Anybody want to entertain me while I sit here waiting for Verizon to show up?

[blhirsch]

*drums fingers on table*

Down with 4 hour install windows.

I've caught up on all my news and celebrity gossip, read everything new here, and had enough coffee to last me a week.

I've finished the NBC pilots I downloaded to the Tivo.

Who wants to sing me a song?

[ZeoTiVo]

Staying home alone on a Wednesday
Flat on the floor looking back
On old love
Or lack thereof
After all the crushes are faded
And all my wishful thinking was wrong
I'm jaded
I hate it

I'm tired of being alone
So hurry up and get here
So tired of being alone
So hurry up and get here
Get here

Searching all my days just to find you
I'm not sure who I'm looking for
I'll know it
When I see you
Until then, I'll hide in my bedroom
Staying up all night just to write
A love song for no one

I'm tired of being alone
So hurry up and get here
So tired of being alone
So hurry up and get here

[TiVotion]

Are you in Florida? Be happy IF they show up! Unfortunately, the order and dispatch system is reasonably flawed. As much as I like the Verizon product, they just "lost" two of my scheduled appointments...I was home for 2 days for absolutely no reason. It then took two weeks to fix the second appointment.

If they aren't there by 3 hours and 30 minutes into the 4 hour window, start calling.

[blhirsch]

I KID YOU NOT, the instant I pushed "post" the doorbell rang. He's here, doing his thing. Thanks for the songs! No m-cards, though. Bummer. He's gonna call and see if they have them, though.

[TiVotion]

Glad to know they showed up. Verizon doesn't seem to have m-cards anywhere apparently.

This thread reminded me - I have to call them this morning. They messed up my bill. :(

[blhirsch]

Well, things are going....ok.

After the mcard disappointment, now the installer is having trouble getting the video feed. They need to "force" it through, somehow. He cites that he's been having trouble since Thursday getting new TV service pushed through.

So he's downstairs, on hold with Verizon, just like the rest of us.

But my internet is back up and running (obviously) and my network is just fine. The coax is all hooked up and ready to go to the various TVs and we're just waiting on video, then we can move on to cablecards.

I've done all I can do (finally got the Tivo into my home theater system, got the digital audio swapped from my old tivo to the new one) so now I'm just....waiting. I think I'll go fold laundry or something. Anybody else feel the need to obsessively clean the house when an installer shows up? I just walk around making apologies for how messy things are, even if they're not that messy.

[bkdtv]

All he should have to do...is enter the two sets of numbers (for each CableCard) on his notebook. A call shouldn't be necessary.

Edit: Oops, I see you don't have video service yet. A call is required for that.

[blhirsch]

All he should have to do...is enter the two sets of numbers (for each CableCard) on his notebook. A call shouldn't be necessary.

It's not that... he's not even up to the cablecards. He doesn't have the video signal coming over the fiber yet.

[blhirsch]

Uuuuugh. Video problem still not solved. Whatever they have to do back at Verizon to get the video feed to my house has not happened yet. Installer went to go eat lunch and will be back in an hour. They're "rebooting the whole system" but I don't know what that means.

[mr.unnatural]

I'm not sure where you're located but Verizon's service has been outstanding here in MD. I had it installed back in February along with two cablecards for my first S3 Tivo. The complete install took about 4 or 5 hours IIRC but everything went smoothly and they got the Tivo working in about 45 minutes. The person at the home office had difficulty getting it activated, which is why it took so long.

Since then I have had several service calls regarding my internet, which I'm still having problems with. I think the permanent fiber line they installed from the street to my house is hosed and they haven't replaced it yet. They buried the cable when the ground was frozen and had to use jackhammers to dig the trench. I think the cable got kinked from the frozen ground when they buried it and has caused me all sorts of problems.

I had Verizon come out and replace the router. I called and set up the appointment and then went to the Post Office. I had only been gone 40 minutes but when I returned there was a note on my door from Verizon that said "Sorry we missed you." I called and rescheduled another appointment for that afternoon and the 2nd guy showed up within about an hour and a half after I made the call.

I set up another appointment for my continuing internet problem and they replaced both the router and ONT (Optical Network Terminal). I don't think I had to wait very long within the appointed window for the tech to arrive.

