FIOS first impressions

Fios came out and installed everything yesterday. Took them about 2 hours. I was very surprised on how quick they were.

First impressions.

The in-house battery backup unit is much smaller than I thought it would be. The wireless router is much larger than I thought it would be.

Starting with the internet and the router, Actiontec. I removed my main computer (literally right next to where the fiber/coax line is coming in from outside) from my network and put a cat5 cable for them to hook into the router once they got it online. I didn't want them touching my network, and I don't think they wanted to bother with it anyhow. Once they left, I messed around with the router and its configurations. I was pleasantly surprised that the antenna on the router uses a reverse polarity sma connector, which I have a cable for (same cable that my linksys WET11 bridge has). From the basement to the top floor I was getting 70% or so signal quality. Connecting my external ~12.5db patch antenna it jumped to near 100%.

The routers config pages can be a pain to use, but they aren't bad. I like how it lists every connection to the router. If you have a computer named 'joe' it will show up in the list as 'joe' and the ip address. So you can now configure certain things for joe right on that screen, and if the ip addr changes later the configuration will still work. I had one huge problem getting some port forwarding to work. Unless I set my computer to a static IP address, port forwarding would not work. I gave up trying to figure out why, I think it might have something to do with UPnP.

Speed test:
Download Speed: 2539KB/sec
Upload Speed: 570.3 KB/sec

I still need to do more testing on the small NAT table problem to see if its still an issue, but I didn't have any trouble downloading a torrent and surfing the web at the same time. The torrent speed jumped to 1mb then fell down to 260K, that could just be normal. Will see.

TV
Have not done a lot with it yet. So far - amazing picture. Both the standard box and the home media box are very fast. The home media dvr is easily twice as fast for going through menus as our dual directivo unit was.

Some first impressions:

- Video on demand is cool, and a bunch of the content is free... but there is just something very wrong with watching Dora the Explorer in HD (which is what the tech loaded up).
- Took a good 12 hours for a lot of the 'goodies' to turn on (was downloading and updating).
- Can't yet figure out how to switch from one tuner to the other for watching 2 shows at once (need to RTFM I guess).
- Comes with a bunch of games. You can, for example, play a game a chess with another fios customer.
- My tivo series 2 dvr worked just fine with their standard box. Season pass manager updated itself with all the new channels and didn't miss a beat on recording the kids shows this morning.
- We recorded a few things on the home media dvr, no problems.
- Started watching one thing on the home media dvr, paused it, went downstairs and resumed on the standard box. Neato.
- Set a few things to record, no problems. Have not seen the 'lost contact with the hub' error yet (knock on wood).

Fios phone.
Well it works. Not much more to say about it.

Some (bad) photos attached from my cell phone camera of the install.

 

Excellent feedback. I will stay tuned for other responses and will provide mine soon. My installation date is 12/8. I can't wait to ditch Comcast!

That Home DVR feature is going to be a nice new feature for us. I know you need a set top box for that to work, but do you have to have a set top box for every TV, just for getting basic channels?

 

John,

where do you live? I still haven't heard anything ... grumble. I guess another three months or so for us?

On another note, I installed Ubundu yesterday ... will play with it the next few days. I heard it even runs Warcrack.

Marianne

 

We have been on FiOS for about 6 weeks or so, I love everything except for my verizon.net email account. Even with the Fios connection, it is a very slow email program. Several times the server is down, and I am unable to log on to check email. My internet connection to other websites work, but the verizon.net email has really disappointed me. I wish I had taken the advice to change to a yahoo or gmail email when I left my @comcast.net account instead of this substandard verizon.net. Anyone else have these issues? I am using a Mac and Safari for the browser.

 

I've been on verizon.net email for over 8 years...very few problems to speak of over that time. Are you sure it's not the setup of your email software? I actually still use the ancient Netscape E-mail and have no problems at all. Other computers in the house use Microsoft Outlook.

