Finally-and I hope I am not disappointed: The town I live in has

[yy4me]

given the license to Verizon to offer FIOS and give some competition to the much hated Comcast. The town has been getting tons of complaints about Comcast and has finally listened to its citizens.

I only hope Verizons offerings are more balanced than that of Comcast. Our TV is awful. I never flip the power switch on any more and have not for months. They have done a lot of things so poorly that they have lost tons of customers. They even took away MSNBC and after that I dropped to basic offering. 22 channels with the worst programming imaginable.

If I dropped Cable TV altogether, my Internet service cost would go up to more than I am paying now for basic TV and Internet.

This is not a home shopping town (3 channels), not a spanish speaking town(4), do not need 3 PBS stations within this 22 channel range. WE get 4 news stations including-ugg-FOX, the cooking channel and our town sponsored channel.

Anyone in the other North Shore towns have basic or extended FIOS and what do you think of your service and the offerings.

[JenniferJuniper]

1. Might be worth looking into

I'm on the South Shore, but here are my rambles for what they might be worth:

There are some pluses with FIOS. Better HD picture, they don't charge me extra for Turner Classic Movies (a major peeve I had with Comcast), and you'll probably be able to get a better pricing deal with them, at least for the first year, than you have with Comcast, especially if you have home phone and internet with them. (the "triple play") Plus, they'll snake new wire anywhere in your house you want cable, something Comcast would never agree to do. And the technicians are far better than the Comcast techs. (looking back, I've really had a lot of hellish cable technician experiences in my life.) Verizon usually only assigns their better technicians to Fios jobs.

Negatives - The remote control is non-intuitive, the On Demand interface is visually busy and less stream-lined than Comcast, and at least in my community, there is much less local access programming. So if you are into town politics, you might miss out. (They claim this is going to change soon, but they've been saying that for awhile.) Also, I find Verizon's customer service much more difficult to reach, although, on the plus side, once you get someone, they are usually more helpful than Comcast was.

Finally, if you have a big household with multiple TVs and broadband, with cable there is a drop off in signal quality with each box added. Because Verizon is fiber optic, there is much greater capacity. Not an issue for me, but my neighbor Mr. Green who is so serene and has a TV in every room loves FIOS for that reason alone.

[JayMusgrove]

2. I have Verizon in my town. It's better than Comcast, for sure.

It's about $100 a month for clearer TV, nationwide and Canada free phone, (not AK and HI,but Puerto Rico is included for phone), and about 200 TV channels, C-Span 1.2.3 all news channels and Fox Comedy News channel, too...

I have more TV than I can ever watch, WE, Discovery Investigative Channel, all sorts of law and order stuff, all sorts of news, including BBC-America News, which is better than MSNBC much of the morning.


I love the TV, the phone is great, the computer internet is fast and reliable, and comes with free wireless for all over the house for my laptop.

You will love it, and Verizon offers a sign-up "dessert" or wine and cheese meeting locally ... where you sign up and get fed.

Comcast sucks, we had it for 2 years, now we have Verizon and it's much better, about as perfect as you can ask for.
Only problem, I spend too much time watching TV now, and too much time on the internet. Phone is fine, with caller ID and voice mail and all that stuff... never use half the features.


Only problem, is that if you have a problem, it takes a couple days to get a fix. Phone support almost nonexistent, probably in India or somewhere... but if everything goes well, you won't need it. I have had no problems in the last 18 months, but my neighbor had a problem took 2 days to fix.

[Rockholm]

3. North Shore Here....

Can you stand it that there are the channels that you mentioned! Why the hell am I paying for all those crappy channels between 11 and 22? Ugh.
I remember when the Comcast tech came to hook up my phone service, she said that she lived in NH and they had FIOS, which is much better than cable. I can't wait.
What town are you in?

[yy4me]

4. I'll give you a hint, between Lynn and Salem. I grit my teeth every

time I pay that bill to Comcast knowing I can't stand to watch their crummy offerings. When I called the Comcast town liaison, I was told the miserable offerings given to us were based on demographics and that it was the decision of Comcast as to what towns are combined to make that particular demographic.

Arguing with Comcast about our town needs has been a futile effort. Its all about advertising dollars. 11 to 22, you've got it bot you forgot 9, or the 3 PBS, 2,11,16,--you know the others.

Comcast has already lost me as soon as FIOS is available. I have heard however that MSNBC will still not be offered on the more basic plans. I wonder why we always seem to have Faux(ch 13 or 14) but not MSNBC.

[yy4me]

6. Morning Rockholm, I just got off the phone with Verizon about

my stupid phone bill($2.85 for calls, the rest, totaling $28.87 is for taxes and fees) and at the same time, I asked the rep about FIOS. I was told that the package offered to us(I'm in M'head) would end up costing me about $99.00 a month--plus tax and fees bringing the bill to about $125.00-$130.00. I guess my ranting about Comcast basic will have to stop and I will be without my favorite stations. Just as it is with Comcast for Internet and Basic, Fios is still a chunk of change. I added up phone, internet and cable that I have now and still come out less than FIOS. Plus with FIOS, I would have to rent 3 boxes and be charged per month in addition to the above mentioned costs.

Can't win!

[hyphenate]

5. Old post right now, but I should

mention that I hate cable, period. I had it years ago in California, but they wouldn't offer the Sci-fi channel, so I pissed off and got satellite. What a difference! When I came back east, I stayed with the satellite, and it hasn't disappointed me much at all.

Three years ago, I added Tivo to the mix, and love that as well. I don't really watch much anymore--I record what I want, have it transferred to the computer, and watch it on my laptop. I then save the shows I want to keep, and back them up onto DVDs. I've got a good sized library now, and I don't have to worry about buying overpriced DVD sets.

Everyone's got what they really want on TV, but it is kind of fun to remind people that 40 years ago, we had three networks, one PBS channel, and about one or two local stations. That was all. Sometimes, I think that we have gotten more than enough now. Twenty years from now, we will be expected to watch three or more shows at the same time, and the data will come directly into the receiver in our brains. And it will be portioned out in small segments, because people just don't have the ability to sit and watch longer pieces. :)