Originally Posted by
Rick Adams 
Well, after two weeks of fighting Verizon, finally watching FIOS-TV right now. The latest comedy of errors was when I managed to get the problem where they were refusing to allow me to set up an install because of "franchise issues" resolved. Got someone fairly high up, and he resolved it extremely quickly. Couple hours later on Wednesday, I get a phone call asking "Is this Saturday okay for you to be available for a FIOS-TV install?"
Then on Friday someone called and said they needed a "video light hub check" for my install tomorrow, and transferred me to someone else. That person said that my install wasn't until the 11th of Feb. In the process of trying to figure out what the heck was going on, I was then told that Verizon does not do video installs on Saturdays. Despite the fact that my original install, before it was canceled, was for last Saturday, then for this Saturday and the install date in their computers was a Saturday. Spoke with the same person that resolved the original issue, and a few minutes later I had an install for earlier today.
Install took about 8 hours. All the cables were lying right in front of where the boxes were going, so it should have been one of the quickest installs they could do. Then two of the boxes were bad. It took several hours for them to figure that out. The guy had an extra in his truck, and that took about two hours of resetting before it would recognize the digital channels. Then he had to wait an hour for another tech that had another box in his truck to come by. All in all, definitely evidence that they still have a lot of kinks to work out. When two out of three boxes are bad, and then a replacement box takes two hours of constant resetting to get to work...
But after watching it for a few minutes, it's obvious all the effort to just get an install was well worth it. Going from D* to this, the video quality is amazing. Just for SD alone, FIOS makes D* look like the really, really low quality Internet streaming video that it is. HD is beautiful, and I'm getting almost twice as many HD channels as I was with D*. Only complaint is the only HD channel I watch with regularity, HDNet, is MIA.
I do miss the Tivo interface already though. Given D* ended their partnership with Tivo quite a while ago, it really doesn't matter. But going from my old DTivo to the Microsoft interface definitely makes one realize just how innovative and well-designed Tivo's menus and whatnot are. But that's a small price to pay for this stunning PQ and not having to worry that my provider will stop adding HD channels because they don't have anymore room.
The install tech actually mentioned that right now, over a 6mhz channel 12 SD channels can be fit on each one. Verizon is limiting that to 5 SD channels, obviously meaning that they have already set aside ALL of their bandwidth envisioning the day that every channel is HD. If that isn't proof enough of just how superior FIOS is to their competitors, I don't know what is.
Hey, I'm just a regular Joe and this guy responds by return email? That just blows me away.
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I guess they are pretty busy doing installs. They don't do weekend installs, correct? Getting off of work will be a pita.
so I don't know when I'll be able to get this installed. Pretty irritating considering the install shouldn't take more than 2-3 hrs at the very most, since rg6 is already run throughout the house, and I already have fios internet.
