FIOS is coming to rural Atlantic County

[Boyd]

Just received this from Jeff Van Drew;

"…As a result of our efforts to bring broadband service to rural Atlantic County, Verizon has agreed to install FIOS in Weymouth Township, Estell Manor and Corbin City. This was done without the intervention of the BPU or other State regulators. Simply by the hard work of our community and its leaders.

We are happy to say that you will be able to begin signing up for FIOS services by the end of the year. We are continuing to push Verizon to move up their timeline, but happy that things are finally moving in the right direction…"

Sounds good, but the skeptic in me won't believe it until I see the Verizon truck arrive with an 800 foot spool of fiber to run down my driveway.

 

[Teegate]

Cut them 12 hour uploads down to 12 seconds.

 

[Boyd]

Cut them 12 hour uploads down to 12 seconds.

Just ordered the 150mbs package (the fastest they are offering here) and have an install appointment for this Friday. So it won't be quite that good, but based on my DSL speed I should see a 12 hour upload go down to something like 4 minutes. I can live with that.

Will be interesting to see how they bury 800 feet of cable in the woods, I don't know where the existing line is but hopefully they do. There has been an army of Verizon trucks and technicians all over Estell Manor for the past month or so, very impressive. This is good timing as I try to finish up my new topo map, it will be big upload, perhaps as large as 10GB.

 

[dogg57]

Just received this from Jeff Van Drew;

"…As a result of our efforts to bring broadband service to rural Atlantic County, Verizon has agreed to install FIOS in Weymouth Township, Estell Manor and Corbin City. This was done without the intervention of the BPU or other State regulators. Simply by the hard work of our community and its leaders.

We are happy to say that you will be able to begin signing up for FIOS services by the end of the year. We are continuing to push Verizon to move up their timeline, but happy that things are finally moving in the right direction…"

Sounds good, but the skeptic in me won't believe it until I see the Verizon truck arrive with an 800 foot spool of fiber to run down my driveway.

Good luck I hope it all goes well for you

 

[turtle]

Boyd, let me know how it works out. They are claiming the same for us in Washington Township on the rural Burl. Co. side..... I too have my reservations.

 

[Jon Holcombe]

Will be interesting to see how they bury 800 feet of cable in the woods.

About 5 years ago I had Comcast. There were problems with a "node" in my development, whenever it rained my service went down, and neighbors adjacent would lose internet for days at a time. A neighbor across the street was raving about Verizon, I got it and have not looked back since. I have 75 mb up/down FIOS service. I routinely upload 500 mb of files to three different printers, on my Mac, using Fetch or InSite (Kodak proprietary software) and it takes about 10 min. I also stream movies and TV shows using Netflix and Amazon. That can be erratic on occasion, but I do not think Fios is the bottleneck. I think any problems are the result of the interface and software between my TV, Verizon, Mac, the Router, and Netflix. Overall, I rate Comcast a 1 and Verizon a 9 (out of 10).

By the way, they buried about 100 ft of the orange optical tube and cable on my property. They used a "mole" from what I understand.

 

[Boyd]

I had Comcast for several years in Medford and had no complaints. That house was 300 feet off the road but there were utility poles. The young installer looked bewildered when he saw this back in 2003 and called a more experienced guy who took charge and everything went smoothly. No real problems with their service. But it is not available here.

Glad to hear you are happy with the 75/75 FIOS - I could have gotten that for the same price I'm paying for DSL. The 150/150 is about $15 more, but after 11 years in the Stone Age, I have a lot of catching up to do... I was hoping they would offer their gigabit service here. https://www.verizon.com/home/fios-gigabit-connection/

Got off to a rough start though. There were two links in the e-mail for placing the order, one of them was broken and the other hung forever when I entered my account info.

So I logged into my Verizon account and it said FIOS was not available. Then I started from scratch, entered my address and it said FIOS was available. Went through the whole process up to the final step of placing the order and noticed that the service address was wrong with no option to change (I have a weird address that confuses a lot of software).

Used the online chat feature and she kept saying to just place the order and it would be OK since I entered my correct address at the beginning. When I pressed her, after a long delay she said my address wasn't in their records (which is ridiculous) and I should cancel the order and call Verizon. Still not sure whether I was chatting with a bot or a human.

Got a guy on the phone who was very efficient and friendly, he had no problem finding my house. He also said they provide the router at no charge, although it remains their property. The online ordering system said you either had to purchase it for $150 or rent for $10/month so that saved me a lot. It only took a few minutes to place the order and schedule the install. So @turtle , I suggest you call Verizon (the number on your phone bill) if you get FIOS, their web ordering system is a mess.

