Verizon Fiber Optic Service Gets Mixed Reviews

When we decided to drop our cable company due to their ever escalating rates and terrible customer service, I was so excited to be moving to fiber optic service (FIOS) via our phone company, Verizon. In fact, after hearing their pitch we decided to go fiber with our phone, internet service as well as our TV.

As promised, our internet service is extremely fast and in the 6 months that we’ve had it, it’s never gone down or really disappointed me in any way. The same can be said for the phone service.

The cable (aka fiber optic TV), however, is another story. Yes, it comes with a digital video recorder which is great, and yes, the service is pretty stable. But they sold us on the TV service by telling us their On-Demand library of movies and programming was soooo vast and soooo extensive that we’d never have to rent movies anymore. It’s true that their movie library is extensive and I think it would be REALLY, REALLY AWESOME for someone who adores straight-to-video garbage that no one has ever heard of or likes movies that are 5+ years old.

In addition to grossly embellishing their On-Demand offerings, they also tell you that you’ll have a bazillion channels and they wave this little program in your face so you can oooh and aaahhh at the sheer volume of numbers and channel icons —with MORE to come! But I’m not so sure it’s fair to count the Spanish and High Definition channels when they’re exactly the same as the regular ones. That’s right…most channels have a Spanish version and a High Def version but hello??? It’s still the same channel. It’s a total scam.

Finally, their customer service is terrible, trailing only behind AT&T and Citizens Insurance as the worst service I’ve ever had.

In a nutshell, if someone were to ask me if they should endure having their whole yard ripped up so that they can have FIOS TV from Verizon? I’d say absolutely NOT. Get TIVO and a satellite dish and save yourself the aggravation.