My cable company (Adelphia) went Chapter 11, and my area got swallowed up by Comcast. I strongly dislike Comcast for a variety of reasons, so I am very excited that Verizon will be bringing FIOS service to my area in early 2007 (or so they say.) I'm no huge fan of Verizon either, but given the same service options, I'd choose Verizon. The fact that FIOS speeds are a lot faster and still cheaper pretty much seals the deal.

So, anyone on FIOS already and care to share your experiences?

I'll be interested in testimonials, because I'm also considering a change to FIOS, as Cox Cable continues to have a very appropriate name. One neighbor has FIOS and seems to like it. They even kept their cable service for a while to see how it went, but they dropped it a while back so I assume they like the new service better.

My friend is having it installed today. I will ask if he can post here later.

Please keep me informed. I am very much looking forward to FIOS when they install it in my area - mainly for the higher speed internet.

I'm always fascinated to hear different experiences with FiOS. My father-in-law had it installed earlier this year as an upgrade to his uber-crappy DSL. He loves it. So far it's tons faster and more reliable than DSL.

I have Cablevision/Optimimum Online in my house, and have for about 5 years. Fortunately, Cablevision upgraded their infrastructure to support speeds that match FiOS. So, while I'm not a huge fan of Cablevision the company, I have no reason at all to switch to FiOS.

For folks that currently have DSL and have the option of switching to FiOS, do it, it's a no-brainer.

My father-in-law has it in the DC area. I've used it several times at his house. It's considerably faster than our T1 at work. I haven't done any formal testing on it, but it seems to have very low latency. Pages pop immediately unless the server on the other end is getting too much traffic. I'm heading up to his house in two days for the Thanksgiving holiday, so if there are any questions in particular you'd like me to ask or any speed tests you'd like to see, let me know.

I've had it since Friday and so far it seems pretty good. I'm getting faster speeds on downloads than I used to, although I can't say that web surfing is much faster feeling than my Cablevision Optimum service.

The installation took from about 9:15 until 3:30. It was a lot of work on the part of the installer and another guy who came for a short time just to run the fibre optic from the pole to my house. I have the 10/2mbit and for $35, it sure beats $50 cable service.

They provided a wireless router/modem also, which is pretty big for some reason. There's a larger junction box on the side of my house where the fibre comes in and there are analog connections there for regular phone service I think. In the basement, there is a power supply and a battery backup (this is meant for voice service only) for phone service during blackout. I don't have voice service though, so this isn't going to do much for me. The installer was very friendly and did a very nice and clean install. This must have cost Verizon a lot of money, but I guess eventually everyone will be on fibre. In december, they will be rolling out tv service over this line, but I have DirecTV already.

I'm in NJ by the way.

-Ian

Here's the new NID for Ian's FiOS install. I have seen other boxes in photos, but this one seems a lot smaller than I thought it would be.







Inside the house, there is a power supply for this thing plugged into the house wiring. That's also connected to a Verizon-branded UPS. Those things weren't terribly exciting.

So that's what about 8"x10" in size?

I'd say it's more like 12"x12"

Awww... come on, you didn't crack open the "Craft Access Only" box?? =]

If it was mine, I probably would have taken a peek.

He still seems happy with the service. He posted here earlier (Ian Whelan) about it. I will see if he can update...

As for Tivo, FiOS uses cablecard just like cable television. Series 3 Tivos work with FiOS. Of course, they cost $800 and $14 per month each. I think Verizon charges $3 per month for cablecard rental.

I was not aware Tivo raised prices for stand-alone service. $20 is insane especially if you have more than one box. Even though the DirecTV HR20 still has a few problems, I don't think I regret staying with DirecTV.

I'm still very happy with it. I can get much higher speeds (i've seen almost a meg down) than I could with Cable. I'm also paying less for it too. It's only $35 per month for the "slowest" version of the service, which is not slow at all. It's been reliable and fast.

The only thing I don't understand is why I'm not getting any paper bills from Verizon. I don't even know what my account number is. They can't seem to get this together. They're just charging my credit card each month so far. I sent them an e-mail about this last week.

I don't know why we didn't open up the restricted section of the fios box, but maybe next time I will.