In the past 30 days of HD recording and viewing, we’ve hit 100% capacity nearly every day. In a house with a family of four sharing one DVR and HDTV, 20 hours isn’t enough. Sure, Lily doesn’t watch her own shows per se, but after recording a few shows for the adults, some Sesame Street, some Sid the Science Kid, and your DVR is filled to capacity.

Motorola QIP7232

• Although we subscribe to the FiOS Extreme HD package (no movie channels though), I’ve noted there are no where near as many HD channels as their are SD channels. Standard def channels are 2-499, and then HD is just 500-599. I’ve also looked for HD versions of Cartoon Network, Nat Geo Wild, the Military Channel, but either they don’t broadcast in HD or Verizon doesn’t offer them. Rats.
• Even though the Verizon FiOS DVR contains an internal 160 Gb hard drive, this will only provide you 16-18 hours of HD recording time. You throw in a few 1 hour shows, a sporting event, kids shows, and whap! you are done. In just two weeks, we’ve been at the 90% mark where previously recorded shows were deleted, and today hit 100% capacity. There’s really not much on there that’s different — we didn’t go and record Bass Masters on the fishing channel in HD. It’s our usual coterie of shows. Interestingly enough, the Motorola DVR that Verizon uses has an eSATA port (that we could use to expand our capacity with an external drive), but Verizon has disabled it. Grrrr.
• HD shows look great vs standard def, so I’d rather live my life never watching standard def again. Sports in HD look cinematic. The scenes from the Tour de France hovering over the French countryside and the Alps are breathtaking. I probably could watch Bass Masters in HD.
• Netflix streams their video in 720p, which looks pretty good. However, Netflix only offers stereo sound for their streaming service. Maybe later this year, if the reports are correct. No 1080p anytime soon though, but I think it’s okay. Surround sound would be nice though.
• Speaking of sound, 5.1 Dolby surround sound for television shows is a nice plus. While I like surround sound, we have one too many remote controls. One for the AV receiver (sound), one for the tv (to change inputs and formats), and one for the FiOS DVR (changing channels and watching recorded shows.) I’ve got my wife seriously contemplating agreeing to move to the Logitech Harmony One universal remote. At least she’s beginning to understand my thought process. I have reasons for why I do the things I do, folks.
• I know Blu-ray is supposedly great and all, but from what I’ve seen, the PS3 is doing a great job upscaling my old DVDs. Nothing has looked choppy or soft yet.

About a month after our FiOS service was installed, Verizon upped the bandwidth for all plans, and the low-end was now 15 Mbps downstream, and 5 Mbps upstream.  I called Verizon, but they wouldn’t automatically bump me up.  If I wanted it, I would have to pay an additional $2 per month, and extend my initial contract an additional two months. My wife, who doesn’t understand the coolness (dorkiness?) of having an even bigger pipe did not see the need, and rightfully shut me down.

Tonight, I called Verizon up again to inquire, and I used my shmoozing powers on the FiOS rep. And? He upgraded me to the 15/5 plan, no additional cost.  When I got home, I power cycled the Actiontec router, and hit DSLReports for their speed test. 

Results? See below.  I haven’t tried uploading or downloading large files yet, but browsing is actually noticibly faster.

Conclusion? Awesome.

I upgraded our bandwidth on FiOS

In the past 5 weeks or so, the service has been uninterrupted, and working well.  Here are my thoughts so far, in no particular order:

