Portland, OR - Frontier - Page 55

3. Price per services
4. Customer Service, or lack thereof
5. Picture quality
6. Local monopoly attitude

Especially #6. It got better when Verizon FIOS came in but if Frontier goes away we will be back to this attitude worse than ever!

Does anyone know if Frontier is still offering free TV through 2011 for those willing to switch over from FiOS......I'm growing increasingly pissed.....

I asked that question last week and was told, no, I could not get DirecTV free for 2011 if I switched from FIOS.

lovely considering they still have the "free tv" billboard up on Hwy 26 West....I'm not under contract so if they want to be an ass than maybe I'll drop them and "rejoin" them.....

The one is still up getting onto 217 north from I-5 north as well. These monkeys have no clue.

Speaking of monkeys, any possibility of getting new channel additions to the Frontier FIOS lineup? Verizon is about to add Fox Soccer Channel HD, so ... does Frontier still get the VZ feed, or are they completely on their own now?

Um, yeah, good luck with that......not happening!

VZ still provides the feeds but Frontier isn't going to be paying anymore than they have to for channel content. It's not coming.

couldn't wait any longer.....I'm getting Directv starting next Saturday.....FiOS, I love you, and I'm keeping your internet, however you're TV service is like dating a hot chick - it's a great ride but you're pretty much assured she's going to dump you.

I'm confused. Was there something wrong with your FiOS TV? Why not hold on until the bitter end? I'm sure we'll get at least one month's notice before FiOS TV goes dark.

I really just didn't like the direction things were headed. $500 install costs for new customers? The started charging me $20 for my HD DVR after I was supposed to get it free for 12 months and the notes in the system "mysteriously" disappeared even though it states my regular $5 box is free for 12 months. Their tone and attitude in the retail store on 185th in Tanasbourne was piss poor at best.

I'm keeping their internet for sure. However I figured that if I was going to have to make a switch and sign a contract - sooner was better than later. Oh, and being on hold for 48 minutes 3 times in a row didn't soften my mood with them.

I'm a man that acts spontaneously, that I know - so now I know I have DirecTV being installed on Saturday! We'll see how my tone changes - if at all. Either way, it's cheaper and not going any where.

Can you report back on the DTV picture quality versus FiOS? I'm the same boat as you...I'm going to jump off the FiOS TV sinking ship. Just trying to figure out if I want to go back to Comcrap or DTV...

I absolutely will - once i get it all set-up to my liking. I've had comcast/xfinity - whatever they want to call themselves - I know how that song and dance goes. A friend of mine just switched from FiOS to direcTV a couple of weeks ago and loves it however I think I'm more of a critic than he is and he doesn't have the best set-up in the world but the picture looked solid from my limited viewing.

Comcast just has no equal competitor in the cable market any longer so I don't see them having any urgency to stay competitive, add services and evolve in the Portland area as much as I may like.

Reviews pending.

OK, so my DirecTV install went down yesterday and these are some pretty fresh observations. Obviously the most important thing, picture quality. In the limited viewing I've done thus far (mostly all sports) I can't say there is much if any diminished picture quality. The picture 'may' be a touch softer in some scenes however it's just as sharp as FiOS was. Great clarity, good skin tones. I haven't bothered check out many SD channels, just not that into it given it's 2011. SD isn't bad though, obviously it doesn't retain the same levels of sharpness but it's certainly watchable. As of right now, I have zero regrets switching, we'll see if that remains that way after a month or so but so far - so good.

Here's the other side of things though. I got the whole-home DVR which is awesome. Absolutely love being able to utilize this, it's seamless - no lag what-so-ever. It's going to be nice to be able to record kids shows for the little one and have them play in her her room versus on the big screen downstairs!

PPV has not been utilized, nor do I see us utilizing it at all given the netflix subscription and bluray at redbox.

hardware. I got the newest HR-24 dvr box. It's much faster than the standard silver motorola verizon box I had with FiOS which seemed to lag with commands. the HR-24 reacts immediately to all commands which is a major breath of fresh air. It's a good piece of hardware. The will be releasing the HR-25 soon a well.....not sure about the specs of that though.

