Bring on the fiber baybee! Verizon goes a diggin'
Tuesday, October 3, 2006 by terpfan1980 | Discussion: Internet
Verizon is out and abouts in my neighborhood lately, or at least their contractors are in the area doing a lot of work (and a little damage to our water main, but that's a different story) to apparently get their fiber cables run to get FiOS run to my neighborhood.
All I can say is bring it on bee-tches. Please bring it on. Bring on the fiber like a geezer taking a double dose of metamucil.
Not that Comcast has been bad by me, but I'm tired of over paying them to get hi-speed and reliable internet. Before I had my Xbox systems, I never really needed hi-speed internet, but I've always needed reliable internet access (to keep in touch with work as necessary, so that my children could do research for school, and so that I could play online games like Diablo 2, Star Wars Galaxies, World of Warcraft, etc.).
Before Comcast wired up my neighborhood some years back (actually about 4 years ago now), I was at the mercy of Verizon (then possibly called Bell Atlantic) for some of the worlds crappiest phone service. It was beyond horrible, but that could have been in large part because of 50 and possibly even 60 year old copper lines that had long since outlived their useful lifespan. The copper in my area is old, brittle, subject to interference and damage because of rain and other weather events, and just about completely useless. Unfortunately it costs money to replace the stuff and as long as it carried voice "ok" Verizon wasn't gonna do it. They didn't want to spend the money on it, and I really don't blame them since they knew that fiber was eventually coming.
Flash forward 4 years and Verizon is finally running fiber every where (or at least throughout most of the state of Maryland, and many other Atlantic area states). Within the next 6 months (if all goes well), FiOS will be an option for me. I am very much looking forward to being able to call Comcast with more than an idle threat to take my hi-speed internet business elsewhere. I don't need Comcast's TV service and yet I'm forced to pay for it at a minimal level just to pay the same price for their hi-speed internet service that I would pay for it without being a cable TV customer. Why have I had to pay $15.00 extra to Comcast for every month for 4 years? Because that is the way it works and I didn't have a choice.
Well, uh, Comcast, I have some news for you guys and gals. I will have choice soon, and I will likely be choosing Verizon. Given their promised pricing, promised internet speeds, and the chance to go with one provider for both phone and internet (rather than using Vonage paired up with Comcast as I currently do), I'll probably at least sample Verizon's offerings, if not jump entirely and never look back.
Comcast could have offered other package levels all along but didn't. They could have given me discounts and not required TV service, but didn't. They could have offered additional TV channels (such as their regular basic service) to encourage me to use their service on some of the TVs in my house and they didn't. They'd offer very short period of time specials, or tell me I could get a great deal if I gave 'em my satellite dish (as if!) and then jack up their prices through the roof after their specials expired. No thanks.
I hope to soon be sayin' nice knowin' you Comcast. We'll see if that happens, as I suppose they could offer some nice discounts to keep me around, but if they aren't offering long term price reductions, I'm not sure I'm interested.
Reply #2 Tuesday, October 3, 2006 1:28 AM
Reply #3 Tuesday, October 3, 2006 7:23 AM
You may not have a beef with Comcast, But I am really tired of them. Looking forward to getting this to your south! I got Comcast now for all 3 services, and other than On Demand, I would have dumped them long ago (My wife and son love that feature). Over priced and low quality are enough of a beef for me to dump it.
FiOS here I come!
Reply #4 Thursday, October 5, 2006 10:51 PM
Reply #5 Friday, October 6, 2006 1:06 PM
I think the part I'm most impressed with thus (besides the price which is SIGNIFICANTLY less expensive than my previous services) is room they've left in their equipment for upgrades. The network interface box outside the house connects to the modem at 100mb. however, it is equipped with a gigabit switch and as soon as they start pumping more bandwidth (which is in the near future) they will enable the 1000mb connection. On the TV side, they will soon be offering the free VOD with your subscriptions in HD. Right now it's just SD but that will soon change. And for anyone who has had Tivo, you've no doubt upgraded your box. I know I have 2 Tivo's (r10 and h10-250HD) that I spent some good money adding additional harddrives to give me more hours of recording time. The Verizon equipment is not internally upgradable mostly because it's leased equipment, however they are outfitted with firewire and usb ports. They will be updating the set top box software in the near future to support external firewire and usb harddrives to be connected and used for additional storage.
Overall I feel the picture quality is noticably better than I had with directv and the internet, well that's beyond compare.
Reply #6 Friday, October 27, 2006 11:06 AM
I thought myself to be somewhat lingo savvy. But I'm not as smart as I thought I was. You guys have been dropping acronyms all over the place, ones I'm not familiar with. Can you give me an acronym for Dummies meaning of the following so the ones of us scratching our heads trying to figure them out will know what you mean? They are: FiOS, SD, VOD. I think that maybe SD means Secure Digital but not sure.
Thanks. Roger
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Reply #1 Tuesday, October 3, 2006 12:35 AM