I scheduled another appointment to have two cablecards installed in my 2nd S3 Tivo about 3 weeks ago. The window was between 8AM and noon. The doorbell rang promptly at 8AM on the dot. The guy was in and out in about 20 minutes and the S3 has been going great ever since.

First-time installations take a long time to perform since there's a lot to set up. Every set top box has to be activated individually and both the phones and internet have to be configured. The phone setup is probably nothing more than connecting the main terminal block to the ONT but the router has to be activated with the correct MAC address in order to work.

If you're not the first house they visit that day then be prepared for a long wait. There's no way to know what kind of problems the installers will encounter during an installation so if they hit a snag before getting to your house then your install gets pushed out. It's just a fact of life. The good news is that once it's installed they're right there to help with any problems.

[blhirsch]

Thanks for sharing your experience.

I already had the ONT installed and the phone line, plus the router (we already have a landline and FIOS internet) so the installation should really only have been linking the coax and enabling the video port. Well, that and getting the individual boxes installed and configured. But we're not at that point yet, so I'm not sure what the problem is. Telco stuff is a bit of black box to me, though in-house wiring and networking is my forte.

We'll see. I'm not upset, and the installer has been really great. Nice guy. Though I think I freaked him out a bit by answering the door in a sports bra and yoga pants like I was ready for a personal training session or something. :)

[TiVotion]

Though I think I freaked him out a bit by answering the door in a sports bra and yoga pants like I was ready for a personal training session or something. :)

Which freaked me out when I read that, because I assumed you were a guy! :D

(No reason, I always assume everyone is a guy.)

[wmcbrine]

You don't happen to have a business account with a static IP, do you? They won't provision video for those. But then, that should've come up during the order...

For a four-hour appointment window, I usually assume they'll show up no earlier than hour five. (This is anybody, not just Verizon.)

[blhirsch]

Which freaked me out when I read that, because I assumed you were a guy! :D

(No reason, I always assume everyone is a guy.)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v622/blhirsch/Photo202.jpg
:D

Can you tell I'm REALLY bored now? We're at T+4 hours, and the guy who started the install is now done his shift and someone else is supposed to be coming within the hour. Still no video.

[blhirsch]

You don't happen to have a business account with a static IP, do you? They won't provision video for those. But then, that should've come up during the order...

For a four-hour appointment window, I usually assume they'll show up no earlier than hour five. (This is anybody, not just Verizon.)

No, dynamic IP. It appears to be a Verizon problem. The guy says that he's been having trouble since Thursday getting video through to new TV customers, with or without existing FIOS.

[bkdtv]

No, dynamic IP. It appears to be a Verizon problem. The guy says that he's been having trouble since Thursday getting video through to new TV customers, with or without existing FIOS.If they have to reschedule, I would suggest a Saturday or Sunday morning (the 8am install slot).

Most of the installers are men, and they don't waste any time on Saturdays or Sundays, probably because they want to get home in time to watch football (or just to enjoy their weekend). Hence, they tend to show up at 8am, i.e. at the start of the 4-hr morning window.

[blhirsch]

If they have to reschedule, I would suggest a Saturday or Sunday morning (the 8am install slot).

Most of the installers are men, and they don't waste any time on Saturdays or Sundays, probably because they want to get home in time to watch football (or just to enjoy their weekend). Hence, they tend to show up at 8am, i.e. at the start of the 4-hr morning window.

New guy's here, and he's kibbitzing on the phone with someone over there about how they gotta stop scheduling installs until they figure out the problem because it's not fair to the customers who have to waste a day.

Hopefully he'll have an actual solution when he's done, but it doesn't sound promising.

[jtrain]

Not sure why I assumed you were a guy as well, maybe it was the "bl" together in your screenname that made me think Bill, and then I normally don't attribute the name Bill to women, so convoluted, I know...

I'm monitoring most of the FiOS threads on here, because I'm thinking of switching to Verizon from Comcast prior to release of their TV service in our area (hopefully December).

I haven't been able to get a straight answer for TV service being turned on and I've heard as late as Spring '08.

Your long day so far (and lack of results) hasn't given me the best of thoughts about switching at this point.

Good luck and I hope they get it figured out for you sooner than later.

[Bill McNeal]

I know that Comcast isn't popular in terms of customer service and satisfaction.

What was your reason for choosing Verizon over Comcast? It doesn't sound as if the experience is any different. In fact, with an entirely new product it seems Verizon has a lot more glitches to work through.


