Back in January, I had a post about poor customer service. One example was speakeasy.net, my DSL provider. A salesperson had told me that the company wouldn't hold me to my contract if I moved, but that turned out not be true. When I transfered my service in January, I was told that this would not start a new contract period, but be a continuation of the old one. This also turned out not be true. Fortunately, I learned my lesson and got this in writing (actually, email), and have now forwarded the correspondence to customer service.
Another example of poor customer service was Comcast, which first sent an incompetent to hook up our cable, and then set up two appointments that turned out to be no-shows.
On the bright side of things, I had Verizon Fios internet service hooked up in our new home today. The technician was right on time, was polite and helpful, and otherwise made the whole experience pleasant and trouble-free. I doubt Speakeasy is, or will be, much of a player in the long run, but based on admittedly very limited anecdotal evidence, I wouldn't be surprised if Verizon (which also has Fios tv to compete with cable) eats Comcast's lunch.
However, I am glad to see Verizon making inroads with their Fios service, as the cable monopoly has been old for as long as it has existed. Already the cable company is offering deals that used to be reserved for new customers only and it can only get better for the consumer as Fios expands.
I had just one odd issue with my installation. It's a 3-unit apartment building, where mine is the 2nd floor, in an old building. I was surprised they even deployed it to apartments. From what I'd read, it needed to be plugged into your power, which would imply that part of it being in the apartment proper, but that makes no sense.
Each apartment has a pair of outlets in the cellar. The installation tech never asked me about what to do, and I didn't want to shadow him the whole time. He plugged ours into the power outlet belonging to the then vacant third floor. It was clearly marked. It was way across the cellar from our power.
The landlord, who was paying for the power to the apartment at the time, promptly unplugged it, causing us an outage.
Verizon didn't even understand what I was trying to convey when I told them about the problem, and wouldn't come back to move it, which I was tempted to do myself.
I ended up having to take a long extension cord I'd originally bought for powering a weed whacker and such in the yard when I shared a house, string it across the ceiling, plug the unit into that, and duct tape the connections to make casual unplugging harder.
The latest new tenant on the third floor got FiOS almost the instant they moved in, and I'm amused to see the signs of the Verizon guy arriving and saying WTF to himself when he saw the existing arrangement. He managed to fit their UPS to te beam near mine and labeled everything with large, visible floor numbers.
Other than that, though, it's fantastic. Someday when we move it'll again be interesting, because Verizon will probably have to move it around as they refused to do for me, or the new tenant will have to buy a good extension cord.
Of course, now that Best Buy bought them, we'd expect nothing less!
http://consumerist.com/consumer/verizon/?view=full
Interestingly, Comcast's quarterly financials reported disappointing numbers of cable subscriptions yesterday. Is poor service and the availability of entertainment alternatives catching up?
Anyway, don't be shocked that FiOS support is practically magical in terms of convenience and ease to the end-user. Especially since tech support usually ends out being so much worse when these companies decide they don't really want to be in a particular line of business anymore (ask anyone who had trouble with Verizon email admin problems after the push to Yahoo and MSN premium services started.) If it's the golden happy new project of the year, even reps in completely unrelated areas end out getting extra training and encouragement and supporting documentation about whatever it is. DSL techs got far more information about FiOS, which we didn't support, than dial-up (which we also didn't really support, but at least some of our customers used it when they went out of town or their DSL died.)
A point of curiosity for FiOS installed customers: did the techs physically remove your copper lines or not? One of the brilliant things about FiOS is that customers won't be told they're just fifty or a hundred feet too far from the Central Office for high-speed service (which is what happens with DSL -- almost all of my friends and family have to use cable for high-speed access, because they were told they're ineligible for DSL.) But, losing the original copper lines worries some people. Especially the ones who have already decided they hate Verizon.
The amazing thing to me is that Qwest came out of this looking efficient and consumer friendly. Comcast is really that bad.
Oh, and I find Comcast's deceptive ads quite humorous. Don't know if they are still running them, but they advertised a rate that is lower than DSL. But then, in the fine print, you find that it only applies to the first, fifth, and maybe eleventh month of service. The rest of the time, their rates were double that. But you only found out about that if you read the very fine print, or when you received your second bill.
I need faster Internet access than my current Qwest DSL. But I refuse to deal with Comcast, and, besides, it appears that here in Colorado, upload may be faster with DSL and Comcast cable (and, yes, I do upload enough that this is relevant).
David,
If you have FIOS internet service, why don't you get FIOS TV, too? It will use your existing coaxial cable in the house. We're in Arlington, and it is working well for us.
Actually, when the third tech came, I informed him he would not leave until my service worked.
--|PW|--
(FWIW, I have been using Verizon DSL in the Seattle area for more than a year, and am generally satisfied. I would be happier if they gave more support to Linux, but that's not an issue for most users.)
I misunderstood your post. Good for you. I hope you are able to maintain that situation as your children mature. There certainly are times when I wish I was still in your position.
As for long distance calls, I highly recommend SKYPE. It's FREE. Many of my friends overseas have it as well and it's great!