Anybody experience Verizon FIOS yet?

geepondy

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I am really hoping the TV offering will be more competitive then my local Comcast cable where I pay $45 for the basics. Anybody experience it yet? Are the TV signals really clear?
 

peachfuzz163

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Sep 10, 2005
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I have had FIOS (in the Dallas area) for about a month. I have both internet and TV. I have three complaints (two generic, one specific to my installation).

1. The "cable" boxes have a display which can not be turned off. This means that there is a beacon of illumination for your bedroom, if you have a box in the bedroom. The only cure for this is the old electric tape over the display trick.
2. The PVR (which is HDTV compatible) has too small a hard drive (160GB). One hour of HD programming uses about 8% of the total available space. Long term save is not really a possiblilty. It is diffidult for us to keep the disk less than 50% full.
3. My particular PVR has a tendancy to pixillate some channels and it requires a hard reboot (unplug, wait, plug in) to correct the problem.

The AVS forum has several forums dedicated to FIOS. Here is a link to the programming forum. There is also a forum on hardware and installation.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=590208

I can't comment on price yet, because I have not seen a bill.
 

havand

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peachfuzz163 said:
3. My particular PVR has a tendancy to pixillate some channels and it requires a hard reboot (unplug, wait, plug in) to correct the problem.

Are you sure this isn't your actual service? I've noticed over the past few years as the cable company adds more and more channels/features that the picture quality has gone to absolute crap. If you have a crystal clear antenna broadcast from a network station, it blows cable away. Drives me crazy. Fast motion anymore, i can see the huge blocks and the blurring. I'll stop there with the cable complaints. As far as FIOS goes, a friend of mine just got their internet and seems pretty happy with it. Very fast they said.
 

cyberhobo

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Highlands
Not yet. Verizon wants in, but have not greased the county commissioner's palms yet. Still a lot of red tape for Verizon in this area.
 

h_nu

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Virginia
FIOS stops two blocks from my house but is promised to be extended soon. My father has FIOS internet but the TV isn't available yet. FIOS internet is much faster than my cable modem.

havand is right on with the picture quality. I can't get broadcast signals but when I lived closer, they were much better than cable.
 

mccavazos

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Oct 28, 2004
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Irving, Texas
We have had FIOS at my parents house since June (in the Dallas Area, Irving Specifically), both Internet and TV. I really like it a lot. The Internet is very fast, and the picture quality on the TV is fantastic. That being said I have three complaints.

1. was already mentioned, the boxes have an ever-glowing display that is annoying to say the least.
2. On demand is a little buggy at times, like it doesn't want to connect. You can usually go back and try again and it works, but it is still annoying.
3. Even though most channels have an excellent picture, some dark ones look pixelated. It was much worse with Comcast, and its only on the local and basic channels, but it can be irritating.

The Internet has worked flawlessly since we got it (Knock on Wood), and the universal remote that comes with the cable box works very well, in had a code for all of the devices that we have. We don't have an HD box or TV yet, so I can't say anything about that or the PVR. But from my experience I would say that its definitely worth getting.
 

JasonC8301

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Nov 13, 2001
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NYC
I have Verizon FiOs in NYC. I have given up on cable modem, my speed on that was only 2X the speed of dialup (seriously 116 kbps download, and 450 kbps upload) and that was $55 a month!

With Verizon FiOs, I am at 20mbps download and 4.5 mbps upload. A WORLD OF DIFFERENCE! Also at $39.95 a month!

I am one freaking satisfied customer. I now know it is not me thats is slow on download but the server thats limiting me.

EDIT: I have had FiOs for about 2 months+ nowand can say it has only gone down twice for less than 10 seconds. I was going down everyday with the cable modem. I highly recommend AGAINST Time Warner cable (also share the cable with Road Runner, Earthlink, and whatever else they can cram onto the net) in NYC, horrible service.
 
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Mike Painter

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geepondy said:
I am really hoping the TV offering will be more competitive then my local Comcast cable where I pay $45 for the basics. Anybody experience it yet? Are the TV signals really clear?

Dish or directTV. Better picture, usually a free DVR (What's a commercial?) and $45.00 will get you a *lot* of TV plus a ton of music only channels.
 

peachfuzz163

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havand said:
Are you sure this isn't your actual service? I've noticed over the past few years as the cable company adds more and more channels/features that the picture quality has gone to absolute crap. If you have a crystal clear antenna broadcast from a network station, it blows cable away. Drives me crazy. Fast motion anymore, i can see the huge blocks and the blurring. I'll stop there with the cable complaints. As far as FIOS goes, a friend of mine just got their internet and seems pretty happy with it. Very fast they said.

No, it is the specific box. The second box (simultaneously) has a good picture on the same channel. It is definitely the box. Channel 120 (QVC) will be completely scrambled on the PVR, other box it is just fine. Unplug the PVR, wait, plug in, and channel 120 is fine... unfortunately it is still QVC, but that is a different problem :)
 
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