Posted on August 17, 2008 - by Venik

Verizon FiOS is still too green. I am back with Comcast.

A quick update on my Verizon saga: I had to cancel my new Verizon Business FiOS and went back to my Comcast Business connection. There are just too many issues with Verizon’s service. The primary problems are Verizon’s impossible-to-reach customer service and its inept technical support, but there are also issues with quality of signal and network latency.

Did you know, for example, that if you opt-out of Verizon’s phone service, you will have to spend up to half-an-hour on the phone before they would finally transfer your call to the appropriate call center? It’s true: Verizon support tracks customer accounts using the phone number, but only if you have your phone service with Verizon. If you did not get Verizon’s phone service, you will be bounced between different call centers for 10, 20, even 30 minutes before they finally locate your information and patch you through to the right department. I had Verizon Business plan, which comes with a dedicated 24×7 support line, and I was still getting the runaround.

My hardware firewall runs a custom network monitoring script that I wrote a few years ago. Various network performance data is collected, stored in a database and automatically charted. What I am seeing are unexplained spikes is network latency. Route trace shows that latency is limited to Verizon network. I have no idea what causes this, but I suspect it has something to do with Verizon’s PVC configuration. I did not see significant network latency with Comcast.

Calling Verizon tech support is not just incredibly time-consuming, but also completely pointless. They just ping your router and tell you that there is no problem. After some complaining on my part, Verizon sent out a technician. He arrived the very next day but had no idea why they sent him. I showed him network performance stats I collected, but he told me he is not a “network guy”. I thanked him for his time and then called Verizon to cancel my subscription. Good thing I still kept my Comcast connection, so switching back was just a matter of reconnecting the coax cable in the garage.

FiOS has good potential, but Verizon still can’t get it right. My advise to people who are picky about their network: don’t jump on the FiOS bandwagon just yet – give Verizon another year to figure out what it’s doing. Comcast is promising a faster network in my area in six months, so maybe I won’t have to go back to Verizon.

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