Television

• The television is so much clearer than what we were getting with Comcast.  It may very likely be due to the unexplained interference coming from the Tivo DVR being in the mix (last Comcast cable tech’s assessment), but it didn’t make much sense to me. Now that we’re using the Verizon DVR, the mystery Tivo interference is moot.
• Speaking of the DVR, it is no Tivo.  It’s not as intuitive to use as the Tivo interface, nor does it have all the cool capabilities like Tivo Desktop, streaming Netflix, etc. However, using the Verizon DVR service is cheaper (by $2.) The Verizon DVR isn’t terrible, but it’s “good enough” for us to get by.  I like having the combined box and DVR.  The less components and wires, the better we are off.
• I like all the channels, but Bruce Springsteen is right.  500 channels, and there isn’t much on. There are a lot of channels in the 20s-40′s that are just “local programming”, and unwatchable.  Use the DVR to find what you want, and live with your recorded programs.
• We’re almost at the end of our 3-month free trial of HBO and Cinemax.  It’s nice, but not all that necessary. I’ll miss Entourage and the occasional stupid movie playing at the moment.
• Oh, on a tv-Tivo-related-to-the-network note, since I got rid of the Tivo, I don’t need to support the accompanying 802.11b USB wireless adapter that I was using all these years.  It slowed the entire wireless network down to mixed b/g, and prevented me from using a stronger encryption, such as WPA2.

Internet

• I still don’t like this Actiontec router you are forced to use.  While it’s a benefit to have one less device plugged in, I still prefer the flexibility of choosing and using your own hardware. The wireless range is not as good as my old Linksys WRT54 — I used to be able to check the weather on my iPod while parked outside.  Now I can’t even get decent signal  strength in the backyard.
• The NAT table in the router is tiny, which fills up quickly, and requires a cold reboot of the router every few days. I’ve been doing it every 3 days or so.  Not a tragedy in any sense, but argh.
• I’ve got the 10 Mbps downstream, 2 Mbps upstream service.  When you browse, it’s the same perceived speed as before, but the service is noticibly faster when downloading large files or uploading photos.  Most of the time, in any rate.  There have been a few instances where you wonder, “Uh, where did the fast internet speeds go?”

Phone

• We get free local and long distance, including Canada.  We could have used this back when I was spending my time in Canada all those weeks. The phone service is about the same, except we’re saving the most by getting the local and long distance for one low price.
• I wish there were other benefits to having the phone service over network, like the ability to get cooler, newer VOIP phones or something like Cablevision when Caller ID details flash on the tv, but I guess not.

That’s it in a nutshell.

1. On Sunday, I thought to myself, if the cable-burying guys are the same as last time, they won’t come into the house.  Doesn’t a tech have to come too?  I called tech support and they confirmed that I was right, and there should be a tech present.  The rep schedules one, but won’t provide an exact time.  He will just come along at some point in the day with the cable-burying subcontractor.  Why does the customer have to remind Verizon what they need to do?
2. By 4pm, I’ve seen nobody from Verizon, and it’s just an hour to go before quitting time at 5pm. Calling again, the Verizon folks couldn’t tell me if they came or not. That’s right.  After holding again, the rep told me it was scheduled for tomorrow (July 14th.) And they had no idea what time a tech should come out – again estimated 8am-5pm. Tomorrow?  It’s been July 13th for two weeks, and now it’s another day?  I’m supposed to change my schedule again for them?  Furious with him, the rep backtracked, and recommended me to call the subcontractor directly to complain. Do you know who he gave me?  Regular (non-FiOS) Verizon Billing and Sales. And they didn’t know anything about the contractor.
3. I later discovered the cable-burying folks did the work at some point over the weekend without needing me to be home, because the cable I saw over the weekend came from underground.  Why was I told to be home in the first place?
4. Still, the folks in Dispatch (the DRC) confirmed they could only send a tech out to connect me at the earliest on Tuesday.  There was no way I was taking another day at home.  My boss would kill me. What happened to working until 8pm like the installers?  They said installations are different. For techs, the cutoff time is 5pm.  If I can’t change my schedule, it will have to wait until the weekend. I really complained at that point, absolutely furious.
5. The dispatch center called back, and offered to try for the weekend. I said sure, and they would call me back by 5:30pm. BTW, they never called.
6. Unbelievably, the same Verizon tech who came out to do repair work last Tuesday July 7th rang my doorbell at 6:15pm.  The Dispatch center called him last second, and sent him to my house.  I was glad, but see rule above about not working past 5pm.  It’s the rule, eh?
7. After a brief scare, the new underground cable works.  The tech cleaned up, and left around 7pm.

