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Verizon Signs 1 Millionth FiOS Customer

By BetaNews Staff, BetaNews

June 20, 2007, 2:49 PM

In less than three years since the high-speed Internet, phone and TV service made its debut in limited regions across the United States, Verizon has signed its one millionth customer to FiOS. Nearly 500,000 of those customers also have FiOS TV, which debuted less than two years ago.

FiOS was an incredible undertaking for Verizon, which had to lay fiber optic cables to buildings and residences (a fact that largely has restricted its adoption in cities), in addition to gaining licenses to operate local television franchises. FiOS is currently available to 1,700 communities in 16 states, Verizon says, and the company has garnered many converts due to poor service from cable and DSL companies.

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By treworld

posted Jun 22, 2007 - 11:17 AM

When the hell will they offer/install FiOS in major cities like Philadelphia??? WTF!!! I'm sick and tired of DSL and cable.

Score: 0

By mkygrl7

posted Jun 22, 2007 - 7:29 AM

ok, let's see them use some of those profits to get us country folk wired up (so to speak). All these companies are growing and growing, but I'm still stuck with dial-up service as my only option

Score: 0

By darkzero63

posted Jun 22, 2007 - 3:41 AM

The moment that Verizon announces that Fios is available in my area I am dumping comcast.

Score: 0

By tigger4046

posted Jun 21, 2007 - 3:24 PM

I'm happy with my Brighthouse, for me it's $119 for the Digital Combo includes. Digital Cable + all standard cable has been digitized for better picture quality. This includes Free Ondemand Channels, 40+ MusicChoice stations, MyAccount onDemand, AnswersOnDemand, MoviesOnDemand, PPV, etc. RR Standard is 7MBPS, and Digital Phone with also includes Caller ID on TV, Unlimitted Nationwide. Also they provide free Home Networking services. Here's a true secret, if you apply to your local cable company and go onboard you will get huge incentives including knocking down the bill.

Find it if Brighthouse is available in your area www.mybrighthouse.com

Score: 0

By mrow

posted Jun 23, 2007 - 2:14 AM

What, do you work for Brighthouse or something? First, those channels are not really all digital. All the channels you can watch without a converter box are just digitized versions of the analog signal, so the picture quality is not improved at all. Second, Verizon tops everything you just mentioned, for a cheaper monthly price.

Score: 0

By smarterthanyou

posted Jun 22, 2007 - 4:00 AM

Why would anyone want cable internet if they can get a 15mbps fiber optic internet connection for the same price or less? As for cable TV, unless the cable company runs fiber optic cable right up to your house (which they don't), the cable signal will be converted to analog long before it gets to your house. Outdoor aerial and underground coaxial cables installed by cable companies do NOT carry digital TV signals under any circumstances. This is like Comcast's false advertising about their cable TV service being 100% digital.

Score: 0

By mjm01010101

edited Jun 21, 2007 - 11:43 AM

1997: Qwest DSL-> 2000:Excite Cable-->AT&T Cable-->Comcast Cable

Very, very few hiccups on the cable front. I don't use Comcast DNS, that is 99% of the issues I hear from people on Comcast. I had a cable modem die after 4 years, seems reasonable.

If Verizon FiOS was available in my neighborhood, though, I would drop Comcast in a heartbeat. speed > *

We have time warner fiber at work. I can easily upgrade to 1 gigabit speeds with a phone call.

Score: 0

By Rev OOC

edited Jun 21, 2007 - 1:23 AM

Verizon has been my DSL ISP for 5 or 6 years and I have been relatively happy with their service. The DSL speed, however, is only half the speed of the local cable company, about 1.3 KBps versus 3.0 KBps for Charter Cable. But my understanding is that Charter may have faster downloads, but their latency is quite slow.

I'd like to see Verizon install FIOS in the area and compete with Charter for the TV audience, as most folks in the area are unhappy with Charter. Charter needs competition. They continue to raise their prices yearly and offer no additional services. I'm presently paying about $110 per month, and I do not have all the channels available. And it's almost impossible to speak with somebody in the local Charter Office. The only telephone number they give out is to their service group in a city over 100 miles away. In addition, Directv and other Satelite providers have problems in this area which are difficult or impossible to overcome. Bad weather (read snow and heavy rain) can completely take out the satelite signal, and since I live in a National Forest with a dense growht of trees taller that 100 feet, satelite signals are weak or non-existent.

So I've called Verizon to see if and when FIOS will be available. They either cannot or will not give me an answer, only that they will notify me if and when it has been installed. Frankly, I think they are afraid to tell me that they have no intention to install FIOS in my community. I wish they would be honest with me. I'm not holding my breath.

Score: 0

By xyzcb1

edited Jun 21, 2007 - 9:59 AM

Verizon DSL lag is as bad as cable. During peak hour (evening and weekend), it went to the point that you cannot even browser the web. Of course, I can only speak from my experiences in NYC. I no longer with them because their customer services is terrible. They basically denied all charge and blame it on the customers, not only that, they will raise the voice and yell at you. Great, I submitted my BBB complaint and left them. Not say RR is any good, at least it works as advertise, for now.

For those who claim DSL is not sharing bandwidth with neighbor is a myth. If you can explain to me why during evening, the network is so damn lag.