Which freaked me out when I read that, because I assumed you were a guy! :D

(No reason, I always assume everyone is a guy.)

Tipoff is below. Most guys aren't concerned what their cable installer thinks of their cleanliness:

Anybody else feel the need to obsessively clean the house when an installer shows up? I just walk around making apologies for how messy things are, even if they're not that messy.

[aaronwt]

I just switched to FIOS and it's much better than Comcast here. The 30mbs tier blows away the highest Comast tier here, 8mbs. And FIOS has more HD channels. Also the SD channels on FIOS look much better than the SD channels(analog and digital) on Comcast.

[blhirsch]

Well, good news and bad news.

Good news: The problem is limited to my PARTICULAR neighborhood. So that means unless you're my neighbor, you're not likely to have the same problem I'm having.

Bad news: Nothing they can do right now for me. Second guy just drove off. He was very sympathetic and helpful to the best he could, though.

The problem is this: They cannot activate the MOCHA port on my ONT because the piece of machinery that does this for my neighborhood is broken and has been since Thursday. Apparently there were some workarounds earlier in the week but nobody seems to be able to figure out anything today. I have the cell number of this guy and his supervisor, and I am to call them both if I don't hear from them first before Friday.

So, now, at 5pm, I was not settling down to watch some HD, but rather trying to find my satellite runs, hook my multiswitch back up, and disconnect the new tivo and reconnect the DirecTivos. At least the Verizon guy helped me sight the three out of the four cables so I could reidentify which ones used to go where.

Good ol' DirecTV.

So, to recap: Today in 9 hours of effort, my router was moved 10 feet so its coax input was convenient to the ONT. And I lost one LNB feed to one of the DirecTivo. I'd look for it, but I'm so sick of looking at cables and being in my basement that I'm just going to deal with single tuner for right now.

Guy promised me he would do his best to find me an M-card to make up for this.

[blhirsch]

I know that Comcast isn't popular in terms of customer service and satisfaction.

What was your reason for choosing Verizon over Comcast? It doesn't sound as if the experience is any different. In fact, with an entirely new product it seems Verizon has a lot more glitches to work through.




Tipoff is below. Most guys aren't concerned what their cable installer thinks of their cleanliness:

Well, the decision was kind of made when I decided to go with FIOS for internet. I'd had DSL, and a nice sizzling fast one at that, but the FIOS was even faster and $10/mo cheaper, not including the promo period. We've been thrilled with FIOS broadband. It's rock solid and fast. I always get my max speed, whereas with DSL, I'd get my stated throughput maybe 50% of the time.

Once I had FIOS, it would be prohibitively expensive to have Comcast for TV separately. Besides, I have heard that FIOS is where it's at, picture quality-wise, and certainly the higher bandwidth connection is a plus as cable companies start maxing themselves out to provide more and more HD content. Going forward, I wanted to be on fiber or stay with satellite rather than cable. I know that with my friends who have Comcast, outside of HD channels (which I didn't have with DirecTV, so I can't compare) the picture quality couldn't touch DirecTV. I didn't want to get Comcast and hate the SD picture quality when it was so good with DirecTV. I never had a day's problem with DirecTV. No outages, no pixelation, no dodgy reception, nothing. In huge thunderstorms (twice a year) I'd lose reception for about 5 minutes as a big weather cell would move overhead. But that's it. Everybody I know has enduring and frequent problems with Comcast. From signal issues, to interference, to fritzy old cables, to you name it. I spent a full day putting signal boosters on a friend's Comcast line just trying to get it so all their TVs could get all channels. If I never see a "This channel should be available shortly" banner again, it'll be too soon.

At least with Verizon, theoretically, everything is new and comes with a big wide pipe for later expansion.

Anyhoo, long answer to your question. In a nutshell: once I had FIOS, it was either stay with DirecTV or go to FIOS TV. Comcast never really entered the picture.

[jtrain]

That's too bad...certainly not the way you wanted to end the day, but did you get your cleaning done, that is the real question...hehe.

For me, I'm just glad that Comcast will have some competition in our area when the TV service arrives from Verizon. With what seems/feels like a monopoly for getting TV service, it is a welcome addition to the market (where you can get it anyway).

