Verizon FIOS Review
As anybody in this business will attest to, fast internet connections are a requirement of doing work. There were the days when I ran this business over a dial-up connection. It wasn’t by choice either. One move I made when I was younger ended up with me on dial-up AFTER having had Roadrunner. Trust me, there is little worse in the computer world than having to revert to dial-up after being spoiled by broadband. Faster is always better and that is why I just today had Verizon Fios installed.
For some time now, I have been using Bright House, which is the company doing Roadrunner cable modems in this area. The service has been fine. The TV that came in over the same lines was a little weak. The signals were not always that good (it varied and I don’t know why) and there was heavy pixelation on some of the digital channels. The phone service was OK, however I thought their voice mail system was rather weak. Perhaps a year ago, Verizon installed fiber optic lines in the neighborhood. I held off for some time actually getting on the service, and now I’m not sure why.
So far, I am happy with Verizon FIOS. I got the package deal, which means I have phone, TV and internet all coming into the building. The internet is sporting a 20 mbit downstream and 5 mbit upstream. Needless to say, that’s a crapload of bandwidth. The TV picture is MUCH clearer, even without the use of high definition. And the phone service…well, its the phone. It works.
The only downside so far is that I had to give up the TIVO. I love TIVO, and their interface is second to none as far as digital video recorders are concerned. Now, it is possible that I could have gotten this TIVO to work with Verizon’s fiber optic service, but it would not have been able to function at it’s full potential. For one, my Series 2 TIVO will not record HD content. Additionally, the TIVO cannot accept an incoming signal directly to my knowledge. With cable, the TIVO can work as its own cable box. It therefore allows the second cable box to be used to record from a second channel while you’re watching another. With Verizon, the box has to sit first on the chain, which means at the most, TIVO would have to control the settop box via infrared and could only record non-HD content one channel at a time. Kind of limiting. So, I had to ditch the TIVO and get Verizon’s DVR. It does all the same things…its just not as nice an interface.
The important thing here, though, is the internet service. That was my main reason for doing it. I found a couple of speed tests online, one at SpeakEasy and another at SpeedTest.Net. With SpeakEasy, I’m getting a 6626 kbps downstream and 771 kbps upstream using the Atlanta server. With SpeedTest, its 8146 kbps down and 847 kbps up, using the Tampa server. Not bad. The only latency I have here is waiting for remote servers to respond. Great for doing internet work, I must say.
If you can get FIOS, its definitely worth the time and hassle to switch. Dealing with their 800 number can be frustrating, but the service quality is still good.
If you enjoyed this article, you might also like...
- PowerPay Review – Why I Like These Guys
- Using Google Voice To Give Your Blog A Phone Number
- Book Review: Twitter Revolution
- Busy Blogger on The Go – Blogging From Anywhere
- Skype Outage and Implications, Lessons
I'm David Risley. I've been making my living as a blogger for over a decade. Blogging is my business and how I support my family. With this blog, I'm just gettin' REAL and telling you how this business works. 