Score: 0

By rsx508

posted Jun 21, 2007 - 12:39 AM

We have VZN FiOS here. Costs more than Cox for lesser service (lower bandwidth) and they charge more for each TV in the house (per TV connection) where Cox charges one fee for the TV connection to the house, you can split it until you run out of signal and no added cost from Cox. As much as I hate Cox and their monopoly (until FiOS came alive late last year) Verizon will have to do more to entice Cox customers to switch. Of the 500 or so houses in my neighborhood, only about 15 have switched .

Score: 0

By mrow

edited Jun 21, 2007 - 6:56 AM

The only reason that you can hook up so many TVs is because cable companies still have analog cable signals. They are trying to get rid of it though. Have you noticed as time goes on, less and less channels are available without digital cable? I would be willing to be that in 5 years you won't be able to get anything beyond the network TV stations without digital cable, so you'll have to pay for a box, like with Verizon and satellite is now. For me, Verizon works out great. I live in a house at school where we only use one TV, so we got FIOS TV with all the movie channels for 10 dollars less than Comcast wanted for digital cable with no premium channels. I'd also like to point out that the picture quality blows even digital cable or satellite out of the water. Verizon doesn't use any compression. It looks like I'm watching a DVD on every channel. I also pay the same price I would be paying for a cable modem (with modem rental fee), in which I'd only get 6000/384. For that same price with Verizon I get 15000/2000. And let me tell you, you really can notice the speed difference. The latency alone is about a 5th of what cable modem was.

Score: 0

By rsx508

posted Jun 21, 2007 - 8:45 AM

I won't argue on quality. Analog indeed blows, but the price for the *same* channels for one TV here (VZN FiOS) is $45/month. Cox is $33, and again, I don't have to pay another $45 for each additional TV, and I have 3 in my house. Verizon's FiOS internet doesn't come close to what I get with Cox, and it costs more.

Don't get me wrong, I really want to see Verizon step up and put heat on Cox and the others. We NEED competition in that space. The cable companies have become far too complacent and bloated and passing the costs on to us without adding new benefits to keep pace. I'm keeping my eye on what Verizon does here so I can decide when it makes sense to switch.

Score: 0

By Niro

edited Jun 21, 2007 - 9:28 AM

45/Month/TV??? Where did you come up with that crazy number? It's 45/month + $6/tv (depending on which box you want).

I just moved to a new house and got a quote from cablevision and verizon...internet from verizon (20/5) with all the tv channels and a phone with two HD DVR boxes came to be $160...same services from cablevision came out to $155. However with fios i'm not sharing my bandwidth with the entire neighborhood and I don't get capped if I upload too much...

Also you can't compare a digital service to an analog service...it's like comparing dsl to dialup.

Score: 0

By smarterthanyou

edited Jun 22, 2007 - 4:10 AM

I'm not familiar with the pricing for FiOS TV (not available in my area yet), but I know for Verizon's FiOS internet in Portland, Oregon they charge a one time fee of about $60 per room to install an ethernet connection in any additional rooms beyond the first one. I wouldn't be surprised if Verizon charged a similar fee for their FiOS TV service.

Score: 0

By mrow

posted Jun 23, 2007 - 2:07 AM

The ethernet is not necessary as they provide you with a wireless router for free. In any case, any ISP is going to charge you to run ethernet cable. As for TV, they will hook up, meaning run cable, for three TVs for free. They don't charge you to just plug in the actual box. FIOS TV uses your existing cable TV lines so no rewiring is necessary.

Score: 0

By kholdstare

posted Jun 20, 2007 - 10:43 PM

wish i could get something like this in my area. here we have cable which is crap and almost every port on the internet is capped to the max and then there's DSL which i have but the upload speeds are horrible

Score: 0

By xyzcb1

posted Jun 20, 2007 - 4:38 PM

I careless about the d/l, as long as it's about 3mpbs is fine. It's the upload that I want. The upload is so damn slow. I live in Manhattan, NYC, and sick and tire with RR and Verizon. Both of them such really bad. RR has faster d/l, but slow upload. Verizon has faster upload, but only certain time during the day. During evening, forget it. Call and complain and all I get was the advertising speed is "UP TO" so it could much slower.

Score: 0

By dkratter

posted Jun 20, 2007 - 11:13 PM

I live in Manhattan too, and my RoadRunner has actually been very good since I got it around 2001. I would suggest you look into something like cFosSpeed (http://fileforum.betanew.../cFosSpeed/1103571841/1), which has helped me maximize my upload bandwidth, especially for heavy BitTorrent usage.

Score: 0

By Hurmoth

posted Jun 20, 2007 - 4:35 PM

Wish I had this in my area :( I'd switch in a heart beat.

Score: 0

By Anastasia2007

posted Jun 20, 2007 - 3:35 PM

The cost of 30 mbps ($170) is outragous. I'd buy if it was normal.

Cox Cable offers me 15 mbps at the same price as Verizon's FiOS.

Score: 0

By Niro

posted Jun 21, 2007 - 9:00 AM

$170?? Here in NJ I'm getting 20down/5up for $45

Score: 0

By VikingBlade

posted Jun 20, 2007 - 5:55 PM

Indeed, and they only offer FIOS speeds where FIOS competes with them...

Score: 0

By rsx508

posted Jun 21, 2007 - 12:41 AM

Not here in S.E. Virginia. Cox was offering 15mbps before VZ announced they were going to start routing FiOS around town.

Score: 0

By arossetti

posted Jun 20, 2007 - 3:19 PM

They could have 1,000,001 for if they'd get to my neighborhood :D

Score: 0

By deminicus

posted Jun 20, 2007 - 10:18 PM

word up

Score: 0

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