Back in 2006 I left COMCAST as my ISP. Issue wasn't cost or speed, but availability. I went for too long with outages occurring several times per week for hours at a time. And for recurring problems like this, I got so tired of their help desk telling me to do this and do that - to be sure the problem was them not me - every time I called.

In Nov 2006 I moved over to Verizon DSL, which had just come available to my house. After about a year my conclusion is: right decision. Speed is nearly the same as I was getting from COMCAST (see below), and I have had one short interruption in 13 months - which I easily fixed myself by just rebooting the modem. FIOS? Maybe; I'll watch this space and see what Chris and others recommend.

Speed test (Jan 2008 via Speakeasy's Seattle server):
Download Speed: 2800 kbps
Upload Speed: 650 kbps

TJ, thanks alot for posting that speed test thing. Very interesting.

I have had Comcast for about the last 5 years and really have never had any complaints with the Internet. I work from home about 80% of the work week or more, so it would be a huge problem for me if I had any frequent outages. Incidentally my speed test results for Jan 2008 via the Seattle server are:

Download: 6162 kbps
Upload: 1562 kbps

I think that $10 difference a month between Comcast and Verizon DSL is the reason for the big speed difference.

I locked into the Comcast triple play mainly to get the Comcast phone service. (Our phone service now costs about $30 where it used to cost nearly $80.) Since moving here in 2003 we had frequent Verizon problems with our land line phone which I could never understand. Getting technicians out here from Verizon was a nightmare, weeks to get anybody out, techs not showing up, etc; And this is just basic phone service we're talking about. I couldn't have been happier to say goodbye to them.

I'd be really curious to hear more about the tv service that comes with Verizon Fios if anybody would care to post some info about it. Thanks!

Well Chris, to answer your question with a rather long-winded reply: The transition from Comcast to FiOS has been super smooth. Installation was a great experience; the tech arrived well within the time window of eight (!) hours, got here at noon, called twice before arriving just to let me know his progress. Explained what he was doing while installing. Set up the wireless connection (which wasn't on the order), when finished went over each item, set up an account with me, programmed the three remotes for the TV's, and left me his personal number in case I had any questions. He called me two days later to make sure everything was running smoothly and to see if I had any questions. As far as customer service, it's been terrific. The first night I discovered one of the TV's only went up to channel 99 so I called the 24/7 customer service line. The recording told me the wait time and gave me the option of getting a callback rather than waiting. I opted for the callback and received it within 15 minutes from a live person (at 11:45 pm) who checked the problem and "switched on" the non-working channels. I called them another time during the day to ask a question about the internet service and had a 13-minute wait time. This time I waited and again spoke to an extremely helpful live person. I hope this is an indication of the level of customer service!

As far as the service itself goes, the high speed is a bit faster than Comcast on my desktop and for some reason is a lot faster on my laptop. No idea why that is! And it hasn't been doing the occasional "blip" which freezes everything for a few seconds like what happened with Comcast. Another big difference is my landline phone. I use Vonage and when I was on the phone I couldn't be in the same room as the computer because I would get such clicking and popping on the phone line. But with Verizon I can be on the phone right next to the computer and hear nothing but the person I'm speaking to - it's great! For TV I have just the basic setup, no premium channels. But there seem to be a lot more basic channels than Comcast had. Music channels for example. With Comcast Digital I got MTV, MTV Hits, MTV Tres, VH1 and VH1 Jams. With Verizon It get those plus MTV2, VH1 Classic, VH1 Soul, BET Jams, and something called FUSE which is international rock/pop/etc. Plus a bunch of country music video channels. There are other examples too, like several Discovery channels, not just the one. And to top it off, the picture on my TV is fabulous where previously it was constantly snowy. In fact Comcast came out on three different occasions to try to clear it up but was never able to correct it.

Finally, the cost looks to be about $30 per month less than Comcast. I haven't gotten my first bill yet so don't know if the taxes and other surcharges will make the difference a lot smaller but I really don't mind! I'm very happy with Verizon - I'm hoping I'll still be this happy as time goes on!

It will be a long nine-day wait for me now, but your info has me very encouraged.

Wow, that's a telling indicator of their demand. I wonder how much of the Montclair TV market that Verizon has already claimed? I had the same experience that TJ did at Comcast when I went to return my cable modem. A long line of others, all there for the same reason, to return their Comcast hardware.

Things were different with my cancellation of DirectTV. Apparently I own the dish, receivers and DVR. If we still get any snow this year, I may need to take it down and try it as a sled!

Anyway, it's worth the wait. I have quickly turned into this guy since finally getting HD...

Area Dad Will Only Watch Things In HD
The Onion

...I sold my DirecTV dishes on eBay, which worked out great. I figured I might as well get something for them rather than having them sitting around useless. Although I never thought about the sled idea :) - my son would have liked that since at the time we had a huge hill behind our house!

We live in the area just updated by Verizon for FIOS and have placed our name on the list for new installation. The offers that we have received don't include a new TV or a gift card...I'm envious! The best offer so far is TV, Internet, and Phone for about $105/month, for 12 months.

I had my Fios installed in January, and had never heard anything from them about the promised TV or gift card. So last week I worked the phone and finally found my way to the 'orders department - 410/265-2439', who confirmed that I had placed my order during a promotion period (I knew that already, but confirmation is nice), and then they connected me to the 'promotions department - 866/279-0438', who were very apologetic and let me know I was now in the queue and that I should get more information in a few weeks. We'll see.

The install was done 12/28/07. We also knew we qualified for the 19" HD TV or BestBuy $200 gift card. It took numerous calls and weeks but finally received the gift card 05/07/08. It seems the promo's are handled by a sub contractor for Verizon (no surprise there) and Verizon is very slow about forwarding new customer info to determine if you are qualified. We actually received a letter stating we were not qualified but since we tried so hard, and were valued customers, they would send the gift card anyway?????

The actual tech install experience was very informative, smooth and trouble free. We have not experienced any problems (tech, equip, customer service) since we signed up. One exception was the HD DVR box would constantly re-set itself 4-6 times per day. The "help desk" sent a remote signal that worked for a week and then sent a tech with a brand new box(as opposed to the "re-furbished" we were given originally without being told). The new box has not failed yet (6 weeks and counting). The re-set problem did cause all programmed features to be lost and required re-programming every time (the remote and picture settings in the TV itself).

I do love the fact that when I click on my mouse buttons, FIOS has already got me where I wanted to go! It's that darn fast!