My FIOS installation last July was very similar. The only real
issue was with the set top boxes. The salesman had signed us
up for an HD converter, telling us that it would work with our SD
set and we would avoid the hassle of upgrading in case we ever
did get an HD set, but the installer said that the HD converter
wouldn't work and he could only set us up with an SD box, which
he fortunately had in his truck. Either the salesman was ignorant
(he didn't seem to be) or else he was padding his sales to increase
his commission. I hope that Verizon actually checks for this kind
of behavior when computing commisions.
We also got a plain digital converter, which is basically a small set
top box without the online guide and interactive features. This
was for the TV tuner card on one of our desktop computers, where
the internet can substitute for the online guide. (I also get the
unencrypted channels on my laptop using an Elgato Eye 250+).
The installer was flummoxed that his "internet installer" program
would not work on our Mac and had to phone in to find out where
to get the Mac version, which I didn't use anyway. I did most of
the stuff it would have done (set up my initial email account and
configured it in my email programs) manually, in order to avoid
having it do anything I would not have wanted it to do.
As for channel lineups, in our area Verizon had a huge channel
realignment (no significant changes in the offerings, just the
channel numbering) on September 10. For several weeks before
this, there was a notification in the "now showing box" that appears
briefly when you change the channel and in the online channel
guide, telling us about the change and where the channel would
be moved. Comcast would absolutely never do anything like this.
Instead, my experience was that every month or so Comcast
would change several channels without notice and I would have
to search through the channel lineup to see where it went. I
would find anything new completely by accident.
Overall, I am quite happy with the service three months in. I
would have preferred a better router, but this one works well
enough once I adjusted its settings to work better with my
dotmac/mobileme account. My wife was unhappy at first that
Verizon didn't have the local access channels that Comcast
carries, but Verizon has since added them.
Keep me informed. I'm pleased that you were able to get through
but I'm very concerned that it wasn't easier.
I am particularly interested in knowing how smoothly the installation
goes and what your opinion of the product is.
Following up on this from a couple weeks ago at Eric's request.
The FIOS install went very smoothly. Long, 6 hours (!), but that
involved
the following:
-Pulling a line from the street.
-Installing the ONT (Optical Network Interface) on the house.
-Drilling through the outside wall to run the coax from the ONT (a bit
nervous there, but the installer was very neat and sealed the hole
afterwards).
-Attaching to the inside phone wiring.
-Installing the inside terminal w/ the battery backup.
-Running new coax inside the house for TV (2 sets).
-Needed to run back to the distribution node, a street over, to get
the
phone working
-Installed the router, which is wireless with a 4-port wired
internal hub.
The installer was cool with me going into the router interface and
turning
off the wireless, since I already have a wireless network. NOTE: The
default setting is for WEP (Weally Extra Pathetic) encryption, and
you have
to hunt around, but you can enable WPA2. There is also a built-in
firewall,
so if you don't have one already (I already have a hardware
firewall), this
could be used, but it's off by default.
-It took a while to get my main PC to come up on the router. I
forgot that
I had given it a static IP a while back while troubleshooting an
intermittent connection.
-Confirmed that the all 3 services were working and programmed the TV
remotes.
-Gave a quick primer on the DVR component. I will say that I love
having
this. I never had a Tivo before, but I suspect that I'll keep this
after
the freebie year is up. It's an 80 hour model made by Motorola.
As far as the FIOS service goes, it is excellent, far and away
better than
Comcast, by miles. The TV guide interface makes the Comcast
interface look
like DOS. Verizon's is colorful and easy to read, responsive and
works much
better. I used pay-per-view on Comcast a couple times and it was
awful.
Terrible, grainy video quality and the unit would reply to button
presses
(pause, play, FF) a few seconds after the button was pressed. That
can get
old quickly. The FIOS DVR is almost DVD player quick. The TV picture
(standard definition) and vastly better than Comcast's with none of
the
annoying pixilation and drop outs we would get regularly.
Phone service is clear and it's nice to have caller ID after not
having it
for years. Internet service is quick; I got the 10 Mb down/2 Mb up
service,
but can upgrade all the way up to 20/10 (for $150/month...no
thanks). I
did, however, have a significant DNS lag when surfing at first.
That may
have had more to do with my internal network setup, since after
futzing with
IPs and subnets for about an hour one night, the lag went away.
The only downside is having to memorize the new channel numbers.
That'll
take a couple more weeks. But, unlike Comcast, the channels are
grouped by
genre mostly, with a few exceptions, and that makes it easier to
avoid the
chick channels (all 10 of them!). ;-) Notable additions are
Boomerang,
which my kids love, and American Life, which shows all the stuff
from the
60's and 70's that TVLand doesn't (which is just about everything
except
Andy Griffith and Lucy). Am Life shows The Green Hornet, which I
don't
think I've seen since it was on originally. Oh yeah, plus the Speed
channel, the NFL channel and Fox Soccer.
Oh, and I'm saving about $80/month over how everything was
previously (that
will go down a bit after a year...sigh...) Sayonara, Comcast (and
AT&T long
distance)! We won't miss you!
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