Special Huntington Beach home gets Verizon FiOS
November 4th, 2009, 11:07 am · 10 Comments · posted by Tamara Chuang, a.k.a. The Gadgetress
Many people here in Orange County want Verizon FiOS TV and Internet service badly but can’t order the service in their neighborhood. However, if you happen to be building the first “green” house in Huntington Beach, consider Verizon at your service.
The new Living Green home, which is being unveiled today in Huntington Beach, managed to get the highly sought-after TV and fast Internet service.
Our Huntington Beach housing reporter (yes, we have a reporter who covers real estate just in HB!) wrote all about the home Tuesday at “Grand opening for 1st Surf City green home.”
Built by Living Green Homes Construction & Development, the 3-story home at 319 21st St. has a few other notable perks. It was built on guidelines from Build it Green, uses 40 percent less water and 65 percent less energy and saves the owner $700 a month (What? That’s one huge monthly bill!) Plus, it’s just a few blocks from the beach. The kick-off party is today at 1:30 p.m. The home will be open for public tours before it’s sold.
But any techie in their right mind will gloss over these greenish facts and hone in on the 100 percent fiber-optic FiOS service. FiOS is an alternative to cable TVand offers Internet speeds of up to 50 mbps downstream, 20 Mbps upstream, plus it has the most high-definition channels available in O.C. In addition, FiOS service includes on-screen widgets to check your Twitter messages and Facebook status and other geeky things like that.
The “green-ness” of FiOS? It “increases a homeowner’s ability to reduce their carbon footprint through telecommuting, video-conferencing and on-demand entertainment,” says the company.
Good enough for me!
Of course, I should note that this near downtown Huntington Beach neighborhood was one of the first to even get Verizon FiOS services. Verizon didn’t have to go much out of its way to offer it.
You’ll have to check out the Register’s Green OC blog to get full coverage of Orange County’s green building scene. Added 12:50 p.m. - Here’s the story: “State’s green building program easier than national system.”
Recent Green OC news:
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FIOS TV is killer and the Internet Scoots much faster than cable for the same price. If you can try the NFL Red Zone on FIOS it’s pretty cool.
[...] The Huntington Beach home, at 319 21st St., has been registered in the state program since May 2008. And it just registered for LEED for Homes certification, according to the U.S. Green Building Council. Because the building effort was monitored for the state program, it should also qualify to pursue the LEED certification. (On the tech side: This home is also getting Verizon FiOs TV and Internet.) [...]
I like my FiOS service. That being said, how is this service any more or less GREEN??
Well… we wouldn’t know, because the statement: “The “green-ness” of FiOS? It “increases a homeowner’s ability to reduce their carbon footprint through telecommuting, video-conferencing and on-demand entertainment,” says the company.”… WAS NEVER QUESTIONED.
How is that any different than ANY other internet service? By that reasoning, AOL dialup at 56k is green also!! By giving the reply “Good enough for me!”, you stopped being a reporter, and you turned into a printing machine for the company press releases.
King Smokey, I actually have that question pending with Verizon since yesterday and have not received an answer yet. When they get back to me, I’ll update the post. Thanks for your concern. (My assumption is that Verizon’s initial response is as green as FiOS gets but we’ll see if they have something further to say.)
Thanks Tammy. I worked for a “financial advisor” who claimed to have magazine articles written about him, but they were nothing more than press releases so I am very wary about companies touting themselves and their products.
Remember, I have had FiOS in HB since the day it was available, and I love it. But that doesn’t mean I’m gonna let Verizon blur the facts for their own gain.
The funny thing would be if the new owners of the green house decide they prefer cable TV.
They can keep their verizon FIOS. The newly built home next door to me on 8th st has it installed, and the technician doing the installing told me that all the wiring and switches are already installed on the poles in our alley, but everytime I call they tell me that it isn’t yet available in my neighborhood. When I tell them that my next door neighbor has it and that I witnessed a Verizon employee installing it, they tell me that I have the facts wrong, that no one on 8th street has FIOS. I guess if I had the money to buy a 1.5 million house like next door, they would make an exception for me as well.
Sorry to hear that. Downtown HB seems well covered by FiOS. The only exception seems to be apartments and condos — and that is supposed to be up to the owners to order FiOS. Doesn’t make sense though why one house has it, while a neighbor can’t. One possible explanation is that Verizon has really stopped expanding. Period. Unless you’re building a green house.
I lived in HB on Florida St in a 5 unit Apt bldg up until Aug of 2009. Two years ago my neighbor in the apt next door had FIOS installed. I tried to get it installed but they couldn’t figure out how to do it. I had the number of the FIOS box in the alley and everything. I received numbers mailers and emails telling me to Get FIOS! I wonder how companies like Verizon can stay in business some times.
I have FIOS and live on Huntington Street. About 6 blocks or so from Downtown Main Street.
You guys are not MISSING all that much. It is nice to have the ability to record a show in one room and view in another room. Aside from that picture quality is just OK. Slighty better than the crappy Time Warner.
Direct TV has far better picture quality. And after market DVR’s you can get with a BIG hard drive. If the fios DVR records in HD, you start to run out of room fast.
The faster internet costs a lot of $$$$.
Trust me you guys are not missing that much. ATT&T Universe has the same DVR functions now right? I would try that.
OOOH and I forgot to mention that you have an option to buy “cable maintence service” for a monthly fee. This leads me to believe that the cables go bad or something? And if they do, they will not fix them for free unless you have the maintence program. I already had the back-up battery die on me (6 months) and I had to buy another one that cost me $130.00. Otherwise I was hearing this annoying beeping sound every few hours around the clock. No way to shut the stupid alarm off.