Verizon FIOS-Anyone Have it?

[MrTudo]

We had it installed last week. My hats off to Verizon for doing such a professional job. They called the night before to confirm the appointment and then called the next morning about 2 hours before the appointment to tell me that they were running a little late, that they would possibly be an hour or 2 late. I am always impressed with people who take punctuality seriously.

When they arrived they went right to work on the install. They put the battery backup in the garage and the install was great. They swept up afterwards and you couldn't tell they were even there.

Then came time for the testing. We bought the 20 Meg package and this is where the whole thing gets somewhat dicey. We first used it as a hard wired job and went to speakeasy.net to do the speed test. It went to roughly 19,500 for the download and 5,000 on the upload! Fast! I then took it to ebay which is generally a slow loading website and it was pretty much immediate. Then went to a couple other websites that also load slow and they were also fast as heck.

The installer gave us a few more tips and then was on his way. My Wife and I were impressed enough to proceed on the purchase of this house, or at least cross off this contingency.

When we got home though, we did the speed test just for the heck of it, using the same speakeasy.net, the same server and lo and behold, with an 8 Meg Comcast, the speed test was BETTER than the FIOS with 20 Meg! We tested out at almost 25,000 on the download, and less on the upload, roughly 3500.

We are not williing to lose any speed or consistency as our business is dependant on the consistency and speed of the net connection so we were thrown into additional worry that we would not be able to overcome this.

Fast forward to tonight. I just received a call from Comcast management and they told me that they did a survey of the house and if we're willing to pay additional for the install that we may be able to get the comcast there as well as the FIOS. How much more is purely speculation but he seemed to think that possibly $1,000-$2,000 might do it. I told him that we would pay that if he would guarantee a typical consistency and speed.

He advised that the head of development would be in touch with me late monday. Stay tuned.

We did think however that we can also get the 50 Meg FIOS. And we decided that we will in fact proceed on the house purchase even if we cannot get the Comcast, as long as the 50 Meg FIOS accomplishes the mission. So I'm calling Verizon and having them upgrade the system. We'll test it and if it works even just a little better than the 20 Meg, then we'll cross this contingency off the contract.

That leaves one more contingency which would have to do with zoning. There's blank land around this place. Our fear is the government decides to let someone build a gas station or some other commercial building behind us. The realtor is NOT being helpful on this other than telling us to call the zoning board or retain legal counsel or ask a contractor to look into it. If any realtors or anyone knowledgeable about these things can offer some help we would really appreciate it. Even if all you can do is recommend a lawyer in Englewood who knows about this stuff, that would be great.

I hope that our experience with this internet stuff will be helpful to someone. This is our business and anyone who runs a business out of the house or does ebay business or any other net based business, take this seriously. Just because the realtor/mls/listing/cable company website claims that its available, that does NOT mean that it's available! When it's installed and working to your satisfaction then it's available. Otherwise, believe nothing until you see it with your own two eyes.

This would destroy our business had we believed these people, and just bought the house. It would have potentially been a nightmare. Don't let this happen to you! Make it a contingency that you will pay for the install and 1st month. That once it's installed and working to your satisfaction, then proceed.

Florida is WAY ahead of a lot of other places. We almost were ripped off big time in western north carolina in this regard and in that case we were driving and flying back and forth, back and forth to the tune of almost $25,000.00 in expenses before we finally blew that place off. Beautiful yes. Backwards, yes.

Fla's the best. Just make sure on this issue.

[angelfish]

It's great to hear that someone has had a flawless installation! Enjoy the Fios!

[Racelady88]

One thing to watch for with the FIOS is lightning. I had FIOS when I lived in Bradenton and a couple of times the outside equipment got fried when there was lightning in the area. It typically took Verizon a couple of days to get someone out to replace the equipment.

[mrcoolmrcool28]

I have a laptop with wireless through Verizon, and when I was down in Port Charlotte 2 weeks ago it worked just great. I think you can get a deal with them if you also have a cell phone with them, but I've had my other carrier for so long I get a great deal with them and Verizon couldn't match it. We do have our land line with Verizon as well, but it doesn't do any good in terms of a deal.