Orange County Register

 10 Comments

• Bradley says:

  March 23, 2007 at 2:05 pm

  South o.c. is always last ?
  http://www.DigitalTechland.com
• Mark says:

  April 11, 2007 at 11:35 am

  Hey thanks for the update. I love competition between telecom and cable. This can only drive prices down and or increase services. In fact, I just installed FIOS. However….

  Verizon sucks, and let me count the ways.

  1. I ordered on line, double checking the small print. I called and double checked. On the phone, pre order, I was told yes, I could get the 20/5 package. 20 down, 5 up. In fact, in the small print, Verizon offers this package. Plus it was confirmed on the telephone. I live in Huntington Beach, CA

  But after the installation, and after hours on the phone with Verizon (we all hate the Verizon automated yes lady) and speaking with over 2 dozen representative, so sorry, no, Verizon does not offer this package.

  2. Even before Verizon installed my FIOS, there was problems. For example, on the day of installation, with me handcuffed to my house for the installation, the Verizon person came to my house and called for the installation. Unfortunately, I did not pick up in time. This person, Don (he wrote his name), then left a placard on my gate. Don did not knock on my door. Don did not leave a telephone number for me to call and Don wrote down the wrong date on the placard, which was a telephone placard, not a FIOS placard.

  3. Again, dealing with the Verizon automated Yes Lady, after an hour on the phone, finally I was informed that I could be reschedule in 2 weeks time.

  4. How about this one. Since I am not a current Verizon customer, they could not correct my bill or make any changes, or make any comments, or really do anything. “I’m not in the system yet.”

  5. After the headaches, fumbles, and misrepresentation of services offered, hours on the telephone, Verizon did say, hey, for your troubles, we will give you your first month free. But, I just recieved a notice that if I do not pay immediately, of course my service will be cut off, but this is where I really get pissed off. If I do not pay immediately, they will refer this debt to collections, which will in effect, hit my credit rating. It’s been 14 days since my installation. Verizon did not even send me a bill. Just this collections form letter.

  I could go on in detail with numerous other issues that I experienced. But here’s my take. Yes, compettion is good and Verizon has an opportunity to get market share and provide a service. But Verizon still has the telecom mentality. Furthermore, Verizon cannot execute on their promises, frustrates customers with 3rd world customer service, and from my experience, try to wreck you credit rating if you do fight or disagree with them.

  So at this point, don’t do it. I’m would hope someday, we Americans will get high speed broadband service like Japan, or South Korea, but today is not it. FIOS is great but Verizon sucks.
• Aaron says:

  April 25, 2007 at 10:57 pm

  I have never had any verizon service, and have no land-lines. I had Verizon Fios installed in Palm Desert. The crew was out within 4 days to run the fiber optic line from the street to the house. The crew was professional and knowledgeable, and the service worked immediately.

  The levels of service are pretty clear, and I subscibed to the 15Mb/5Mb plan - and my speed tests to my data center (I am in IT) in LA show that I am getting exactly the advertised speeds.

  I have never had any slowdowns or outages, and I have never had any billing problems.

  About 2 month after the install, I notice some of my lawn sprinkler heads had stopped working, and after a little investigation I found that the install guys’s automatic line puller had nicked the pipes. I called Verizon, and the next day the had a repairmen come and repairing the piping.

  I have never had a better experience with any cable or internet provider, and can’t wait until the FIOS TV is offered here.
• Steve says:

  May 15, 2007 at 10:57 am

  I have had Verizon FIOS for 5 weeks. I’m in Huntington Beach and previously had Time Warner. The winner of the Internet connection, hands down, is Verizon. For the same price, I’m getting 5 times the speed (went from about 3 mbs from Time Warner to 15 mbs with Verizon). The speed of the Internet is exactly as advertized.

  Telephone (land line) has stayed the same. I previously had Verizon and still have it. No difference here except that my old telephone box on the back of the house has been replaced by the new (slightly larger) box. I’m happy with this because it looks better than the old one. Also, the old telephone line really swung low over my back yard and the installer was able to tighten the new line for me.

