PAIN. I did it again. I chatted and called Fios. Sigh.

[navychop]

Chat was of no use. After providing WAY more information than should be needed, the robo-script turned me over to liveware. She insisted she was technical and was there to answer my technical questions. She had some difficulty understanding I had no difficulty with phone or internet, but wanted to ask about TV service and the Motorola 7232 (wasn't there a Cisco box supposed to be introduced?) and if it was available in my area. She finally gave me an after hours number to call. I did. Sigh.

Sweet young thing answers. Perky. Very perky. I was able to get her to admit that IMG 1.9 and the 7232 were both available in Fairfax VA. I guess I can trust her on that. She wanted to know if there was anything else she could help me with. I asked if she could discuss actual billing charges, and what equipment I would need to get whole home DVR service on both HDTVs, and possibly an SDTV and how the EHDs worked. Poor, poor little thing. She got so confused, flailing around. Finally reverted to script "Is there anything else I can help you with?" Well, she hadn't helped me with my questions, but did agree when I asked if I should go to a local store (but had no idea if they would actually have a DVR set up there for me to try out). Sad thing is, when I went to a local store, oh, maybe two years ago- I discovered people that could take bill payments, process certain forms if I filled them out, but had no clue as to equipment or where I could get answers.

Sigh. I guess this is telling me what to expect if I ever tried Fios TV.

 

[Bob Haller]

I used to have FIOS. Their customer service was the worst I had EVER experienced in my life. I am 55 years old.

FIOS had a bad router at their CO that caused noise on incoming calls. it only took over 3 months, probably a hundred calls including to their presidents office to finally get it fixed. that router effected every fios customer in this prefix

is it any wonder the last 3 fios sales people were escorted off my property by the police? after telling them quit soliciting me.
every call blamed my interior wiring even though the first tech reproduced the problem with my home totally disconected

verizon fios a service that should of never been launched

 

[navychop]

Yes, I seem to recall your posts on that. And it has certainly troubled me that my experience in communicating with their people in trying to learn about FiOS has been so disappointing. Heck, I've even had troubles with their website, but I can see they're doing work on it. A bit outdated. Still has a video talking about their SD receivers. They don't actually have them anymore.

But I must admit, my FiOS has been rock solid. And now that I've added the Apple Airport Extreme, I've got good wireless throughout the back yard.

They actually hung around long enough for the police to show up?

 

[SatelliteGAL]

Navy-
I will try to answer some of your questions from my own experience. In our household we have two Motorola 7232 dvrs one 7216 dvr and one 7100.
One of our 7232s is the multimedia/whole house and we can watch anything recorded on any of the three dvrs on any of the four boxes. Adding an external HD is simple.... connect it and then from the menu tell it to expand your space. None of them seemed to be aware that you could output to a second tv if you wanted it to show exactly what was on the 1st tv. However, you can not control it from a second remote. If you go into the setup menu you can adjust the time of your skip ahead and back button - I liked this. It costs the same for a 7232 or a 7216 dvr. It's about $10 per mo less for the hd/sd set top box per month. I do not know if you are trying to keep the bill as low as possible or not but if you had two dvrs you would then have 4 tuners available for recording and could expand both of them with externals. Operation is pretty much the same as our dish network receivers. The hardest thing for us was trying to figure our where the channels were.

 

[navychop]

Thank you. I finally did get some info, discussed in this thread. This was after the FiOS web site "came to life" so to speak. The online system strongly discouraged getting a second DVR, saying there was nothing to be gained, and my $55/$35 savings were based on a 7232 and a non-DVR STB. Later, I realized that having only two tuners to record with would not be acceptable, and thus the savings would be less than I thought since I'd have to add another DVR (can't depend upon support for the Sony DHG500). The fact that the EHDs are tied to the receivers and not the accounts is a strong discouraging factor. Losing either the DVR or the EHD means losing all programming on both, per posts I've read. Double ungood. And finally, as I posted in my last post in that thread, there's the Cooking Channel.

I apologize for getting so upset and ranting in one of those posts. I'd just had it with a broken down website, two clueless people on the phone, and a very non-productive CHAT.

The strongest draws for moving to FiOS were the anticipated savings, and access to certain local Fairfax County channels. I'd have to say if the FiOS EHDs worked the same way Dish's do, and the Cooking Channel was in HD, we'd move to FiOS even with the reduced savings and losing some Dish features. We came to like the system. But it now seems quite unlikely that we will switch.

Who knows, the Cooking Channel could be made available in HD, and perhaps a future s/w update will make it less likely that a lot of banked recordings will be lost in a h/w failure. I understand FiOS is moving toward MPEG-4 and perhaps that will help solve their (almost unbelievable) QAM capacity limitation. But how much will Verizon invest in FiOS in the future? That seems to be a concern, also.

 

[SatelliteGAL]

That's me. A day late and a dollar short! lol Sorry, I have been out of touch for a bit and did not read the other post first. Glad you got all of your info. I know how difficult it is to leave a known provider (dish) for an unknown (fios).

 

[navychop]

Well, looks like FiOS may be in play again, after all. Looks like I was (shocked, shocked I am! ) mislead again. If the cablecard can be functional in my Sony, and we keep the current level of Internet, it gets close enough for me to pursue what ELSE I've learned might be wrong. And then go for a two year contract with more bennies, and it might be doable. Plus, I can always keep the lowest level of Dish service, or go back after a couple of years.

