Verizon FIOS Vs. Comcast Cable

[crons79]

My friends Franky and Chris said last night that Verizon FIOS is way better than Comcast High Speed Internet. What do you have? Any opinions? (all are welcome to reply)

Also, Skype Vs. Hardline Vs. Cell Phone (for prospecting)

Discuss!

 

[Josh]

Comcast is great, FiOS is simply better technology. Now is a Porsche faster or a Ferrari? I'd lean towards the Ferrari, but they're both ridiculously fast. If we're talking about picture quality, FiOS wins again, but only if you have a fairly new high res TV.

Skype audio quality is going to be fine most of the time, but you can only make 50 calls/day.

Hardline is better quality and you can get an unlimited local and longdistance plan pretty reasonable.

Cellphones are usually fine, but expensive and may cause cancer.

 

[lflashman]

I use comcast. Fios is better. The reason I have Comcast is Fios wanted a 2 year contract when I moved in. Now they have plans without contracts and I'm thinking about switching. Just a pain in the neck to wait around all day for a tech. My ex gf had fios and I can say it was much better. TV was WAY better, and internet was faster, but, I have no problems with Comcasts internet.

 

[fdahl82]

comcast now offers higher speeds to match FiOS and I beleive they are cheaper as well.

 

[TXINSURANCE]

What are they charging you for FIOS?

Comcast is over 10 megs / second in most areas and is dirt cheap, hard to beat.

As for phones... Keep in mind Skype shows weird caller ID and no name, vonage shows number and no name (same with magic jack I believe). Cell phone to me is not an option other than back up for a variety of quality reasons. Hard line is cheap in most ATT service areas, and is the most reliable and no caller ID issues.

 

[Crabcake Johnny]

I did a lot of research on this when FIOS came door knocking in my neighborhood.

They seemingly match Comcast's rates but not so fast. In my area Verizon's basic package matches their rates. If I want all the HD stations I have on Comcast that's a different package and more than Comcast.

This could be area specific but Verizon's customer service in the Baltimore area is bad. How bad? It's so bad the Public Service Commission had to step in:

Maryland Public Service Commission offers settlement to Verizon - Baltimore Business Journal

First, they were all but ignoring everyone who didn't have FIOS. Then, as FIOS grew popular stories emerged of Verizon taking 2 to 3 weeks to come out and fix any issue. Comcast will fix an issue the next day.

It got bad enough for me where I had to ditch my Verizon cell. They told me that the nearest tower was degraded and they were trying to work on it. In the mean time I barely didn't have cell service at my house. That went on for over 2 months. You can have Verizon.

 

[Josh]

The other thing about FiOS with respect to the speed, is if FiOS says it's 15mbps, it's 15mbps. With any of the cable providers (I have Cox because that's all that is available), if they say 15mbps, that's best case scenario and if anyone else in that area is using their cable it'll slow mine down. Is it a big deal? I'm not sure, depends on what you're doing, but it's not an apples to apples comparison.

 

[Jeff]

Had Comcast for years. TERRIBLE customer service. Poor picture quality on certain channels. Service interruptions about 6-8 times per year.

Have had Fios for about 2 years now...no problems at all. Picture quality is 10 times better and we do not have Hi Def tv's.

Almost our entire neighborhood has switched over to Fios.

 

[Ronca]

I've had Fios for 3 years. Definitely better technology and would highly recommend.

 

[Crabcake Johnny]

Fios went around door knocking yesterday and I bit. This time their phone service didn't matter to me. They made me an offer I couldn't refuse.

Only saved me $15 off my Comcast bill but that was my choice due to upgrades. I could have saved more.

I'm getting 35/35 internet speeds and a better tv package. Price is locked in for 2 years unlike Comcast which is 1 year. Also gave us a $250 gift card to spend at 1 on 10 stores we shop at often.

I guess door to door works.