Comments on: Verizon's fiber-optic payoff

Investors squawked a few years ago when Verizon said it would spend billions to take fiber to the doorstep. Now they're cheering.

[tonyc666]

Cablevision should worry

I live on Long Island, where the Bayer Family does, and I find CableVision's remarks in this article smug and offensive. I'm a current CableVision customer only because there was no competition, we had to take whatever CV gave us. It's been a joke whenever they say they are increasing channels, ie, adding more value. Ummm... I don't need another foreign-language or home shopping channel or golf channel <eye-roll>.

And they are doing HD wrong... if you have technical knowledge one can easily deduce that they are overly compressing many of their HD channels and the picture quality suffers sometimes. Many times I can get a better OTA HD signal of my local stations than what CV is pushing down the coax.

I have no love of Verizon, but as consumers we need competition in order to make the pricing fair and quality of service hold up. CV (and other cable companies) have had a monopoly for far too long... I can't wait for FIOS to come to my neighborhood so I can kiss CV good-bye.

[samkass]

Agreed

"'We doubt too many of the 1.3 million customers who have said goodbye to the phone company and chosen Optimum Voice (Cablevision's telephony service) would put much credence in transparent phone-company talking points delivered as part of a publicity stunt,' he said."

So I am one of the folks who went with Comcast's triple package in my area. The daily outages, the abysmal upload rates, and the higher prices mean that I would go with FiOS easily if it were offered in my area. The cable company doesn't have anything up on the phone company when it comes to customer service or reliability.

[belal12]

I agree

I'm also a Cablevision customer and have been for 8+ years. When I first got Cable internet, it was WAY faster than the previous connection I had (verizon 786Kbps). At that time, CV was the way to go and optimum online ranked number 1 in the country for it's speed. Lately however, as bandwidth requirements are going up for high volume web sites, dsl prices coming down to almost dial up prices, and competition from other ISPs, I'm thinking of making the switch when it's possible. I heard GREAT things about FiOS and I hope to make the switch when it's available in my area, provided Cablevision doesn't bring down their prices.

[J_Satch]

Ditto...

...goodbye Comcast.

[UnnDunn]

FiOS delivers everything they promise

We got FiOS about a week after it was made available in our area, and I couldn't be happier with the service or the support. Installation was punctual, fast and professional, the service has been rock-solid, the few outages we've had have been addressed promptly and with virtually no action on our part, and the price is right.

Basically, it provided everything our former cable broadband service promised but didn't deliver very well.

Current rumors suggest Verizon's TV service will be available to us in the next month or so. We've already decided to sign up for it the minute it arrives, so we can finally ditch the cable company (Time Warner Cable) for good.

[QuietStormX]

Cable is Slow to change and Upgrade!

FIOS is the way to go. The pace of change and upgrade to the technologhy with cable is a joke. Cable gives you just a little and charges you alot. When FIOS comes to Washington D.C. , I'm going to switch my ISP. Speed and services are the way to go. Just like Blu-ray over HD DVD, storage size wins out.

[solrosenberg]

A phone company with a clue?

Congrats to Verizon. I never thought I'd say this, but for once a phone company got it right. Fiber always has and always will beat coax, twisted pair, or wireless. Hopefully this will be a wakeup call for the operators trying to squeeze blood out of those legacy turnips.

[3tire]

I agree.

Contrast Verizon's competitive outlook with AT&T and their vision-
less execs and we see what smart equipment investment is about.
I have had FIOS for over a year now and it has been rock solid.

[TheRealJizzler]

So Nice!

On the business side for anyone with an office/home office and server(s), they have a 5Mb/5Mb plan for $209/month (static IP, 2yr commitment).

Finally someone offers a decent mid-range plan!

It bridges the gap between Business Class cable, which in my area maxes out at 10Mb/2Mb for about $300/month and TW Telecom fiber which is about $2000/month for 15Mb/15Mb.

[matte989]

Stuck with at&t

Ya, I'm stuck with att. Live in Central Florida where Brighthouse is the cable provider and att is the phone company. Ever since I heard one of the att exec's say (basically) "we think 6mbps is all the customer needs" I have lost hope. I kind of believe this because if you do research on att U-verse IPTV you will see that they are using all the bandwidth for the TV service and they still need way more because for example if you are recording a HD channel with U-verse TV you can't even watch another freaking channel. :-( This is their choice as a company but I think it sucks for me as a consumer. Wonder if I can get my wife to move<lightbulb>?

[lecountb]

Verizon FIOS

I noticed that Comcast was not mentioned in the story and for good reason. FIOS is kick them in the rear if you ask me. I'm so much happier with Verizon FIOS 15mpbs sped over the Verizon DSL we previously had and the cable TV offering has so much more than Comcast cable. I love the variety of offerings FIOS has over Comcast and for the record I'm a Maryland resident.