GUI interface is certainly behind the times though, this is the one major disadvantage of DirecTV that I've found thus far. Rumor has it that the GUI will undergo an overhaul this year though and go HD, if not totally redesigned as well. It's certainly workable, just a dated. The FiOS GUI was more advanced and possibly a little more intuitive. I'm not one who reads directions, I feel that I'm tech savvy enough that I should be able to pick up the remote and get what I need done easily. If I can't, how can I expect the lady to figure it out In all seriousness, FiOS is much better in that regard. However, my tone may change as I put more time in.

That's basically it I think......Any questions specifically feel free to ask. I want to be respectful and keep this thread FiOS however I think we all know it's a sinking ship so hopefully we're all able to use this thread to help each other out with the other viable service options.....

Curious - who makes the DVR D* employs and what's your disk capacity?

Yeah...we would have a hard time going back to 20 HD hours after our 1TB 157 Hour TiVo's.

Has anyone else in our area also noticed the very slow net connections these past few days? This post even paused for 10 seconds loading it in when I selected preview post!

model is HR24-200....it's made by Samsung - 500gb hard drive in it.....

not all DVR's are manufactured by the same company. there is a HR24-100 as well as an HR24-500. The last three numbers identify the manufacturer.

Yes, very bad speed issues throughout Oregon and Washington. Seems to be connected to the switch over to the Frontier IP addresses. Supposedly someone got a hold of Frontier and they said they've had this "outage" for over 5 days and have no estimate for when it will be resolved. I literally can't watch a SD Youtube clip...forget about Netflix or anything like that. Even more entertaining is that location services thinks I'm in Kansas (I'm in Oregon). Lots of threads over here about it:
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/frontiernet

It's stuff like this that is going to force me back to Comcast. Even if DirecTV is a good option, having an "outage" for 5 days which reverts my 25/25 internet down to dial-up speeds is just unacceptable.

Article on the Oregonian's oregonlive site, also contains link to the MACC report:

http://blog.oregonlive.com/siliconfo...stomers_s.html

good info, however, even with Comcast stated as being a preferred - I can't limb back into bed with them. I just couldn't. I did keep my FiOS internet however.

Yep, getting the laggy internet service, some youtube videos just absolutely crawl in order to finish (I'm talking 1-7 minute videos at the most, nothing too big).

wow, I haven't experienced that 'yet' - I may have to pay more attention to it because if that is the case than that is not going to work at all. I may have to start going some speed tests. So far I've been able to stream netflix videos without any issue......I'm in the Beaverton/Tanasbourne area - where are you all located??

SW Beaverton, the speed is better tonight.

My speedtest.net still defaults to me being in Kansas! I get very bad speeds. It is OK if I force it to Portland. Frontier said this will be fixed by Tuesday night. When I called he said "Welcome to the new Frontier, how can I help you?". I asked if I could be switched back to the old Verizon and he did not seem to think that was too funny.

classic.......you should have seen the stack of DVR's being turned in by people when I dropped mine off. They mad mentioned that it was becoming the norm and they didn't even flinch when just left them there. Kind of sad.

Well, I have TIVO-HD units that I upgraded to 1 TB drives each. I get 157 hours of HD recording on them and had asked Frontier why I should ever consider their units. They told me I was wrong and that I must be getting 157 hours of SD. Yeah, sure, what does a customer know. Their job would be much easier if it wern't for all of those customers!

LOL, I surprised the even admitted that 157 hours of recording was even possible or that any DVR could contain a TB hard drive. They're worthless. I know not everyone can be an expert - but at least admit to when you have no clue what you're talking about and seek correct answers from those who do.

Yeah, this started with the copy flag being set. I took care of it by getting 1 TB drives at about $55 each and putting them in my TIVO-HD's. Since MRV would not work on the stations they put the flag on, I just recorded the show on the TIVO's that I may want to see them on. Then I would delete the shows I already saw. Not a big deal as most shows I know we are going to watch on the biggest screen (Movies), and with 157 hours of HD I have a lot of room to spare. We watch when we want. We still have all of this seasons V for when we want to see it...it is taking up 10 hours of the 157!

That's why I have a 2TB in my Premiere unit. Plenty of HD to watch, can't remember the last time I watched something in non-HD....maybe ESPN Classic for something?