About Verizon: FIOS the technology functions, the company sucks. I have MUCH more forceful language I forbear to use here.
We currently use Comcast triple play where I live in Hopewell Township, although Verizon is also available here. Comcast is more expensive, but you can work your way thru their phone reps to finally talk to someone competent (hint--call after midnight, geek time) and their sales reps are less likely to flat out lie.
We used to have a Verizon landline. About 10 years ago, the Verizon CEO stated that the company's future profit was in mobile devices. And whenever there was heavy rain and wind, our landline function deteriorated or failed completely. It would take several calls to Verizon to schedule repair days later, consume at least 4 hrs waiting for them to show up, and convince the sub-contracted limited-skills repair guy that the issue was not the wiring inside the house, which I knew was good because I ran it to the junction box. We then had to reschedule and wait again for someone with the skillset and truck with a ladder show up to repair the copper line on the pole behind the house. This continued for the next few years, with the monthly charge for this landline increasing each year.
Twice the initial appointment produced a guy with a van plastered with FIOS logos who asked if we wanted to "upgrade" to FIOS. We declined, he then told us he did not have the equipment to fix the landline and we should call to schedule an appointment. When a competent guy got here, he told us the company did not issue equipment to fully repair and maintain the copper lines; all he could do was switch our phone line to less deteriorated copper lines. When our landline did work, the voice quality was poor, often with fragments of other customers' conversations. We finally gave up and went from Comcast internet and TV to a triple play bundle.
In a power outage, we've got a crank am/fm/weather radio to receive info and a ham radio to broadcast.
I won't tell the story here about how Verizon contracted tree trimming to prepare the street behind our property for the fiber optic line to a landscape company whose employees butchered our cedar trees (can you say branch collar? No? Duh.) And how the Verizon supervisor onsite was rude, contentious, and deceptive when I stopped them. This in complete contrast to the way Atlantic Electric trimmed the higher branches along the same right-of-way.
Last spring I was among the crowd of several hundred people attending the meeting in Estell Manor where representatives from the state BPU were presented with statements re Verizon's failure to enable internet access for that and other rural communities. Steve Sweeney and representatives from communities in Atlantic County as well as my part of Cumberland County were there.
Without landlines, 911 dispatch is problematic. Need an ambulance in Shiloh? Good luck.
Until I heard what people had to say at this meeting, I did not appreciate how well off I was to have both Comcast and Verizon available. Without reliable internet, people cannot run a business, medical offices cannot function, alarm systems don't work, kids can't get homework assignments
Verizon may have improved. I still won't deal with them.
currently contemplating getting my own 60' antenna tower for over the air tv.
They are all the same.
