Goodbye to Comcast, Hello FiOS!
Mar 7th, 2007 by Alex
Comcast has been irritating me lately with their lack of support and continuous price increases. After numerous complaints and their failure to fix problems I’ve decided to take my business elsewhere. I don’t watch a lot of television and have been watching fewer movies on HBO and Showtime, so I decided to dump the television altogether. I can always visit Redbox if I want a new release that one of my friends don’t already own. End result? My data-only FIOS install is scheduled two weeks from today. 5Mb down and 2Mb up should be plenty, since I don’t do any bandwidth intensive things besides streaming SomaFM. Once up, it should be pretty smooth sailing and a $70/month savings. Bonus.
Timeline
- 7 March, 5pm - Ordered online.
- 8 March, 4pm - Miss Utility markings complete.
- 10 March, 1pm - Team of five burying fiber in the backyard, but to a neighbors’ house. Why they wouldn’t do mine at the same time is beyond me.
- 13 March, 4pm - Miss Utility markings really complete. Earlier markings were obviously for my neighbor’s installation. Markings come right up to my NID.
- 14 March, 3pm - Fiber is run to the NID. Hooray for Corning optical cable! They even put grass seed down after they filled everything in!
- 21 March, 3pm - Linda (of Verizon) arrives and begins installing outdoor components.
- 21 March, 4:30pm - Indoor work commences.
- 21 March, 5:30pm - Megapath speed-test to San Francisco finishes at 5180/1693; pretty close to the advertised 5000/2000 and a lot better than Comcast’s 1790/357. Yeah-uh!
I couldn’t figure out from the online info what channels were provided at what level of service beyond “Local”. Did you get the full package or the middle one?
I don’t even think television service is included in my rate. I really only want the data portion, although if they happen to include local channels with that I guess I’ll watch ‘em.
Will you be moving vision to your house for hosting since you have the new pipe?
DJ: Nope. I purchased residential service. Vision is already on business class FiOS.