Debate, and discuss, just dont Bore me.
A tale of 2 Support Calls
Published on September 7, 2010 By Dr Guy In Personal Computing

Well, it has been about 5 months since my switch from Comcast to Verizon FIOS.  And I had my first "incident" with FIOS over the weekend.  5 months and only 1 outage!  That is definitely an improvement in service (with Comcast, outages were about once a month).

So I tepidly called Verizon tech support to report the outage.  Having been through 9 years of Comcast "service", I was expecting the worst.  With Comcast, 9 times out of 10, when there was a problem, it was with their infrastructure, yet the techs never knew that (I suspected it since all things on my end were fine and unchanged).

With a Comcast call, usually you had to jump through a bunch of hoops - the same ones each time, and at the end, they would "schedule a tech" to come out for sometime next week.  By the time the "date" rolled around (and sometimes the same day of the outage), the service would "miraculously" start working all on its own, so at least I would not waste half a day waiting for a tech to show up (that usually never did).

So I called and started doing the push button shuffle.  Surprisingly, I got to a live person in about 1 minute!  Now that is good!  She took my information and started running her diagnostics.  Apologizing a couple of times for it taking so long.  She had me reset the router once.  Then reset the FIOS box and then told me to wait a few minutes.

A couple of minutes passed and she told me to "try the Internet now". WOW!  It actually worked!  Seems she knows what she is talking about!

The only gotcha was that I had to reset the router to my settings (for security and wireless purposes) which took all of about 5 minutes.

I am not a fan of monopolies, and while phone companies are no longer monopolies (we have another company in the area that I have used before), they are still big and usually unresponsive.  But Verizon is sure trying its damnedest to change my mind.  I switched to Verizon Cell 5 years ago because of poor service I had with my previous provider.  And have not had a problem with their cell service since.

Now I have their FIOS as well (Landline, Internet and TV), and they are basically showing me I was lazy to not try them before!  So far, they are head and shoulders above Comcast (and cheaper).

I am going to hate it when my contract is up.  Even if Comcast offers me a deal to switch back, I am going to be hesitant to unless Verizon's service rapidly deteriorates.

Maybe Verizon has made the switch from a monopolistic utility to a customer service company.  If so, price is not the only consideration I will use when deciding.  Still early (only 5 months), but so far so good!


Comments (Page 2)
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on Sep 09, 2010

Nitro Cruiser
DG I had to chuckle when you mention the break up of Ma Bell. Everyone hated the big monopoly, but I'll tell you my phone bill was <9 dollars a month just prior to the break up. It just went up from there, currently $35 a month for a land line I barely use, just incoming calls. I'd lose it completely if it wasn't for the home security system.

I use cable for the internet now (Cox), I like it. It's been pretty reliable. We have Verizon FIOS available, I just haven't seen the need (yet) to switch 

I use to have phone bills of about $14/mn.  But then there was a lot less taxes back then too (like the tax for the internet).  I am in your boat and if not for my wife's need for fax, I would not have one at all either.  We rarely use it except to get spam calls (even though we are on the DNC list).

As for Cox, it is near here - oh yea!  In your area!  Actually it comes up to New Kent - which is next to my county.  But I have no history with them so do not know if they are better than Comcast or not.  When my cable worked - it was great!  It just broke often, and when there was a problem, the techs were clueless.

on Sep 09, 2010

As for Cox, it is near here - oh yea! In your area! Actually it comes up to New Kent - which is next to my county. But I have no history with them so do not know if they are better than Comcast or not. When my cable worked - it was great! It just broke often, and when there was a problem, the techs were clueless.

I used to have sporadic issues (connection would drop for a few minutes once or twice a week), until I bought a new cable modem, a Motorola (the old one, a Toshiba, was getting on in age). So that was on my end.

They (Cox) just raised their fee 3 bucks a month. One would think there isn't a recession going on the way bills are increasing.

on Sep 10, 2010

Dr Guy



Quoting OMG_Jongalt26,
reply 13
Yea, reports are that development will be halted for fios (hopefully temporarily) after the current locations are finished with installing. 


Did they give any reasons for that (my source was not in that end of the business, so he only related what his friends told him, and none of the technical stuff)?

They want more taxpayer money for buildouts (In other words, they want far more then they will ever pay to build out, as usual).

on Sep 10, 2010

Nitro Cruiser

They (Cox) just raised their fee 3 bucks a month. One would think there isn't a recession going on the way bills are increasing.

That is what Comcast did to me in January. Even though I supposedly had a 2 year "contract" with them.  It was not a great deal, but enough to piss me off and ensure I would switch to FIOS. I doubt they learn their lesson, unless there are a lot of "mes" out there.

As for the Modem, since I had the triple play, I had to use theirs.  And it worked great!  Just the service went down about once or twice a month (and usually for several hours).

on Sep 10, 2010

TheDarkKnight2008
They want more taxpayer money for buildouts (In other words, they want far more then they will ever pay to build out, as usual).

Welllll.......with everyone getting handouts from the government, i can understand that!

In fact, you jogged my mind about a similar situation that I will blog about. 

on Sep 11, 2010

As a completely out of the blue aside, the fix was restarting the router / modem thing. You may want to save the settings, because it will probably hickup once a year or so, might as well keep the settings around so you don't forget them.

My company (Over in europe) has basically increase performance for free every now and then instead of increasing the bills. I can live with that.

(Looses internet about once every year for a short period, I can live with that too.).

on Sep 13, 2010

As a completely out of the blue aside, the fix was restarting the router / modem thing. You may want to save the settings, because it will probably hickup once a year or so, might as well keep the settings around so you don't forget them.

That was one part.  I think.  She (the tech) also indicated she was resetting the FIOS conversion box (separate from the router/modem).  But I have saved the settings on the parts I can get into.  I have too many things to remember to trust myself to remember what I did on that one.

My company (Over in europe) has basically increase performance for free every now and then instead of increasing the bills. I can live with that.

The Cable company was doing that as well.  That is what I love about FIOS is that they are making sure the cable company keeps increasing speed, because they are (and vice versa)!  The price does not come down, but when you have to switch to a hard wire cable to get the maximum bandwidth out of your internet connection (because the choke point becomes the wireless connection), that is pure cream for me!

on Oct 05, 2010

Update:  Another irksome issue last night (the Caller ID was not showing on the TV).  Lady was nice, and sounded bored.  Had it fixed in about 5 minutes.  I guess she has done that a lot.  But it sure is spoiling me to call tech support and have them fix things!  Go Verizon!

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