So a guy from Comcast comes to my door yesterday, telling me that he can provide the phone, internet, and cable bundle for $ 109 per month for 12 months, and then go to $ 136 per month for the second year. Two year contract, so at the end of this time I am a free agent once again. He will include the premium channels I already get with Fios, but will add Starz.

Call Verizon to see what they will do in response. They agree to drop from the $ 228.00 I am currently paying to $ 179 per month.

I will apparently have to pay Verizon $ 179 to get out of my current contract, but Comcast will throw in a $ 150 credit for that.

Anyone want to share with me their thoughts on Comcast? I have generally been pleased with Fios, and it never goes out in storms, etc.

Verizon said something about their speed is 35-35 and Comcast offers 25-25, which the Comcast guy confirmed. I am not a computer expert, and don't really need blazing speed or anything.

Thanks, and have a Happy New Year!

If you"re pleased with your current service, why switch?

Comcast is cheaper, and their service is terrible. I was having major issues with the television signal, but the phone and internet worked. They never bothered to bury the line in the backyard to any of the houses, and a lawnmower had clipped a line. The technicians kept telling me that was the problem, except there is only one line going into the house, and my internet and phone worked fine. he kept saying it was the line that was cut, but didnt' take into account that the phone and internet was working by magic. I waited 3 weeks for a new line to be put in, was told that the cut line wasnt' even going to my house, and had to wait for another service call. After 3 calls, someone finally thought that it might be the cable box itself, and brought in a replacement, which magically fixed the problem. Then my internet went out a month later....
Every time I called to complain, I was told that anything involving a rebate would need a manager, and they would have one call me back within an hour. If I ever got a call back, it was less than half the time, and at least 2 days later. When I called about a manager not calling me back, they actually told me it's their policy to let you calm down and call 48 hours after the fact.

Look at their rating in the BBB and various other complaint boards, and you'll see that they suck across the board. When Fios showed up in my neighborhood, essentially everyone in the area switched to it.

You pay a lot more for fios, and they have a lot of hidden charges that you don't get to see until you are locked into a contract, so they're not much better, but at least their service is there. I've had a 1 day outage with Fios over the past 4 years.

How much will Comcast charge if you want to switch away from them before that two year period is over?

FWIW, I've heard more complaints about Comcast than I have about FIOS.

Thank you for the feedback. I know, why switch if I am pleased? Well, truth be told, finances are pretty damn tight these days. I need a reliable computer connection for my kids, and a reliable long distance carrier for all of my out of state relatives.

I guess it comes down to money, service, and trying to save a few bucks.

When Fios offered to come down in price so quickly, I was leaning towards staying with them.

As far as I'm concerned Fios is the devil you do know. I hate them. I pay 179.00/mo. so they're not doing you any favors. The Internet speed is supposedly faster at 35/35 vs. 25/25 for Cox or comcast and yet seems slower than when we first got it. I do not believe that it's actually 35/35 for upload/download anymore, and my computer is just fine. Fios seems to stay just a bit more competative so people will stay with them. I have hope that with Comcast adding competition one of these companies will actually shine....one day.

Hmmmm - I have had both, and currently have Verizon. Not sure why they charge you so much. $ 179 seems to be going rate. Comcast is known as "Comcant" around these parts - service is a terrible thing to behold! If money is the problem, maybe you can see if they will match Comcast, although I will bet that they will tell you they are more expensive because they have superior speed, lines, equipment, etc.

Comcast gives you the run-around about their "deals" more than any other company I've done business with. They say that you'll be paying $109 a month, but the first few months they'll charge you double that. You'll spend an hour on the phone getting the extra fees removed.

Word of advice to Comcast customers: Any time you're having trouble, immediately ask the operator to be transfered to person who will cancel your service. You'll be given the best deals they can offer and you can vent some rage.

Hope it works.

They both suck! Really! They do! Verizon sucks less!

