I had ordered Verizon Fios about two weeks ago over the phone. First of all, they were supposed to come last week but never showed up. I ordered, internet and cable with 4 hd boxes and 2 sd boxes. They arrived today. I was at work but my roommate was home to let them do the install.

First problem: Three of the bedrooms did not previously have cable coaxials installed. When I talked to Verizon over the phone I explained to them that 3 rooms have absolutely no wiring and I was told they would install up to 3 coaxial for a first time subscriber. When they got here they told my roommate they would not do that for free. After some arguing back and forth they agreed to do it but they split the wires from the master bedroom and wired them along the walls throughout the house to all the other TV's. It looks horrible and very unprofessional. Is this typical for the fios installation?

Secocnd Problem: They put an hd box in every room and explained to my roommate that it is better in case we want to upgrade. I'm concerned that this is going to increase the price of our quoted monthly price. I know the hd boxes are more expensive than sd monthly.

Any advice before I call Verizon up complaining?

Pretty much any cable install you get for free is going to be run the easiest way possible, if you want neat hidden in the wall wiring, you're gonna have to do it yourself or pay someone. I've seen my local cable company do some very creative along the wall wiring, looks bad but that's all they are willing to do as part of a basic install.

As for the boxes, if they are charging you more for the HD boxes, yeah I'd exchange them.

I had ordered Verizon Fios about two weeks ago over the phone. First of all, they were supposed to come last week but never showed up. I ordered, internet and cable with 4 hd boxes and 2 sd boxes. They arrived today. I was at work but my roommate was home to let them do the install.

First problem: Three of the bedrooms did not previously have cable coaxials installed. When I talked to Verizon over the phone I explained to them that 3 rooms have absolutely no wiring and I was told they would install up to 3 coaxial for a first time subscriber. When they got here they told my roommate they would not do that for free. After some arguing back and forth they agreed to do it but they split the wires from the master bedroom and wired them along the walls throughout the house to all the other TV's. It looks horrible and very unprofessional. Is this typical for the fios installation?

Secocnd Problem: They put an hd box in every room and explained to my roommate that it is better in case we want to upgrade. I'm concerned that this is going to increase the price of our quoted monthly price. I know the hd boxes are more expensive than sd monthly.

Any advice before I call Verizon up complaining?


A couple of things:

The installation calls for three coax connections are provided without charge - from the Verizon web site:

"You'll receive a statement of work performed and/or any costs incurred for additional wiring or TV connections beyond three, as well as contact info for help and support. We're dedicated to making sure your FiOS TV experience is simply amazing!"

You should have a statement of work, with full descriptions of the work done and what you were and were not charged for. I guess it's a matter of interpretation whether you installation of three additional coax runs should be free, their statement probably says you shouldn't have to pay for them.

As to how it looks, I would definitely call V* and complain. An installation that leaves the area looking much worse needs to be addressed. As it says in their installation site:

"All work areas will be cleaned and returned to their original state so you'll never even know we were there!"

Leaving a lot of exposed wire doesn't seem to fit into that situation. I'd call - I have found the field people to be both friendly and accomodating, so you may have a more pleasant experience the second time around.

You are not going to get a neat fished in the wall install for nothing.

If you want to save money dump the box altogether and plug the coax directly into the TV - this of course assumes you have TVs with QAM tuners. For older TVs without a QAM tuner - I think there's a very basic STB that's even less than the standard SD one.

I'm not aware of any cable company that will fish wiring through the walls for free. Generally, you have to pay a few hundred bucks (or more) for that.

Standard practice is to run any internal wiring along your baseboard.

As I have stated, the HD STB (actually the DVR) will become the standard installed STB in the future....it might already be the case in your market.

If all you want is SD, they will only turn the SD channels on for that box. Same for HD. They should not be charging you for greater than you are using. If you want a DVR, they will simply turn that on.

The FCC exemption for the SD QIP-2500 SD box runs out this year and they will be no longer offered once the current supply runs out.