The most popular post on this blog — by far — is this year-old entry outlining my experiences in switching from Cox digital cable to Verizon FiOS. Now that a year has gone by, I thought I’d revisit my decision.
I chose FiOS for a simple reason: I thought the quality of the digital feed would be better than Cox. It was, and I assume that with the technical limitations faced by digital cable, it remains so. That hasn’t made FiOS a complete picnic, though — I formally declared the FiOS DVR a POS back in January. Although I am now ready to lift its POS status because of software/functionality improvements, the DVR has yet to match the overall reliability and usefulness of my year-ago Cox DVR (which presumably is even better now).
So, using the original post as a template, let’s outline my experiences after a year.
PICTURE/SOUND QUALITY: I have been very, very happy with this aspect of FiOS. I had occasional problems with signal dropouts in my first few months, but these seem to have gone away. The HD channels remain of exceptionally high quality; they are significantly better than my Cox pictures and sound — although, again, Cox may have improved things in the last year.
DVR/PROGRAM GUIDE: I have outlined my woes with this throughout the comment section of my original post. FiOS finally — FINALLY — has gone to a 16:9 format for the program guide, and the searchability functions are quite nice. This has improved; it still could be better. Video on Demand has been a sporadic problem, especially movie rentals; although the quality is high, a rental will occasionally “dump out” back to a menu screen for no apparent reason. You can quickly resume the viewing of the video, but this shouldn’t happen and I wonder if Verizon occasionally has capacity issues with handling high-demand video.
INTERNET QUALITY: Never a problem with Cox; never a problem with FiOS; has been completely bulletproof. Hasn’t gone down once in a year. FiOS is capable of considerably higher speeds than Cox, but it is unlikely you will notice a difference because there are so many mitigating factors in the speed of a connection between, say, two websites.
CUSTOMER SERVICE: I have no idea how Verizon rates on this front. I have not had one reason to call Verizon for service in a year — which, when you stop and think about it, is a good thing. Cox had the best customer service of any utility company I’ve ever used, anywhere; my initial experiences with Verizon were very negative.
So there you have it. One year has gone by and I have been, oh, 80 to 90 percent satisfied with my FiOS service. My biggest issues revolved around the DVR/cable box but — for now, at least — almost all of those issues are gone. I haven’t had to use Verizon’s customer service at all and my service has been completely reliable through a very, very rough winter. Thus, I am going to remain a Verizon customer.
Patrick responded on 06 Mar 2010 at 4:55 pm #
Good to know. Thanks for posting these comparisons. Both this and Blackberry vs. iPhone have been valuable.
Dave responded on 06 Mar 2010 at 7:52 pm #
I set up an appointment with Verizon to install the FIOS three-pack in our new house this week. Somehow, they completely lost the order. I waited 4 hours on a weekday for their tech to show up, and only after the window closed did I realize their mistake. Happily, when I called to reschedule, they threw in a couple months worth of HBO and Cinemax for free. And I guess, truth be told, I don’t have time to watch HD movies when I should be packing.
I’m a little concerned about your comments about the DVR. Having been spoiled by TIVO since early-adoptering it in 2000, I hope it’s not a giant step backwards. I guess we’ll see.
Randy responded on 06 Mar 2010 at 8:16 pm #
Oh, there’s not a cable company DVR that really holds a candle to TiVO. It’s possible to use TiVO with FiOS, but you have to buy the appropriate TiVO box and have the FiOS crew put in a cable card.
Dave responded on 27 Mar 2010 at 9:43 pm #
Boy, the hd cable box is pretty awful. What’s the secret to make it work right?
We’re especially having frustration with the On-Demand function. We put a movie on pause, and the thing timed out. We went back to the movie only to find that it didn’t save our spot. That’s bad enough, but the fast-forward is only so fast. So it takes 10 minutes to get back to the spot 30 minutes in. They didn’t seriously design it to work that way, did they?
Also, is it possible to add additional hard disk to the unit so the DVR will save more than a couple HD programs? I guess I’m completely spoiled by Tivo.
Randy responded on 28 Mar 2010 at 9:16 am #
The on-demand problems are probably not a function of the box — they are a problem of the servers attached to the box by Verizon. We have the same problem from time to time. On Demand on FiOS is seriously not good. You can’t add storage to the Motorola box for reasons unknown to all of mankind. It’s a bit of an exaggeration to say that it will only save a couple of programs, though — but no cable/TV provider DVR can hold a candle to TiVO (and they don’t cost as much, either). For our uses, the amount of storage is fine, but any TiVO fan is likely to be sorely disappointed. Of course, you always have the option of dropping the FiOS DVR and going to TiVO.