Comcast would have to be free IMO for the savings to be worth it. I used to have it but have FIOS now and its a night and day difference. While the few extra bucks is always nice I think you would regret making the switch personally

If you really need the money you could always cancel some of the premium channels and get something like netflix or hulu

Can't comment on Comcast. Haven't had many problems with FIOS (the PC transmitter/receiver or whatever its called died once, but customer service was surprisingly helpful and competent and they immediately sent out a new unit).

One complaint - Verizon released an "upgrade" to their TV display a couple of months back that made the screen impossible to read on anything less than a 32" TV and really slowed everything down. Pissed off lots of customers. They told me that they'd be releasing a fix to these problems shortly, but they haven't. Otherwise, no complaints (except the cost).

Comcast customer service sucks ass. My line was cut when their non-english-speaking cut-rate subcontractors installed service at my neighbor's house. They ran a line above ground to my neighbor to be buried later. Comcast came out quickly and fixed it - so it wasn't too bad.

Another set of the stupid non-english-speaking cut-rate subcontractors cut my line again when they buried my neighbor's line. That repair took a week and finally a threat to cancel service before I got it fixed. Their "real techs" (not subcontractors) are overworked and will use any excuse to skip an appointment. I didn't answer the phone in time and called back immediately - was tagged as a missed appointment and put out another week. bullshit. I also got some traction when I mentioned that their cutting my line in the ground would probably not have happened had they properly contacted Miss Utility - and it would be a shame to be without service much longer...

FIOS is more expensive, but they haven't failed me. I was a paying customer that was fat/dumb/happy with Comcast and they fucked it up.

They did release a fix. You can now choose a standard def or hi def guide.

MENU > SETTINGS > VIDEO SETTINGS > GRAPHICS SETTINGS > choose HD or SD.





FIOS Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> One complaint - Verizon released an "upgrade" to
> their TV display a couple of months back that made
> the screen impossible to read on anything less
> than a 32" TV and really slowed everything down.
> Pissed off lots of customers. They told me that
> they'd be releasing a fix to these problems
> shortly, but they haven't. Otherwise, no
> complaints (except the cost).

Comcast has the worst customer service reps, but I did have sex with one of the install guys! He lit up my box in more ways than one - allowing me to get free pay per view, premium channels, etc until they ran a bullet through my hot box...

Verizon customer service / installation is a joke. I moved across town recently and they want $60 just to come out and flip a few switches to move my service over. On top of that, they've already missed three separate appointments for a total of 12 hours over 3 weeks that I've had to miss work just to have them cancel after the four hour window was up. Each time I've called the customer service line to be put on hold for almost an hour just to be told there's nothing they can do about it but they'll be sure to make the next appointment because "rescheduling is rare", and a second time is "unheard of", let alone times number 3, 4, and 5. So I've been sitting here in my new place for almost a month now with no TV and the only internet I can get is taking my laptop down the street to McDonald's.

I also strongly suggest not ordering via Verizon's website. After you enter your address, it will advertise a bundle at one price, but as soon as you click on it the price jumps $20/month (and that's not including the $15/month for a DVR or the fact that after 6 months the price will jump another $15/month making it $50/month higher than what they advertise).

I was originally trying to stay away from Comcast because I've always heard bad things about their customer service, but I'm not sure how it can be any worse than this. If I'm going to get this abysmal level of service either way I'm going to just save the $25/month and go with Comcast instead.

I've had FIOS for internet & phone since it came to Falls Church ... over 4 years ago if memory is correct. Have only had two small problems:

1. Wireless modem lost wireless capability. Verizon FedEx'd me a new unit overnite.

2. Phones stopped ringing. Bizarre. The call center (which must be located in India, judging by the name and accent of the service rep), fixed the problem (from Calcutta?) in about 5 minutes.

I also use DirecTV. Pay a small fortune for both of them, but have no complaints.

I had Verizon DSL on my phone line. After the hounding I took from Verizon I finally relented and let them instal FIOs. They promised I would notice a big difference. I did the speed now totally sucks and is unreliable as hell.