 

[vurbano]

No problems with FIOS here. Running 3 TiVo premiere units with cable cards for years.

 

[navychop]

EPG from TiVo or FiOS or TVGOS or ????

 

[SatelliteGAL]

I hope your experience ends up being as good as ours has been. At this point we are very happy and would not consider switching.

 

[dlma1]

Sorry that you had such trouble. I have had FioS now for about 3 years with only 1 outage for internet and phone. I called technical support and the first level couldn't solve my problem but referred into a second level agent who solved the problem and called in back when it was fixed. Total outage was about an hour. As for your DVR questions, the 7232 supports up to 6 six set top boxes (but not the digital adapter, which is a "dumb device"), which can be either SD or HD. If the box is SD only, you can't watch an HD program on it (even just in SD). But Verizon doesn't offer the SD box anymore so if you are a new customer that is probably a moot point. The 7232 is pretty reliable and with 1.9 you can add an external hard drive (I have 1 TB external hard drive attached to mine). You could also buy a Tivo box and rent a M cable card for $ 3.99 - but it is not interactive so you can't get Verizon on-demand or premium on-demand with it. I hope this helps you. If not, call Verizon back and if you are not satisfied, insist on talking to a supervisor or second level support.

 

[riffjim4069]

FiOS since March 2008 and not one second lost to network outage...phone, Internet or television. We've always maintained a FiOS DVR for On Demand, but IMG 1.9 is excellent. We also have Tivo and Sony HD DVRs (Cablecard). Obviously, the Tivo requires a subscription to receive Guide Data and the Sony DHG-HDDxxx should continue to receive TVGOS via OTA in order to populate your FiOS channel lineup.

 

[lern4483]

FiOS since March 2008 and not one second lost to network outage...phone, Internet or television. We've always maintained a FiOS DVR for On Demand, but IMG 1.9 is excellent. We also have Tivo and Sony HD DVRs (Cablecard). Obviously, the Tivo requires a subscription to receive Guide Data and the Sony DHG-HDDxxx should continue to receive TVGOS via OTA in order to populate your FiOS channel lineup.

I wish we had FiOS down here in South Florida.
Ive seen it up in Long Island. The HD looks outstanding

 

[Cobra611]

Is there any way to check and see if Fios is in my area? I've been to a website, put my address in and it tells me no, but I'm hoping to speak with someone who actually knows about service. My town has it, just not down my road.

 

[navychop]

In my experience the web site is accurate. And asking reps gets lies, or at best, ignorance.

 

[riffjim4069]

Is there any way to check and see if Fios is in my area? I've been to a website, put my address in and it tells me no, but I'm hoping to speak with someone who actually knows about service. My town has it, just not down my road.

I would suggest contacting your Local Franchise Authority (LFA) or visiting their website for more information. They are your local government folks who are authorized to grant Verizon a cable TV franchise. They could be your city, town, county or state. A lot of depends on the build-out requirement in your particular franchise agreement...however, Verizon is good about not entering into agreements in which they do not have strategic and tactical control over their operations. For example, in my Virginia county FiOS TV service has been available since a franchise agreement was signed in October 2006. They were required to build-out an initial service area and run fiber to most new subdivision (been very few of these in recent years) and meet 7-year and 10-year thresholds in areas of the county that met the population density requirement.

FiOS service has been 3-miles away since October 2006 and Verizon has only built-out a few more populated areas very close to the initial service area over the past 5 1/2 years. Why? As I suspected, they obtained the franchise agreement (one of the first in the area) and then focused their efforts on buiding-out the more populated area outside of Washington DC, and the state political areas in Richmond VA. We were pretty low on the investment/priority list. Several folks (like me) have complained to the county, but there is very little they can do until Verizon violates provisions of the franchise agreement. Each time Verizon is asked for a buld-out status, the county is politely told it's none of their business until October 2013 and October 2016. The county is not completely in the dark since they are involved whenever Verizon uses rights of way (i.e., running fiber truck lines). Anyway, here are the two thresholds that are in our agreement. I can only assume they are similar to what is in yours:

• Year Seven (7) Threshold: Franchisee shall beging providing Cable Service to no less than sixty-five percent (65%) of the occupied residential dwelling units in the Franchise Area in which the Franchisee has its telephone facilities within seven (7) years following the Service Date, subject to teh conditions of Secion 3.1.1 above and the other tems set forth herein.

• Year Ten (10) Threshold: During the twelve (12) month period commencing after the seventy-year anniversary date of the Service Date, the County may, by ordinance adopted after a public hearning in which the County specifically finds that such a requirement is necessary to promote competition in cable services within the Franchise Area, require the Franchisee to make Cable Service available to no more than eighty percent (80%) of the occupied residential dwelling units in the Franchise Area in whic the Franchisee has its telephone facilities within no less than ten (10) years of the Service Data, subject to the conditions of Section 3.1.1 above and the other terms set forth herein.

Since we're nearing the seven year threshold (18-months) Verizon has a lot of work do to since I suspect they are serving less than 15% of elligible county residence. Of course, I have seen them running fiber and (suspect) upgraded the two major Central Offices since they will probably have 20,000 new customers by October 2013. Anyway, you'll need to get in touch with your LFA for more details.