 

I don't use email software, I just go to verizon.net and sign in to access my email, and that is where I have the problems. Slow to sign on and sometimes dropping connection with message "server is busy". I am on a Mac, is it better to use a mail program to access email?

 

If you are not on a shared computer, an e-mail program is the way to go. I only use the Verizon Webmail when I'm accessing my e-mail from work (pretty much every day). I've seen some error messages before, but it's usually fine for me. I really like the newly designed Verizon Webmail. If you haven't used it yet, try it out:

http://webmail.verizon.net/signin/Authorize.jsp

 

They just finished my installation about an hour and a half ago. It took just over 2 hours. The ONT installer told me normally it would have been faster, but the first ONT was flaky and had to be replaced. That meant redoing the provisioning. It all seems to work. I'm surprised at how strong the wireless signal is. The wireless is setup for WEP, I'll have to change that.

 

Well, that didn't take long. Just 3 hours after FiOS installation and I'm back on Comcast. FiOS TV is working great, however but and internet are not working at all. On to ONT #3?

 

What is the bottom line cost with FIOS (phone, internet, tv)? what are the extra markups and taxes that get added to the $99 deal?

thanks.

 

Back up and running. Verizon quickly sent the technicians back to recheck my installation. After checking out the ONT and the fiber, it was determined that someone had entered the wrong ONT id code or whatever at the office. Once corrected, all worked well.

I'm impressed at how quickly they got people out here to fix this problem.

As for the costs after taxes and vague line items, I guess I'll find out within a month.

 

FIOS DVR fees are crazy.. it's like $16/month for the home media DVR or something -- after the first year I bet the prices jump a lot -- but I'm sure you can renegotiate down again.

I think DirecTV prices are still 5.99 for their home media DVR, etc.

I would definately switch to FIOS for everything IF their DVRs were better.

I played with my friend's new FIOS DVR and didn't care for the GUI -- it's OK, but nothing compared to even DirecTV's branded DVRs, and of course doesn't touch TiVO in terms of usability and intuitiveness IMHO. Also, the guide seems to only appear in 4:3 mode, not widescreen... @#$?!

 

Sorry, I meant DirecTivos -- that's all I've ever used -- the old analog Tivo's didn't make sense to me -- only 1 tuner, addition monthly fee, and you still needed cable/sat.

DirecTV + TiVo has always been the way to go IMHO =) DirecTivos from 6yrs ago are better than the current cable/fios DVRs, which is sad. I'm excited that TiVo will be back with D* in a few more months.

Standalone TiVOs are too much $$$.

 

No, the FIOS DVR doesnt show the media guide in widescreen. If there is a setting to change that I have not seen it yet.

I can't say enough about FIOS video on demand however. It R O C K S. Love it love it, I'd drop DTV again in a heartbeat for it. There is hundreds of movies and shows ready to show, and they begin instantly when you select them. Kids shows are the best, everything from Little Einsteins to Buzz Lightyear episodes are available (all free). If you subscribe to HBO/Cin etc you get a ton of movies (plus HD movies) and specials available also. Shows like NBC Heroes is available (and current) on demand, CSI, Numbers, NCIS, Survivor, etc as well. And no kidding, there is literally hundreds of movies and shows ready on demand (and a lot in HD).

The streaming from the main DVR to other set top boxes is also a very cool feature we're slowly using more of. Being able to watch something upstairs, pause it and continue it in the kitchen is pretty amazing.

Beyond that I've gotten used to the GUI now. Once you learn to navigate everything its really no better or worse than anything else I've used (tivo included).

We also found you can select between the 2 tuners on the home media dvr with the 'last' button. Both keep whatever you are watching for I think the last hour.

You can also have multiple profiles which looks like, although only my wife has played with that. For example, I may want 200 channels only showing up in the guide where she may want 300.

 

I tried one FIOS VOD show (Grey's Anatomy) and they disabled FF/RW -- ugh! Is that common?

 

Verizon does that at ABC's request. It is not common.