These big companies sending tech support to India suck a donkey dick. I pay in U S dollars how about a U S citizen getting the job so I can at least understand what they say. I dont fault the Indians taking the job since it is offered, I am sure at $2.00 an hour, big money in India. Verizon isnt the only one, I had a hell of a time with Hotels.com I couldnt understand a word the person said. They switched to the "supervisor" which was even worse. I might as well have been talking to my dog.

When I moved into a rooming house in Sterling, the landlord had a business in the basement and he had Verizon run cable, phones and a DSL to the house, as we were right near the Verizon central switching station.

At that time, there were 5 rooms with seperate occupants and each of the rooms was wired with cable. The internet was wired into each room by a separate cable out of the back of the main router downstairs. The TV worked fine, and when one or more of the roommates weren't downloading movies at the same time on the internet it worked fine for everyone, too, until a big rain hit, and the Verizon stuff especially the landline phones would all go out. Then the landlord would be fighting with the Verizon people trying to get them to replace the old cables in the yard that were always getting waterlogged. After a month of them bickering back and forth and the Verizon guys failing to show, several heavy equipment operators and a crew arrived one day and dug up his entire front lawn and replaced all the old cables--which had apparently been replaced several times before, too, and the older ones not yet removed--but it took him lots of fighting and arguing and demanding over the phone. Finally we had phone service back again!

The place I live now in Loudoun County had Fios initially. The problem we had with Fios is that the TV setup would only work for one room, the guy's room who had it installed and whose name was on the invoice. They (Verizon) refused to enter the attic to trouble shoot the wiring and to rewire through the attic to get the cable plug working on the one side of the house upstairs. The cable plug available in that room would not process the signal except by the tv screen going dark in "downloading" mode for several minutes then showing a couple minutes of the feed, off and on, off and on and on (the TV was not broken--it was a brand new digital HD flat screen TV right out of the box).
Verizon said their insurance would not let their techs climb a ladder to enter the attic crawl way to reach that side of the house to replace the cable up there, and anyway they did not do wiring period. We would have to hire a private contractor at great expense just to run that replacement wire from the outside box throught the walls and over top of the house to that other room to be able to get a second cable station working in the house. Same for the 3rd tenant room in the basement.
The second problem was that Verizon would then charge us 3 times the "advertised rate" for 3 viewing outlets, one in each tenant room in the house, and each tenants' needed peripheral equipment, as well. Now with all the added equipment and taxes and hours and hours over days and weeks on the phone trying to get them to actually answer the phones, (hope you are self employed and can work from home if you have Verizon, for you will be on the phone much of your time due to Verizon's abysmal "non-customer service" policies and no one working there if you could reach them ever knowing how to handle your problems for days on end).

After hassling with them for months, due to us fellow tenants complaining that we had no TV service, the tenant who had installed the Fios (who failed even though he knew the ropes at Verizon as he had been working there) moved out. We lost no time in switching to Comcast. Now we get super TV, really great customer service, 54 MPS wireless internet (100 MPS if direct wired) and our needs are not only met but over-met--the techs that show up here do more than run in watch the clock for 15 minutes and run out like the Verizon techs did counting the clock--they actually take care of the problem for you, or as much as they are able to do. One came in and replaced all our connectors and splitters and a big chunk of wire coming in from outside because the original wiring used in the house was a cheap type that is 30 years old and is not carrying signal used in the new equipment well. Verizon had tried to make us do that on our own.
Of course those of you having problems with Comcast might be living in an area where the customer service out of your local Comcast office is not up to par. But we are in Loudoun County and we have no issues with them and would not switch back to Fios again for anything. Fios works best if you will have only the one TV and internet connection coming into your apartment or house. They simply do not have any way set up for multiple stations in a house without the tenants paying for them through the wing-wang as if they were on multiple individual accounts; and they refuse to install multiple accounts under one umbrella account in a rooming house--they simply do not recognize the need for that option, although many people are living like that nowadays.