Hey guys How's it going?
Well this is my first Review. It's a written review of the Verizon Fios service. I may add a video later of me maybe just talking about the actually service and my experience with the company.
Background on Verizon
The Verizon Fios Review
Sid.B of Sid Mundo Reviews
We all know Verizon for being one of the most famous phone companies of our time. They started with landlines, and went onto bigger things when the wireless communication industry boomed. Verizon came out with Verizon Wireless. I personally own a Verizon Wireless phone and am quite content with their service. I must say I'd rather have a larger span in phone choice but the service is not bad and their customer support has always been great for me. Every time I called in with a question or a problem I was never put on hold for more than 5 minutes and they were always able to fix my problem or tell me what I should do within 5 minutes.
Now they have unleashed a new service called Verizon Fios. This service would supply you with television, Internet and phone. How would Verizon compete with the traditional Cablevision and dish companies? We'll find out.
Verizon Fios Review
Service –
Lets start out with the service and customer support. When we called in to make the order it was as simple as you'd think. A si mple phone cal and maybe a 10-15 minute conversation would suffice to make an appointment to get the boxes and the materials installed in your house, however, surprisingly that was the only easy part.
Everything else was a hassle. When the gentleman came in I was actually sleeping and my mother had opened the door to let him in. I was actually woken up by this technician's loud voice and argument with my mother. I immediately woke up and went downstairs. My mom had a few questions as far as what he was going to install and this man had no patience with my mother. I came in and told my mom what it was he was doing. She understood but this man still had quite an attitude. HE even had told my mother to "shush" multiple times. That's not acceptable. My mom even responded to the shushing by telling him: "No one shushes me in the morning" , and this man had the arrogance to say: " Well how about at night.
Disregarding his loud and obnoxious nature, he did his job and spent the whole day at our house installing the hardware. I personally know that I could of setup all the boxes and the Internet in maybe an hour. All the wires were routed in our house. All he had to do was place the boxes and do the outside work. I have no idea why he spent such a longtime doing this.
Nearing the end of his time at my house, he showed us the features of the television and insured th at the Internet worked on our laptops. And all seem well until he left and we tried to make a phone call. The phones didn't work. We then spent the next hour trying to get on the phone with Verizon to get the guy to come back and finish the job but were unsuccessful.
The next day we spent maybe a total of 4 hours on the phone with Verizon trying to understand why and when we were going to get the phone. Verizon tried to explain the Optimum voice, which was our prior phone provider, did not want to release our number. In the end we ended up getting stuck with no phone for about a whole week. We switched back to optimum, and cancelled with Verizon Fios. The reason why we switched to Fios first was because it seemed cheaper, however after having contacted Optimum about cancelling their service and the problems we have had with the phone they were able to reduce out monthly payments for another year and gave us a free HD DVR box as well.
** Not 100% sure this works - If you are with Optimum, Call up to cancel and act as though you want to cancel, chances are that they will want to keep you as a customer and reduce what they are charging you for your services. It's worth a try, call them up and say that you are switching to Fios in about a week and ask how to go about cancelling ( while you are talking to the cancellation department), they'll ask you why, and you will say because of the prices, Play with them for a bit.. see what happens, you'll be surprised.. ;)***
The Actual Product
TV -
The TV is outstanding! For the few days that we had Fios Television in our house, I felt like I was in entertainment heaven. I have a 50 inch HD plasma set up downstairs and their HD DVR is crazy. They have cool features such as mini widgets that will show up on the top of the screen giving you information such as the latest news headlines, sport info, and even the weather in your local area. To me it was like TiVo in a Cable box. One thing that I loved, and will truly miss is that they had HD on demand. With cablevision we had the HBO package which allowed us to get HBO movies on demand; however they were all in standard definition. With Verizon Fios, if you get the Starz package, you will be able to get any Starz Movie in HD on Demand as part of the package. That to me was a major plus. I watched "There will be Blood" and the visuals were outstanding. I thought I was watching a BluRay copy of the film. Another thing worth noting is the search function. Having the Verizon box you have the ability to search anything you want and to get related Shows and Movies, either on Demand, Now Playing (live TV), and what is playing in the future. I searched Christopher Walken and I saw that "Catch me if you Can" was playing the next day and all I had to do was press the record button and i was able to watch it 3 days later. The Television Experience for Fios is outstanding. One thing I should mention though is that wherever you choose to have TV, there must be a box, whether it is a Standard box, HD box, or a Convertor box. Each television needs to have a box. This can get a little annoying and maybe pricy in the long run.
Overall for TV-
Fios offers outstanding Features and Visual as well as Audio Quality. It is definitely the best Television Service I have ever experienced.
4.7 out of 5
Internet -
The Internet was a bit of a hassle to get them to install simply because it wasn't a traditional installation where they just install the modem, and then we hook it up to the router etc. The way their internet works is that they give you a wireless and hardwired router which doubles as a modem. It's convenient i guess in a sense that both the router and the modem are both in the same box. But i personally prefer using my own equipment. The internet service they provide is safe, and seems to come with a bunch of protection features. They also install a password on the router to prevent people from stealing your internet access, but, you can't choose what the password is. One cool thing I learned though is that Verizon (according to the technician) refuses to release information about their customer to outside sources. This might be better explained in an Example as to why this is a good thing.
Ex: A friend of mine had received a letter in the mail because his cousin spent the month at his home and he was illegally download movies. The letter was from cablevision telling him that Paramount Pictures was asking for his information in order to get into contact with him and possibly press charges. The letter from cablevision was a warning telling my friend to back off from downloading movies; otherwise Cablevision would forfeit his information to paramount.
Verizon Fios apparently will not release any information about their customers. At least this is what I hear. I do not encourage downloading Movies illegally. I personally want to become a filmmaker and want to be able to make a living off it. So I do respect filmmakers and actors, and always purchase their films.
Overall Internet-
It's a fast connection, and information is kept privately, which is always a good thing.
4 out of 5
Telephone –
The telephone service was not even installed. From what I hear it's a standard Telephone Service, However if you do go for Verizon Wireless Telephone service, make sure you know what you are getting into. I believe it's a good deal for the first year; however you must know that there are charges after the first year for additional services. The prices may shock you! Check it out…
THERSE ARE TAKEN RIGHT OF THE VERIZON FIOS WEBSITE - THESE ARE MONTHLY FEES
Caller ID - $9.00
Call Waiting - $6.25
Home Voicemail with Multiple Mailboxes - $9.45
Call Waiting ( Includes Caller ID) - $9.00
These are only 4 out of Over 20 Features.. All can be seen at :
http://www22.verizon.com/Residential/Phone/Calling+Features/Calling+Features.htm
Under the All Features Tab
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Overall – It's a regular Phone Service. They have a few Extra Features, but apparently after the first year you have to pay for the simple features such as Call Waiting.
3 out of 5
Bottom Line:
Verdict - A Buy, Just Hope your Technician has some manner, and don't forget to get your prior phone provider to realease your number ahead of time to prevent being phone less for a week. =)
You can also see this article at:
https://publish.associatedcontent.com/cms_preview.shtml?new=true&content_type_id=1750604&content_type=article
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