  The rest of my comments will revolve around Verizon FIOS TV. I’m still not 100% sure which is better, but my gut feel right now is Time Warner Digital Cable is better than Verizon FIOS TV. I’ve reached this conclusion based on the notes down below. HOWEVER, I am sticking with Verizon FIOS TV because in a few months Verizon will be releasing a new Interactive Programming Guide (the guide) which is supposed to be totally tubular. I’ve seen a couple of demos of it (on the Internet from the Consumer Electronis Show) and the new guide looks good enough to wait for. If the new guide does not meet my expectations, I will return to Time Warner for TV and remain with Verizon for Internet and phone.

  Now, here are my notes on Verizon FIOS TV. You can use them to help determine if you get the TV service.

  You need to get a cable box with each TV you use. Verizon’s channels are very high. With Time Warner, the Discovery Channel (for example) was channel 30. With Verizon, it is channel 150 or something like that. Therefore, if you have a cable-ready TV, with Time Warner you don’t need a box because your TV can already tune to channel 30. However, your TV cannot tune to channel 150+ and therefore with Verizon you need to spend at least $3.99 for each TV you have.

  Video On Demand pales in comparison to Time Warner. Versizon’s VOD (although boasting they have 7k or more videos) is impossible to view or search through. The interface is completely NOT user-friendly. One example is the following: Let’s say you’re scrolling down the list of movies under “Comedy”. Well, you’re down to the “S” movies and you press “OK” to see a small detail about the movie. When you’re done and go back to the list of movies, it starts you back at the top a the “A” movies. This is very frustrating because there is no way to page down the list–you have to scroll one-by-one. Other problems include viewing a preview of the movie puts a menu screen across the lower 1/2 of the screen that won’t go away (so you can’t even see the preview); and the latest movies are not even in the video on demand. There have been commercials for that movie “Borat” being on VOD, but yet Verizon still doesn’t have it.

  Fast forwarding is a huge problem with Verizon’s DVR. With Time Warner, you could fast forward in different speeds (let’s call them FF1, FF2, FF3). Time Warner’s was just what it should be: FF1 goes slower than FF3 and when you can use FF3 to get to the end of a show quickly. Well, with Verizon it is not that simple. IF you use FF3, be ready for a surprize. If you’re 28 minutes into an 1 hour show, you have just all of a sudden reached the end of the show! So, really the only fast forward you can use is FF1 or maybe FF2 if you are feeling risky. Then, to make the problem worse, you have no way of rewinding at this point. You have to start from the beginning of the show and slowly fast forward to the end. This is very frustrating when you are fast forwarding at the end of the show to see “what is coming up next week”.

  Remote control delay. The remote control sometimes freezes (OK, so it may be the box or the router…but we’ll just call it the remote control for now). For example, you can try to fast forward or use the volume. Most of the time it works, but intermittently it will freeze–but yet remember every single thing you press and then replay them quickly when it un-freezes. So, you can press FF and see nothing happen. Then, you press FF again thinking you just didn’t have it pointed at the box the first time–again, nothing happens. A third FF is pressed. Now, all of a sudden, the thing unfreezes and you have just now fast forwarded to the end of the show! (see previous note for how frustrating this is).

  Now, for something good. Verizon FIOS has the absolute best picture you will ever see (besized an HD DVD or something). Time Warner cannot touch the picture quality of Verizon FIOS. Also, the changing of the channels is very fast.

  DVR. I’m sorry to say, but Verizons current DVR is very bad. It does not know the difference between new and repeat shows. Also, there are multiple ways to get to the DVR screen and depending on how you get there, the thing functions differently. For example, if you go to a show through the guide, you get different series recording options than if you reached the show from a search. The DVR seems very immature compared to Time Warner’s. However, the DVR can hold more than Time Warner’s. But, this doesn’t matter because since it doesn’t know the difference between new and repeat shows (some of the time), you need that extra space to store all the repeats.

