Michael McNamara

technology, networking, virtualization and IP telephony

Verizon FiOS and Customer Support

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VerizonActiontecGen3I’m a Verizon FiOS Internet and TV (and Verizon Wireless) customer. I’ve been using Verizon FiOS Internet since 2006 and Verizon FiOS TV since 2008 here in the Philadelphia suburbs. I’m happy to say that I’ve been very pleased with the service – even though the prices have gone up significantly since my original post in 2008. You actually get an Internet connection with 25Mbps up and 25Mbps down and the picture quality of their High Definition channels is superb.

Over the past two months I started experiencing intermittent connectivity problems with my Verizon FiOS Internet service. I noticed that I would loose all Internet access once sometimes twice a night during the evenings. The service would drop out for usually 2-3 minutes at a time although on January 5th it dropped out for about 15-20 minutes right in the middle of a gaming session with some friends while playing Planetside 2.

VerizonSupportTweetI posted to Twitter that I was having difficulty with my Verizon FiOS Internet service and @VerizonSupport replied to my tweet. Yes, they actually replied to my tweet!

Long story short they asked me to fill out a very short web form and two days later they shipped a replacement Verizon Wireless Router (BHR) – thanks Adam! I installed the replacement router last night and so far so good.

Let me commend Verizon for their use of social networking… fantastic way to connect with their users and cut through all the red tape.

I’m another very satisfied Verizon FiOS customer!

Cheers!

Verizon FiOS Upgrade

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I’ve been extremely busy over the last three months both personally and professionally and the lack of posts on my blog has begun to show. So today I thought I would post a quick blurb around my Verizon FiOS experiences.

Last week I finally made the time to renew my contract with Verizon for their FiOS TV Extreme HD and FiOS Internet 25/25. I also added Verizon’s Home Media (Multi-Room) DVR replacing the older QIP 6416 DVR with a new QIP 7416 HD DVR STB. I’ve been very happy with the service Verizon has provided over the past 30 months. Over that period I’ve only experienced two service outages, I can’t say the same of my previous experiences with Comcast. As you can expect I’m a very serious power user and I do a LOT of work from home over SSL/VPN/SSH. So I’m very aware of my Internet performance and I’m very excited to tell you that when you purchase Verizon’s FiOS Internet 25/25 (25Mbps up/25Mbps down) you can actually expect to get 25/25. There’s something to be said about an Internet connection when you can download Call of Duty: Black Ops which weighs in at just over 8GB at a blazing 3.1MB/s in under 40 minutes.

Verizon also just announced Verizon Flex View which allows Verizon FiOS subscribers to access On demand content via your desktop, laptop or mobile device. I’m curious though if Verizon’s Flex View is just centered around paid content or if they allow access to their entire On demand library. And let’s not forget about Verizon’s Media Manager which is a great little application for sharing your computer based content with your Verizon FiOS set top boxes and ultimately your TVs. I’ll be honest and say that I haven’t tried either Verizon’s Flex View or Media Manager just yet (no time) but Call of Duty: Black Ops just finished downloading so it’s time to go kick the tires on that game. :)

Cheers!

Verizon launches MyVerizon 2.0 portal in Philadelphia

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When I logged in to my Verizon webmail last week I was prompted to upgrade to the MyVerizon 2.0 portal. Always interested in trying out new things I responded “Yes” and have been very happily surprised with the new portal.

I believe Verizon announced this new portal back in April 2010, but only just recently started rolling it out to customers, or at least customers in the Philadelphia, PA area.

The first big thing I noticed (besides the redesigned site) is that Verizon is now encrypting the user credentials with an HTTPS/SSL connection. Let me just say the following, “its about time!”. Up until now you couldn’t login to webmail.verizon.net over a non-encrypted public hotspot for fear of someone potentially stealing your user credentials. So for me that single change is really exciting. Just a quick warning for those non-technical folks out there. While your user credentials are secured the actual contents of your email messages are still transmitted in the clear.

I’m curious what anyone else thinks of the new MyVerizon portal?

Cheers!

Verizon FiOS to block SMTP Port 25

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I received an electronic notice (email message) from Verizon last week indicating that they will start blocking SMTP (TCP Port 25) on or around June 1, 2010 for all Verizon FiOS customers.

Their taking this action in hopes of stemming the flow of SPAM from infected home personal computers.

I’ve never heard of Mail Submission (TCP Port 587) before this announcement so I had to Google for it and do a little research. It looks to me like Mail Submission is just SMTP with authentication although I could be wrong, perhaps someone would help clarify the benefits of using TCP port 587 over 25.

In any event, if you are a Verizon FiOS subscriber and you use a regular email client you’ll probably need to make some configuration changes.

You can find the official Verizon announcement here.

Cheers!

Verizon’s FiOS TV

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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!

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