How many homes in O.C. can order FiOS?
May 6th, 2009, 9:24 am · 12 Comments · posted by Tamara Chuang, a.k.a. The Gadgetress
After two years of digging up streets to lay fiber-optic cables, Verizon FiOS TV is now available to 85,000 homes in Orange County, according to Jon Davies, a spokesman for much sought-after TV service.
That’s up 35 percent from two years ago, when FiOS TV first entered the county and offered service to 63,100 homes.
Now if we take the number of housing units in Orange County –1,023,194 in 2007, according to the U.S. Census — that means the county is about 8.5 percent FiOS TV-ready.
This is a hopeful, yet disappointing number based on the fact that last week, Verizon said 1 million homes in California were now FiOS TV-friendly. The majority of those were supposed to be in Orange County and Los Angeles. But with a scant 85,000 in O.C., I’m left to assume that L.A. nabbed the bulk of the FiOS installations.
Davies also offered an updated list of O.C. cities that have some FiOS TV service (without actual numbers since he can no longer disclose them), which I’ve compared to the original figures from 2007:
| 2007 | 2009 |
|---|---|
| Fountain Valley: 300 homes | Brea |
| Huntington Beach: 40,000 | Cypress |
| Westminster: 12,500 | Fountain Valley |
| Garden Grove: 5,300 | Garden Grove |
| Stanton: 1,500 | Huntington Beach |
| Unincorporated: 3,500 | La Habra |
| La Palma | |
| Total = 63,100 | Los Alamitos |
| Seal Beach, 5,000 | |
| Stanton | |
| Westminster |
(Note: Verizon began rolling out service in Seal Beach earlier this year. And according to one of my previous posts on FiOS TV expansion here, Verizon is still targeting Dana Point, Laguna Beach and Laguna Niguel.)
Thank you to all who have e-mailed me about FiOS or U-verse service in their neighborhood. I’m using the information to create something better than this previous map showing where these alternative TV services exist in O.C.
More FiOS TV news:
Check out the Gadgetress Guide to local TV services
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Riverside County (Murrieta to be exact) got a load of the FIOS installs too.
We had FIOS installed in La Verne, and we regret not staying with DirecTV. it’s not worth switching
Whoa! A negative review. Tell us more since everyone is so gaga over FiOS.
After dealing with Verizon for over a year I have come to the conclusion that their service is horrible, the speeds they list are inaccurate, their service techs are uneducated, and the cost per kps is almost triple the cost of cable.
I would advise anyone NOT to switch to Verizon, It took over 2 minutes for this page to load entirely and I’m sure it will take another 5 to post. This is horrible that I’m reduced to posting this all over the internet but as long as my contract is locked in and my internet service lags I’ll keep posting. My service is from zip 10512 & 10594
Hey DeeDee,
I live in the IE Ontario, and had FIOS installed and they had to come back SIX times before they fixed the problem. What a mess, I regret not staying with Direct TV.
I’m in HB townehome and have fios installed to one end our our six unit building … Verizon has been unable to work with the association to actually get the cable to my end of the buidling … what a fiasco… subcontractors blame verizon, verizon blames association, association unwilling to let them do ugly exterior install. Had wanted it at one time, but have seen some ongoing install problems and functional issues after install. Will likely remain with very reliable DSL and broadcast HD channels into the foreseeable future! Cheaper too!
Verizon is the phone service provider in Rancho Cucamonga. They will not even deliver DSL to many areas of our city let alone FIOS. We would be happy if Verizon would just upgrade their network to deliver DSL to our area. FIOS is just their current buzz word because they only offer the service to a very small percentage of their actual customer base. I don’t believe that I will ever see FIOS offered in our area in my lifetime. The FIOS product has limited channel offerings compared to Directv. As a sports fan I will keep my Directv. Go Ducks!
We got FIOS tv for 2 months now in Westminster. Picture quality is awesome on HD. Multiroom dvr is a must. As far as internet goes, we had 20mbps for over 2 years now and it’s probably up 99.999% of the time. The speed is overkill but downloading music is fast. No complaints here so far. Glad I’m not using time warner.
Regarding Brea, the Gadgetress can check with the Verizon p.r. hack and verify that Fios (when it does arrive) will only be available to that portion of Brea currently served by Verizon with wireline telephone service. This is not to say that you have to have wireline service to order Fios when it becomes available.
The area of Brea served by Verizon and the former GTE is basically north and west of the intersection of Central and Puente to the La Habra border. Basically, that neighborhood is served by the Verizon central office in La Habra, and has a 562 area code, unlike the vast majority of Brea which is in 714.
The rest of Brea is served by AT&T California, dba Pacific Bell Telephone Company and as of now, only a very small portion of Brea (Olinda Ranch) is able to receive U-Verse.
Some who may read the Gadgetress may be under the impression that potentially all of Brea will have Fios but that is not the case, unless Verizon elects to expand its service footprint into AT&T’s service territory.
The same is true for Stanton as that city is split between Verizon and AT&T.
Thanks A.V. … Yes, Verizon is first targeting areas where it currently offers regular telephone service. If you’re in AT&T territory, don’t expect FiOS to come knocking on your door any time soon. Brea isn’t the only city with Verizon and AT&T phone service, as A.V. pointed out. Laguna Niguel appears to be another.
In most of California, it seems that FiOS is the broadcast equivalent of vaporware. It gets hyped to no end, yet only a fraction of residents even have the option. And it were available widely, I have a feeling that the actual service will reveal a lot more flaws in the actual service delivery and programming than the tech press (which tends to fawn all over the latest and greatest, and paper over the real world drawbacks) leads on.
I’ve seen FiOS, it looks very good, but not all channels available in HD are offered in HD through FiOS (every other cable and satellite service also has HD channels missing from its programming grid). And if you’re a Directv or Dish subscriber who has the sports package for out-of-town regional sports networks (RSNs), you’re out of luck with FiOS. And we’re not even on the subject of NFL Sunday Ticket, which remains a Directv exclusive.
FiOS seems like a fine service, but it’s not the be-all end-all that a lot of the techies have portrayed it as. It has advantages and disadvantages, strengths and weaknesses like any other service, and consumers will weigh those factors for themselves, regardless of the hype. And history has shown that the best technology does not always win out in the market.
After reading reviews and looking that actual users ranked FiOS number 1 in service quality and customer service, I decided to give it a shot. Thus far, just as advertised, the best in HD, pricing, and overall value. True, they dont have NFL Sunday Ticket, thats a Directv exclusive and besides I dont watch that much football. For the ones that are having problems, i guess it happens with even the best. By far picture quality and internet speed, smoke the competition. Although DTV is close in video, Fios in my opinion has the edge.