarriffs and the whole 9 yards, so $50 for basic tv, while not a bargain would be an almost reasonable amount. But $50 for the internet dial tone? They have me over a barrel. I can't get any other reasonably fast service... I'd go with 1500 dsl, but I can't get it. My cell phone can offer 700 service, but it's $60 and I can't network the two computers to it (I used this service while on the road, it was only 144 then, and only in really major cities and it was $100 at first (it dropped to $80 during the trip). I have really no choice in the matter, and I feel they're taking advantage of the situation. Then I got a sales phone call from Charter: Try our new 5000/512 service for only $29.95 for 6 months. OK, I said... SIGN ME UP! Well, no change in speed. So I called -- seems that they don't even offer the 5Mbit service in my area yet... some sort of corporate confusion. Sorry, no discounts available. I hung up the phone a little ticked... then my upload speed magically changed to 512. Yay! Uploads now take 1/2 the time! A few months later, my bill went to $55. Are you kidding me? So I called them.... seems that I was still on the 5000/512 plan, even though I was being billed $50 (figure THAT one out), and that the promotional period had ended and the account was in a screwey state, and they'll take care of it, don't worry about the $5. My upload speed promptly dropped back to 256. So when I saw Verizon outside my home a couple of months ago, I called Charter. Told them that Verizon was offering FiOS for only $39.95 and $49.95, and I asked them if Charter was prepared to compete with FiOS. He asked me "what speed are the offering?" "Well," I said. "It's $39.95 for 5 megabit (5000) download and 2 megabit upload." "Wow," he said. "That's pretty fast upload." I said: "Yup. and for $49.95, it's fifteen megabit down and 2 megabit up." "What speed???" "15" "Fifteeen? One-five?" "Yes, fifteen." He and I chuckled and I added: "You can get 30 megabit down and 5 megabit up, but the price jumps to $199 a month." "Holy smokes!" We chuckled a bit (hah! "A bit"! I kill me!) And I repeated my question: "Will Pipeline be competing?" "Well," he said. "We can't compete on speed right now, in your area you have the maximum. But I'll offer you a promotional rate of $29.99 a month till the end of the year" "No contract, no catches, no termination fee, no surcharge?" "Right." "OK" So for the last 2 months, and until I'm sure that the FiOS service is up to snuff and stable, I've been paying $29.95 for the same internet access for which they had been charging me $50. Here's a kicker: If I give FiOS a one year guarantee, they drop the price by $5 a month ($99 prorated early termination fee and return of modem applies for first year.) So I splurge to go from 5mbit to 15mbit download speed, and it will cost me $44.95 per month. The funny thing is, after 2 years without "cable" now we want TV service... the Verizon FiOS installer told us that they will be offering TV service beginning by the end of the year. We'll see who is cheaper and or has better service -- Charter or FiOS (or satellite dish). Competition! Yay! I haven't been down to my basement to see the FiOS cable for myself yet; I've seen a typical installation with pics once on the 'net, so I have an idea of what I think they'll be installing on Tuesday (if it's not already down there!). I'll be sure to take pics and post a further review about my switch from Cable to Fiber Optic. |
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| Ron -
Has Charter offered you VoIP service? (Voice over Internet Protocol) for your telephone service? Is Verizon your landline phone provider as well as your cell phone? |
Well, they've offerred, but their cable service has been so poor, I wouldn't spend that kind of money on VoIP carried over their cable... and remember, this is personal now  .
I use the SunRocket VoIP for about $16.50 a month and have another old-copper style unlimited service from IDT. We have cell phones from Verizon Wireless. ...and no TV. We keep the IDT as a necessity -- Joan is on the phone all the time, and we have the SunRocket just because. Maybe I'll drop it.  |
Sorry...didn't mean to offend or be nosy...just was curious about who the players are in your area and what services are offered by each. I should've phrased the question as such and not asked about your personal usage. My apologies.  |
| No no no.... I wasn't offended that the question was personal, I was saying my love/hate relationship with Charter was "personal" rather than "business", as in, I've now got a problem with them. |
| You lucky dog! 15 megabits!
I'm lucky to be sharing our DSL line with our nieghbor with a wireless router and are paying $35! |
| I hope that the Verizon down here starts offering fiber optic. We have Comcast Cable as internet provider and we have to have cable TV too in order to have internet. I would love to pull the plug on cable and strictly go to DSL but the phone lines in our area are so old that the DSL service isn't too swell.
~Verve |
| Ok, time for the first update:
Installation took a lot longer than expected... partly the houses' fault, but mostly Verizon's fault. First the signal from the street wasn't making it into the basement...So the tech had to go back to the garage to get a cherry picker and check the lines down the street and near my house, then he had to return the cherry picker, then the software caused an issue, then a cable he wired had a bad connector... so 9 hours later, the install is completed. So I haven't had time to take pictures of the install yet, but here are the results! 
More updates to follow. |
| Very cool... I love high speed net... now you're tempting me to go for ultra highspeed...lol.... I've got a little more than a third what you have, and I thought that was pretty good. We have on occasion had it going at 10 or 12, but then it tends to bump me off if I'm downloading a lot at that speed. |
| That is cool! You're so cutting edge, Ron!! |
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