  Search. With Time Warner, you had this excellent search capability with the guide. You could search for Sports then just Soccer. But, with Verizon, you can only search for Sports. Then, all sports from any channel (even channels you don’t subscribe to) are returned. So, this is basically useless. There is no use to search by category with Verizon TV.

  Speaking of Categories. The salesman that came to my door totally lied to me about these categories and how you can search by them. I initially told the salesman that I would not get the Verizon TV service because there was no where I could try it out first. (Time Warner has stores where you can go in and try it out first). So, then he started his pitch and I gave it a little because I wanted to bring down the Time Warner monopoly. Anyway, getting to the categories: He showed me a channel listing that was grouped by category. News channels (CNN, MSNBC, CSPAN, etc.) were all grouped together: Channel 80, 81, 82, etc. He then said you can go into the guide and just flip to categories. Envision this: You just go to the guide and if you want to watch news, just go to the news category. Same for music, information (discovery channel, the learning channel, etc.). I was sold based on this. However, when I get the box installed, the categories in the box (just sports, movies, comedy, and music) do not match up with the great categories on the channel list he showed me. This is false advertizing and I am still upset about this. I hope the new guide lives up to this or else I will cancel the TV.

  The remote for the Verizon TV (besides the occasional freeze) works great. It lights up the fast forward, play, etc. buttons. I wish it lit up the number buttons though…it seems those would be needed more than fast-forward.

  The guide. There is no “page up” or “page down” on the remote for the guide. If you are on channel 2 and want to get to channel 100, you have to scroll one-by-one. Now, you might say “why not just punch in 100 to go to that channel?” Well, sometimes you want to see what is on all the channels along the way. With Time Warner you could page the guide and get there quickly while seeing all the channels.

  The guide also mostly displays a little picture of live TV in the corner while you’re using it. However, on the search screen and a couple of others it disappears. This is frustrating. Time Warner always showed the TV in the corner.

  Well, I’m running out of time and there are more comments I have. But, let’s just end with this:

  Get the Internet for sure (you’re crazy if you don’t). I would wait a couple of months until the new Verizon guide comes out before going with the TV. New Jersey already has the new guide and “the rest of the country” is supposed to have it by the middle of the year–says Verizon.
• Steve says:

  May 18, 2007 at 6:36 pm

  I just received my Edison electric bill after having FIOS for a month. My electric bill went from a normal $50 to $90!

  Now, can you believe that? That adds $40 to my Internet/TV/Phone service. The reason I first switch from Time Warner to Verizon was because it was cheaper. Now that I see what it has done to my electric bill, I’m immediately going to switch back.

  I’m in Huntington Beach and my original comments I posted here before no longer stand. I am cancelling my Internet and TV and going back to good ol’ Time Warner.
• Gadgetress says:

  May 18, 2007 at 7:00 pm

  Steve- Maybe you’re just watching a lot more TV? I certainly did after I got HD service. Interesting about the electric bill. I’ll see what Verizon has to say about it… — Gadgetress
• Steve says:

  May 21, 2007 at 11:27 am

  Just talked to Verizon and Edison. My bill did in fact go up, but it looks like it is just a coincidence regarding FIOS. There is something else that has increased my bill and not FIOS. In fact, Verizon says the ONT box (that goes on the side of your house) uses less electricity than a laptop would use. So, yes it is more electricity, but not enough to double a person’s bill. Looks like I jumped the gun on this one.

  So, I’m still sticking with FIOS until the new guide comes out. After that, I’ll have to compare it with Time Warner and make the final decision.

  By the way, when I talked to Verizon today, they said the new guide should be out in about 3 months. However, last week when I talked to them (about another matter) they said the guide could take up to a year to be ready. I’ll wait 3 months but I don’t think I can wait a year.
• JonW says:

  June 10, 2007 at 10:14 am

  It would be nice if Verizon could follow through on their installation. We had our sidewalks dug up almost 2 years ago. All houses have little VZ medallions on the sidewalk designating where the fiber is. However, nobody on my street can order FIOS as their “system” said it is not available in our area. Calls to customer service are fruitless.