Verizon’s FiOS TV

I’ve been a Verizon FiOS Internet customer for almost two years now and have enjoyed the service. I had been a Comcast Cable Modem customer prior to the Verizon FiOS Internet installation but had grown frustrated with the large amount of packet loss, frequent disconnects and the poor bandwidth/throughput.

The time came today to cut the last ties with Comcast. The Verizon technician and myself had everything installed and cabled within 60 minutes. I should explain that my house is only eight years old and was cabled with RG-6 to every room in the house. We also replaced the original D-Link Wireless eXtreme G router with a Verizon Actiontec MI424WR router (pictured to the right). I had heard of some horror stories with the Actiontec MI424WR router and anyone using AT&T’s Call Vantage VoIP service. It just happens that I’m an AT&T CV customer and a happy one at that. Thankfully though it looks like Verizon and Actiontec have worked out the problems that were affecting the MGCP protocol that AT&T uses.

Once the technician had registered the Motorola set top boxes with the Verzion backend systems everything came right up. I went with the following equipment;

• (2) Motorola QIP6200 HD
• (1) Motorola QIP6416 HD DVR
• (1) Motorola QIP2500 SD

I have three HD TVs in the house and a few SD TVs as well. The QIP6416 HD DVR was placed in the family room attached to a Sony KV-30HS420 26″ Widescreen HD CRT (this beast is almost 200lbs). One of the QIP6200s was placed in the basement attached to a Hitachi 51″ 51SWX20B HD Projection TV. The second QIP6200 was attached to a Samsung 19″ LNT1953H HD LCD. The QIP2500 was connected to an old RCA TV.

It looks like I’ll be saving about 25% over what I was paying Comcast.

I’m happy to recommend Verizon’s FiOS service to anyone that might be so lucky to have FiOS available in their area. The picture quality is awesome and the price is right too!

Cheers!

Update: February 23, 2008

I’ve had Verizon’s FiOS TV for almost a month now. The entire family including myself are generally very pleased with the service. I still need to refer to the channel guide in order to find a specific channel or station because there are just so many channels. I’ve observed a few occasions where the program data contained in the guide was wrong but that’s to be expected from time to time. I was disappointed when I set the DVR to record Lost and it recorded 30 minutes of Jerry Seinfeld along with the first 30 minutes of Lost.

I would agree with those folks that call the Verizon FiOS Interactive Guide very “busy”. There is a lot going on and it’s sometimes difficult to focus and read through the content with it being so busy.

On another note I’ve only had one issue with the Verizon Actiontec MI424WR router. It seems from time to time that the router is unable to resolve DNS requests. If I statically configure my PC to use the Verizon DNS servers directly I don’t have any issues.

Cheers!

Update: May 2, 2008

I jut recently received a letter from Verizon informing me about a change in Verizon FiOS TV that may impact my service.

Over the next year, Verizon will continue to improve the Verizon FiOS TV experience by transitioning all analog FiOS TV channels to a 100% digital format. In addition to extending the quality of digital to all TVs in your home, this change will enable Verizon to bring you even more of the great HD and special interest content you’ve come to expect from FiOS TV. Customers subscribing to Verizon FiOS TV will experience this transition to an all-digital service beginning in June. Shortly after this transition, you’ll see even more great content from Verizon.

It seems that Verizon will be providing FREE equipment to all current subscribers that still have analog TVs connected in their house.

This should be very interesting period as the looming all-digital conversion gets closer.

Cheers!