When I rent an ‘on demand’ movie, it typically *does* save the spot where I stopped, though, so I don’t know what’s up with that. However, I rarely make it through one without being dumped out and sent back to the menu. I think I am likely to start dealing with this by getting a Netflix streaming device of one sort or another.
Bob B responded on 22 Apr 2010 at 4:23 pm #
Thank You Randy, Very Helpful. I now have a Lynksys router and the Verizon order says I am geting 25/25. Is this more expensive than other options? Is it true? Thanks
Cable Supporter responded on 27 May 2010 at 2:30 am #
As a representative of a large cable company, I would like to thank you for your diplomatic and professional review and comparison of FiOS and your local cable provider. I have little experience using FiOS, and from a technological standpoint, FiOS is certanly an interesting product. With that said, my cable company has been incorporating Fiber in their transport for many years now, long before any telco decided to step up to the plate and update their antiquated twisted-pair analog system. Although we do not extend fiber to the actual premise, we have mile upon mile of fiber running throughout our service areas providing robust and scalable services to your homes and businesses. Although FiOS extends the fiber to the side of your home, chances are they are going to use the very same RG-6 Coaxial cable and Cat-3 wiring previously run by cable companies such as Comcast, Cox or other providers. Therefore, Verizon has a significant amount of spin incorporated in their marketing campaigns. Although the fiber extends a little further than cable, the services are ultimately delivered over the copper wiring in your home no matter who your provider is.
Furthermore, Verizon’s cost of acquiring new customers is significantly higher than cable’s. The fiber drop alone consumes several hours of their technician’s time which is inherently expensive because they are union and are paid higher than most service technicians in the industry. Secondly, the materials and equipment needed is also expensive and splicing the fiber is a tedious process. As a result, the cost is always passed onto the customer through extensive contractual obligations and potential installation-associated fees. With cable, at least in the areas I am familiar with on a regular basis, they are able to pipe through bandwidths exceeding the 50/50 Meg mark while simultaneously delivery minimally compressed and highly robust video, voice and return. With the advent of switched video, they have also further increased the available bandwidth to better serve users in need of increased bandwidth demands.
Finally, FiOS might offer 200 channels more than cable, however, pay attention to the channels that are being included. Chances are many of the channels you will continue to watch will be part of the traditional cable company’s Expanded service including networks such as CNN, NatGeo, Disney, ESPN etc. Companies like to fluff up their channel offerings by advetising extensive tonnages which include many obscure channels that most consumers will never watch.
In conclusion, I would like to congratulate Verizon on finally improving their plant, even though it is mostly in response to losing 40-50% of the telephony market to cable companies when cable pioneered CDTPS telephone. Its unfortunate that it did in fact take Verizon so long to catch up to cable’s technology and digital deployment. Let’s not forget how long companies such as Comcast, Cox and Time Warner have been delivering service over a fiber plant in light of FiOS delivering fiber to the side of your house. In the end, your TVs only accept copper, and most computers are connected to internet via copper as well. FiOS certanly is a fine product, and as soon as they work out their customer service kinks and smooth out delivery issues, they will continue to be a strong contender in the digital world. However, try not to turn your backs on the cable company that has been there for you all these years delivering high quality, affordable communications to your home simply because Verizon is offering Fiber to your house…using bandwidth capacities that you currently do not need and channels that you will never watch as leverage.
Thanks!
Leah responded on 31 Aug 2010 at 10:28 am #
Thank you for posting this information. Fios is about to become available in my area and we were debating making the switch from Cox Cable and your experiences are helpful.
What I’m most interested in are the package value and the DVR. Did your bill dramatically increase after your first year? It sounds like you only have the TV and internet, right? Our fear is getting roped into something entirely new for the inital savings, only to turn around in a year and be paying double.
As for the DVR, is it true to only need one with Fios for multiple TVs? What if both TVs are on – are you limited to what someone else is watching on the DVR list?
Your thoughts?
Thanks!
Randy responded on 31 Aug 2010 at 10:16 pm #
You’ll have to check out some of these things yourself. I do believe that the DVR system allows you to use a single DVR all through the house, but Verizon can help you with that. Verizon’s DVR has rather limited storage and doesn’t allow you to hang an external hard drive off of it, which blows BTW.
It is true that my rate creeped up a bit after a year, but it’s still cheaper than what I was paying for Cox, even though I have many more movie channels with FiOS and many, many more HD channels than I was getting with Cox when I left them two years ago.
With the exception of some continuing issues with TV on demand (FiOS regularly dumps me out of programs unexpectedly), I remain very happy with FiOS.