 

[46er]

FWIW, make sure your read the fine print. A friend had it, had many issues, tried to cancel and he had no out other to pay a penalty fee to cancel. Was going to go to small claims, but decided to pay and be done with it. My son had their 3'fer package, all worked well, but after the special new customer deal ended it got very expensive. They are all the same, since your captive to them I hope it works well for you.

 

[Boyd]

Yeah, that is always a worry. The fine print said the price was good for two years (until June 2019) and there is supposed to be no contract. I am not getting any TV package, not interested. I didn't want the phone either, the only reason I have a landline now is for DSL. That is another confusing thing on their site, when I talked to the rep in person he said for existing customers their migration package includes the phone service and is the same cost as a data only plan. The quotes they provided confirmed this although it is not explained if you order FIOS online.

Thing is, even if I don't like it or think it is too expensive.... it's my only option for "real" broadband. With cellular LTE service getting much cheaper and offering "unlimited" (with some caveats) data, I was starting to think about that before they brought FIOS. I sometimes connect my computer to my cell phone now because it's much faster than DSL. But it would still be a very expensive primary option at current prices, and also much slower than FIOS.

 

[enormiss]

They all do that gouging after the introduction period (typically every 2years).
I've been bouncing back and forth for many many years.
Prefer fios (current provider) over comcast but not enough to pay extra vs. a competitor for it...

 

[Jon Holcombe]

Thing is, even if I don't like it or think it is too expensive.... it's my only option for "real" broadband.

The two year contract is standard, but I pay Verizon less now than I did when I started 5 or 6 years ago, and my up/down speed has increased by 25 mb. I do have TriplePlay: two phone lines, TV and internet, but in my case I negotiated with them to get a better deal. Some reps are better than others. If I don't get an answer I like I just call back. When I threaten to switch to Comcast, they seem to pay attention.

 

[46er]

If you only need I'Net, there is always HughesNet. Its delivered via satellite and not that much more than the well known options. The state uses it for their more remote places and is available anywhere. A few folks we know use it for their RV's.

http://internet.hughesnet.com/gen5.html

 

[Boyd]

If you only need I'Net, there is always HughesNet.

Yeah, I already know all about them, that is what I had when I moved here in 2006 because DSL was not available. I got their top commercial package with the larger (1 meter) dish since I read about lots of problems with the smaller ones - it was quite expensive. Speeds were comparable to DSL in that era (a little under 1 mbit/sec IIRC) but the latency was horrible which made it really unpleasant to use.

A year later I got rid of it and got DSL which was a huge improvement and much cheaper. I had to pay Hughes an early termination fee, but the price difference was such that I broke even in just a few months. Have not used their newer systems but I'm sure it must be an issue, due to the distance of the satellites and time it takes the data to go through their infrastructure.

 

[46er]

Yeah, the latency will always be a problem, weather as well. But if your choice is very limited it is an option.

 

[dogg57]

Hey If its Friday Its Boyds day for Fios

 

[Boyd]

Thanks Dogg. But unfortunately my skepticism was justified. Received a call from Verizon saying their system is not yet ready in my area and the earliest they can re-schedule is the end of June. We shall see what happens then, there are some unique things about my location that cause me to remain a skeptic.

 

[dogg57]

Thanks Dogg. But unfortunately my skepticism was justified. Received a call from Verizon saying their system is not yet ready in my area and the earliest they can re-schedule is the end of June. We shall see what happens then, there are some unique things about my location that cause me to remain a skeptic.

Jerks

 

[46er]

Received a call from Verizon saying their system is not yet ready in my area and the earliest they can re-schedule is the end of June.

Just a suggestion; you might consider waiting awhile and let them get over any growing pains.

 

[Boyd]

What fun would that be? I was an early DSL adopter in the 1990's in Medford, from some little local company. There were lots of problems but it sure was better than a 56k modem. I also setup the first internet service at my office in Philadelphia in the 90's using a server I built and managed myself, we leased a 56k line from the phone company to PSInet. It was very expensive, but it was actually very fast for that era (completely different from a consumer 56k modem), it handled 15 or 20 users surprisingly well. Later we upgraded to 128k and then a T-1 line a couple years later. Plenty of headaches along the way, we finally reached the point of out-sourcing our IT services as the company grew.

But anyway, I'm used to living on the edge.

 

[Boyd]

Next try will be June 22. Have to say, both of the Verizon reps I've spoken to were really personable and knowledgeable. Had to wait on hold for awhile, but the experience is much better than their website.