Opinions on best choice for TV and Internet service (credit, month to)

[smiledoc1]

Originally Posted by HenryHelmhazzard

FIOS comes straight to your house over fiber.

We have both Verizon FIOS and Comcast (FIOS for the business, Comcast for home) coming to our home.

The Verizon digital business phone line + FIOS package deal costs almost exactly the same as what just the business phone line used to cost, so we agreed to it. Having the redundancy is nice now and then when Comcast goes offline- which is unfortunately somewhat frequent.

For the past 10 months, FIOS has been rock solid, while Comcast has had 6 or so outages in the last 2 years- two of which were for several days at a time including phone service (we signed up for their "triple play" - phone, tv, internet).

Assuming Verizon doesn't jack up their rates when our 1 year contract comes up for renewal in November (our current rate is a promotion), we'll stick with them and probably drop Comcast. On the Verizon small business site (Verizon Small Business - Special Offers) they have an offer for this area - $149.99+tax/mo for FIOS, TV, and 2 phone lines. One line for the office, one line for home use ... I could live with that.

Anyone decided to drop land-lines entirely in favor of cell phones? We would, but the signal in our area stinks, and I'm not sure I want to try installing a cell signal booster in the attic. I've heard people getting wildly mixed results.

You bring up some very valid points. Here in central MA we had a vicious ice storm last winter. In some areas, Charter (cable) was hit hard. In others Verizon was hit hard. Few places had both down. Those houses that were mated to one carrier for all TV, internet and landline phone were in the roughest shape.
I have cable internet in my house and Verizon DSL for my office internet. I don't want to be at the mercy of just one carrier.

[beachbum wannabe]

You all are making some great points, but I still am not sure which direction is right for me! I'm sure there are others following this thread for info to help them make a choice on TV,phone, internet,etc. so keep on posting comments if you have any,PLEASE! I am so sick of dealing with the slow dial-up I have now I could just spit And I would really like TV service that works when you're stuck in the house during a rainstorm, with nothing much to do,(and the wife is giving you the DONT EVEN THINK ABOUT IT LOOK)

[Skunk Workz]

If FiOS is available it wins hands down over any other provider. At least for speed and reliability of the internet connection, and clarity of the TV signal. They also have a better HD package that Bright House, not sure about

Price wise they are usually at least competitive of not cheaper than the cable company so you shouldn't have a problem there.

We have had it for 15 months or so, and have had 0 downtime.

[Skunk Workz]

Originally Posted by HenryHelmhazzard

Anyone decided to drop land-lines entirely in favor of cell phones? We would, but the signal in our area stinks, and I'm not sure I want to try installing a cell signal booster in the attic. I've heard people getting wildly mixed results.

Haven't made that decision yet. When we were switched from Alltel to Verizon Wireless our signals got considerably worse.

We have however had Vonage for both the home and business phones for a number of years. It was pretty good on cable (not Vonage's fault, but the flaky cable's fault), it is rock solid on FiOS. It's $24 for the home line, and $49 for the business line.

[Ladywithafan]

Re: land line issue

I haven't had a land line since 2004.

[MrsTommy]

As Tommy said, we've got Dish for t.v. and Embarq upgraded "naked DSL" for computer. We went through hurricane Wilma in Cape Coral with only one brief outage on the Dish Network. We also get interruption in service when there's clouds in the SW sky between us and the satellite.

When I run a speed test on our DSL, the results say we're running FASTER than a T1 line. I've had opportunity to use a client's Comcast on his computer and it is excruciatingly slow. When we moved into this area, Embarq told me that there were no other DSL customers in the neighborhood and we would have to wait while they ran a line to us. I don't know if this accounts for the excellent speeds we get on DSL. Tommy can be downloading a file and I can usually stream video unless he is downloading a huge, complicated file.

[Skunk Workz]

Originally Posted by MrsTommy

As Tommy said, we've got Dish for t.v. and Embarq upgraded "naked DSL" for computer. We went through hurricane Wilma in Cape Coral with only one brief outage on the Dish Network. We also get interruption in service when there's clouds in the SW sky between us and the satellite.

When I run a speed test on our DSL, the results say we're running FASTER than a T1 line. I've had opportunity to use a client's Comcast on his computer and it is excruciatingly slow. When we moved into this area, Embarq told me that there were no other DSL customers in the neighborhood and we would have to wait while they ran a line to us. I don't know if this accounts for the excellent speeds we get on DSL. Tommy can be downloading a file and I can usually stream video unless he is downloading a huge, complicated file.

DSL speed is based on the distance from your home to the CO (central office), and not so much on the number of users. Cable degrades quickly based on the number of people on the node that are using it, so neighborhoods that have lots of users will have noticeably slower connections. The quality and age of the copper wire (and all of the associated equipment) being used also has an effect on the quality of service.

T1 speeds (1.5 mbps) haven't been considered fast for quite a while.

[keithhtt]

I have had Comcast for years in MI and I have always hated their customer service . I now have AT&T in Mi and hope they have it in Sarasota when I come down.

[Skunk Workz]

Originally Posted by keithhtt

I have had Comcast for years in MI and I have always hated their customer service . I now have AT&T in Mi and hope they have it in Sarasota when I come down.

No AT&T here, but if you have U-verse then you'll find FiOS is conceptually similar, but with better speeds more bandwidth for the TV's.

[smiledoc1]

Originally Posted by Ladywithafan

Re: land line issue

I haven't had a land line since 2004.

My 23 year old EE daughter called a few days ago all excited about a life experience. She just had to tell us she used a rotary phone for the first time in her life!!
The trend certainly is away from landlines. I know lots of people my age who are going wireless only.