Cobble Hill Blog

Comment from Mike
Time: February 3, 2010, 7:29 pm

FWIW, when I moved to Sackett & Smith 8 months ago and tried to transfer my Verizon DSL service, I was given a 2 month long run-around by Verizon that left a VERY bad taste in my mouth. For those who don’t know, their entire DSL ordering and service areas are outsourced to India, and from what I could tell their only job is to promise things to the customer that they can’t deliver on and never get resolved. I even had to file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau. Turns out, on my block not only don’t they offer FiOS, they don’t even offer DSL service either. This is what it took them 2 month to finally definitively tell me. Eventually I gave up and ordered broadband internet-only service from Time Warner and have been VERY happy. It’s MUCH faster than my past DSL service, it’s very reliable AND it only costs $32 per month. Between these issues and the fact that they like to tie everyone into 1 or 2 year contracts, I frankly think DSL and FiOS are for the birds. I will never deal with Verizon ever again, and that goes for internet and wireless service.

BTW, I’m a computer and network technician with 15 years experience, so I know pretty well what I’m talking about.

Comment from Jim
Time: February 4, 2010, 9:50 am

How do you get to pay only $32 a month? Our service is over $50 a month, and we only have broadband. Do you have any other services or are you involved with some introductory pricing?

Comment from Eason
Time: February 4, 2010, 10:37 am

For what its worth, as a bit of a home theater geek, I should advise everyone that FIOS is the best HD you can get. They dont (yet) cram 4 or 5 HD channels on the same pipeline, so the picture is probably the clearest you can get from anywhere.

Verizons customer service is about the same as Cablevision’s and Time Warner Cables, and as with most large cable and phone companies, your customer service is probably gonna suck sometimes. Most people will have totally different experiences with Verizon, sometimes good and many times bad. But you can’t beat the HD from this company. So the switch is up to you.

Comment from Joe N
Time: February 4, 2010, 11:02 am

This is good news! Remember, cable itself was slow to come to our areas, due to negot. between companies, and what it took to install/service the system… but after years now of being stuck with TW in Carroll Gardens, I’m now counting the days to check costs vs. the new FiOS service. Bring it on.

For one, I’m looking forward to the option vs. Time Warner. Their rates are outrageous, and they are going UP again here, within a few months. Our bill is over $100/month, due to Roadrunner and digital cable, and our street is NOT wired even for Verizon phone/internet service — which means we are captured. Renters cannot drill holes behind buildings for the dish (usually), so we are stuck with Time Warner.

When my wife/I lived in Park Slope, the Verizon internet service via the phone line was fine, faster than I’d ever imagined — and I’d have kept with that, if only our street in Carroll Gardens was wired. Who knows the details of Mike’s case, but one bad apple doesn’t spoil the whole bunch of what has been a very successful operation — someone has to be happy with the service, right? But, I guess Verizon had planned for this day — and frankly, I’m happy its coming closer.

Comment from Clampdown
Time: February 4, 2010, 11:56 am

I welcome the competition as well. TW has had the monopoly and they’ve abused their customers with that position. How does Mike only pay $32. My cable and internet connection alone from them is $143 a month (OK, I get HBO, too). It’s pretty outrageous.

Pingback from Dumbo NYC, Brooklyn » Archive » Verizon FiOS Service Coming to Dumbo (DumboNYC.com)
Time: February 4, 2010, 4:18 pm

[...] looks like cabling is being installed in Cobble Hill, according to Cobble Hill Blog, so maybe Dumbo installations aren’t too far off. Is anyone planning to make the switch? [...]

Comment from Mike
Time: February 5, 2010, 7:42 am

Sorry, I’m just coming back to this thread now…

As far as the HD quality of FiOS, I have no argument there. I do know that “HD” basically means that the screen resolution has to be at least 720 and that both TW and FiOS are doing at least that - FiOS would probably be able to do more channels at 1080 resolution.

As to how I get to pay only $32, Both time Warner and Verizon have unbundled their services (this may have been a government mandate, but don’t quote me). So you can order only DSL from Verizon or only broadband internet from Time Warner. When I used to have DSL, I actually “paid up” for a faster speed than Verizon’s minimum. I paid $37 for 3Mb download speed (their basic DSL is 1.5Mb download) and you can pay Verizon about $48 for about 10Mb download over FiOS without ordering any other services. Now, I pay $32 to Time Warner for about 10Mb download speed over their broadband (they only offer one broadband speed level I believe). So I am getting more for less. This may have been an introductory rate, but I don’t believe so. Anyway, all that is explained in the fine print on their respective websites. One other down-side about Verizon: they lock you into a contract for 1 or 2 years. So if you become unhappy with the service or run into a home budget crunch and want to cancel the service, you’re SOL and will be paying hundreds of $$ in early termination fees.

One of the things I use this internet access for is to watch streaming movies and TV shows from Netflix, Hulu, etc. on my TV (I have an HDMI cable running from the computer to the TV - the picture quality is very good). As for live TV broadcast, I have a set of rabbit ears to receive HD broadcast from about 20 local channels. For all of you paying over $100/month to Time Warner or considering doing the same to Verizon, do yourself a favor and check out the HD picture quality you can get over the the air - for FREE. Whenever I have people over and the TV’s on, they literally can’t believe their eyes. If I was running the cable TV company, I would be VERY worried about this phenomenon. Of course, with this setup I don’t get access to cable only channels, but all or most of that content is also available over the internet, or at the very least by renting the DVDs from Netflix. Also, when the cable companies had their recent tiff with the the Food Network, etc. those cable-only channels actually starting airing some of their shows on PIX channel 11. My prediction is that if cable service keeps getting more expensive and people switch to free broadcast reception, more of this cable only content will wind up on broadcast channels. But who knows…

Finally, the thing that bothered me the most about my Verizon customer service experience is that going into it, I was a loyal happy customer and their sheer ineptitude was what really bothered me. The people I was speaking to had absolutely no idea of their actual technological capabilities on the ground on my block.

All this said, I agree that more competition is better than less, so let the dealing begin!

Comment from Hoody
Time: February 5, 2010, 10:24 am

I have the set up like you have Mike, time warner broadband, free over the air HD channel and Netflix!

I highly recommend it: fairly cheap and flexible.

Comment from Clampdown
Time: February 5, 2010, 11:03 am

Thanks, Mike, for all of that info. I have heard of others having a similar set-up as you and Hoody. It may be time for me to try it.

Now where is that Time Warner blog troll, sorry, I mean monitor? There is a message for him to send to his masters.

Comment from Diana Rosenthal
Time: February 5, 2010, 11:13 am

So the $32 isn’t a 1-year introductory rate? I paid a decent rate the first year I signed up with Time Warner, but it went up significantly after that. Now my bill seems to increase with new fees and rates every time I read the fine print.

Comment from Michael
Time: February 6, 2010, 2:04 pm

What is everyone else paying for their internet service? I have broadband only and it costs just about $50. I would very much like to pay less; the service is terrible. Constant outages, slow rates. It’s very unreliable and certainly not worth that amount.

Comment from James
Time: February 10, 2010, 8:52 pm

Oh, please let FIOS arrive soon. We’re paying a fortune to TWC and yesterday, yet again, our cable box was ‘de-authorized’ for no apparent reason. Happily NY1 is now available on the web (and there’s a million ways to get it from the web to TV, including Mike’s)- another obstacle switching falls.