Seriously, my wife said it best.  I almost had an aneurysm today. God strike me down if I’m lying, but these people are out of their collective f#*king minds.

We’re officially at “2 days since our last Verizon outage.”  :)

When the service is working, I’m happy with it.  Tonight, there was a notification on my PS3 that there was an 80 Mb patch available for download and to install for my LittleBigPlanet game. The PS3 downloaded the 80 Mb file in 60 seconds.  Incredible.

I’m going to recap my troubles with FiOS.

1. On June 29th, FiOS installer shows up @ 1pm for an 8am-12pm install window.
2. Junction box is filled with water, and fiber optic network switch of some sort is filled with water, requiring the entire underground cable to be replaced.
3. On June 30th, FiOS Support has no info on whether the new cable is in place, and the installer never calls me to tell me status.
4. The underground cable they buried is bad, so the tech runs a temporary fiber optic cable above ground until I can get a new cable laid later in the week.
5. I receive a call from Verizon Wednesday informing me that they won’t come until July 13th to bury a new cable.
6. On July 3rd, general outage resulting in no tv, internet, or phone.  Call to FiOS provides no information, except there is an outage.  I hang up after waiting interminablely long time to speak to an agent. Service returns later that night, no explanation provided.
7. On July 7th, I have difficulty connecting to the internet. I check the tv and phone, and find no service and no dialtone. I check the ONT, and FAIL is staring me in the face.  I go outside, and find the fiber optic cable cut and thrown on my frontyard.

At this point, I can assure you that I was livid. Did Verizon come out to do work, and not finish the job or connect me?  My first call to Verizon gets disconnected as we try to reach dispatch, and I call back to get another agent who doesn’t want to contact dispatch.  Instead, I have to wait for a tech to come out tomorrow, and I have to be home. From 1-5pm.

Anger boiling.

With the plan to work from my in-laws’ house in the morning, we had a sneaking suspicion that our community had something to do with it.  Looking at the grass this morning, I wondered, didn’t it look recently mowed? A visit to the community trust office confirmed that the grass was likely mowed on Monday, and they probably inadvertently clipped my cable.

I called Verizon’s FiOS Solution Center (which is just a call center like any other), looking for a permanent solution, such as moving up my cable burial service.  No can do, but don’t worry sir. They have poles and such, and can rig up an aerial setup where the cable is not on the ground.

The Verizon FiOS installer came by around 4pm, and told me no, he does not have any kind of aerial poles or anything.  His solution?  He’ll run the cable on the ground. I told him what about the lawnmower?  He said if it happens again, I can call, and they’ll come out and do it all over again. 

The good news is that he did acknowledge that this does indeed suck.

I think it is safe to say that  hi-speed tv/internet service from the cable and telecom companies is pretty f#cked up. No one knows what they are doing.

If you aren’t up to speed, the deal was that a new work crew would replace the main fiber optic cable supplying connectivity to my side of the lot during the day, my tech would confirm everything was okay, and he’d show up after I got home from work.  I called twice in the afternoon to Verizon’s FiOS “Solutions Support Center”, and they had no clue what was going on, and only relayed my messages to dispatch, with a promise to call me.  5:30pm rolls around, and still no one has called me.  If I told you it was a cable company, you wouldn’t be surprised.  I like competition in the marketplace, but I’m wondering/realizing that telecom or cable, it’s the confused big company mentality.

The FiOS Optical Network Terminal

I showed up at home around 6:45, and the tech was sitting in his van surfing the web.  I asked if he was ready, and he was.  I let him in, and lo and behold, connection problems still remain.  After some troubleshooting, he discovered that now the underground cable from the junction box to my house was bad.  As a temporary solution, he laid down a temporary cable above ground, snaking along the grass and over the sidewalk into my house.  At some point, Verizon will have to come back when we’re home, and rewire our house. The tech finally left around 8:30pm, after setting up the modem/router and the HD DVR.

So what’s the verdict?

TV: My wife and I certainly noticed an improvement in the picture quality, even though we are looking at digital channels on a standard definition TV. The DVR is decent, but my wife says it is not as intuitive as our Tivo.

Internet: I’ve tweaked the router, which replaced my rented cable modem and my trusty Linksys 802.11g router.  I’ve changed the password, set up encryption, added my devices, and poked around.  I haven’t tried the signal strength all around the house yet, but David you’re right, so far it’s decent.

I did a speed test on dslreports.com, and the results are posted below. We signed up for 10 Mbps downstream, 2 Mbps upstream, so download is about right, but upload is a little low.  Eh, why quibble? Close enough. Overall browsing and downloading the new Firefox 3.5 were fast, but not noticeably faster. I think it is speed can only be noticeable when it is slower.

Phone: It works, since I heard a dial tone.

That’s about it, I guess.  I’m not a fan of their ugly-as-heck Verizon-Yahoo! co-branded home page.  We tried setting up email sub-accounts, but we keep getting some odd error message, and there’s no technical support live chat that I can find.

[shrugs shoulders] Surprisingly, I’m not ecstatic or overwhelmed with joy.  Maybe I’m preoccupied.  I’m glad it’s all up and running. Maybe it’ll sink in later about how supposedly “cooler” my life is now.  It’s all under-the-hood, so to speak, so you aren’t going to feel a revolution.  I’m sure I’d be more awestruck if we had the big screen HDTV to enjoy all the HDTV channels.  Maybe next year if the stars align…..

I did note that although we have 300 channels, nothing is really on.  Bruce Springsteen was right.

EDIT: Added photo of the Optical Network Terminal that Verizon installed in our laundry room.

A different work crew with that experience will return tomorrow, my presence is not required. After I get back from work tomorrow (sometime around 6pm), my installer will meet me at the house to finish the job, if everything goes okay in the afternoon.

Although Verizon didn’t complete the install, I’m somewhat intrigued by them. Granted, I think this was certainly their problem, and think they could have identified this flooded box issue more timely. Although the installer showed up a bit later than expected, he never left the area from 1pm to 9pm, except for a late lunch. Verizon brought out additional people in the late evening to try to resolve this issue for both myself and my neighbor sharing that junction box.

The dynamic in play here is that Verizon is trying to make a good impression on new customers. My neighbor has the service for a week, and now he has an outage. I can’t get my new service installed. Verizon is making a big push to supplant Comcast cable in this area. If we, as new cuatomers, got fed up with Verizon, we would switch back to the warm arms of cable with no chance of returning to Verizon again. Bad word of mouth would certainly take place.

Based on past experiences, unfortunately, Comcast would not have done the same level of effort if I was a regular customer.  They would have sent out crew after crew for days, fixing one piece at a time.  Then again, once I’m a regularly-paying Verizon customer, and this kind of outage happens again, I wouldn’t be surprised if Verizon behaves likes the cable company too.  It’s the nature for companies to get lackadaisical about their customers.  Only now at the end of my tenure with them has Comcast unfortunately shown any interest in offering me any deals to save me money, even when I called months ago to inquire.

I hope my Verizon service is up and running tomorrow night. For now, my wife is watching cable tv, and I’m online using my cable internet.

Here’s what I expected:  The 8am on-time arrival of a Verizon technician.  I expected the tech to be here for approximately 6 hours, considering that we only have one TV and one PC to hook up.  Done by 2pm, I could take my daughter to her 15-month well-child visit @ the pediatrician.

Here’s what I got:  The tech never showed up at 8am.  I called around 9am, and received a new (“updated”) expected arrival time of 12pm.  Um, 4-8 hours of install means you are eating dinner with us?  The tech finally showed up at 1pm, and started to work. 

About 3 hours later, he shows me that the central box in the yard that has the connections for our entire row of townhouses is filled with rainwater, and that’s why my neighbor is having issues, and why I won’t be working. 

Uh huh. Riiiiiiiiight. 

The latest update is that they have called back some guys from North Brunswick to do some emergency work, and may be here working outside and in my house even after 8pm. 

I’m glad I haven’t cancelled my cable service.  This should be interesting.  More later.