I'm finding compelling reasons to switch, but also compelling reasons to stay with Comcast...right now I've got OTA HD with Limited basic cable and no cable cards. It is working pretty well, but with a Series 3, and an HDTV, more HD channels would be nice, but I haven't jumped ship to the digital classic package Comcast offers for the very reason that Verizon is coming out shortly (hopefully) with their TV service.

Again, I hope they get this worked out for you and soon.

[bkdtv]

What was your reason for choosing Verizon over Comcast? It doesn't sound as if the experience is any different. In fact, with an entirely new product it seems Verizon has a lot more glitches to work through.Some advantages of FiOS:

lower standard monthly fee -- $42.99/mo for 220+ digital channels and 20+ HD channels;


more HD channels;


more capacity for new HD channels;


the best HD picture quality available anywhere;


better SD picture quality;


no plans to use SDV;


option to commit for two years with no price increases guaranteed; and


more consistent Internet throughput.

Comcast advantages:

Wider VOD selection (not a concern for the Tivo);


First CableCard is free as part of digital package (vs $2.99 on FiOS);


Widespread availability of MCARDs (most FiOS areas still use Motorola 'S' CableCards);


24/7 support for all services (one can only activate/deactivate new FiOS programming services before 6pm)


Less complicated installs which require less time (coax vs fiber);

[blhirsch]

That's too bad...certainly not the way you wanted to end the day, but did you get your cleaning done, that is the real question...hehe.

You know it. Sparkling clean. :p But I never got my workout in.

[blhirsch]

If they have to reschedule, I would suggest a Saturday or Sunday morning (the 8am install slot).

Most of the installers are men, and they don't waste any time on Saturdays or Sundays, probably because they want to get home in time to watch football (or just to enjoy their weekend). Hence, they tend to show up at 8am, i.e. at the start of the 4-hr morning window.

Good point. I'll have to keep that in mind. :) Either that or promise them they can stay and watch the game if they get it done in time. Phillies are still one game out of the wildcard and the Eagles have got to make up for that tragedy of an opener.

[jtrain]

Well, the workout can come later...it's the cleaning that is important...hehe.

Tragedy of an opener? I'll back off that statement...and no I'm not a Packers fan...I just don't want to start any left coast/right coast rivalries so early in the afternoon...

[blhirsch]

Well, the workout can come later...it's the cleaning that is important...hehe.

Tragedy of an opener? I'll back off that statement...and no I'm not a Packers fan...I just don't want to start any left coast/right coast rivalries so early in the afternoon...

That wasn't a Packers slam. We played like @#$. Note to Eagles: find a guy who can return a punt without fumbling.

No west coast issues here. Major props to the doc from the Portland Trail Blazers who diagnosed and fixed my stress fracture when I was out west training for my marathon and injured my foot.

[jtrain]

I'm a Broncos fan, and it was almost a tragedy of an opener against Buffalo. Cutler actually showed something getting them in position to kick the final field goal. It is rare (well not so much last year), but most of our AFC games are Broncos games on CBS here in the Portland/Beaverton area. I'm looking forward to watching them this week against the Raiders in HD for the first time...thank God for a Series 3 TiVo to be able to enjoy it with too.

[blhirsch]

thank God for a Series 3 TiVo to be able to enjoy it with too.

Now you're just rubbing it in.

I'm just crushed I'm not going to be able to watch the Phillies game tonight. I was really looking forward to it!

[jtrain]

Certainly no intent to rub it in...how long ago did you have your foot repaired? Still running marathons? Hopefully he (if the same doctor) can solve the Greg Oden knee mystery tomorrow as well.

Be thankful you have a legitimate baseball team to follow...I'm not that big of a baseball fan, and will only sit down to watch a game that has meaning/playoff implications...the only games I get normally are Mariners games and they are severely unwatchable.

[TiVotion]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v622/blhirsch/Photo202.jpg
:D

Can you tell I'm REALLY bored now? We're at T+4 hours, and the guy who started the install is now done his shift and someone else is supposed to be coming within the hour. Still no video.

Ok, verdict's in. You're definately a girl. :)

Sorry, I think I also read your screen name as "Bill" for some reason. I didn't really think too much about the cleaning clue, 'cause to me it's not all *that* unusual for a guy to want to make sure the house is clean for the cable installer. Or maybe it's just me. Heck, I'm mortified when a service person walks into my house and I haven't cleaned/picked it up. Maybe I'm the exception to that rule.

Was just kinda funny though, I imagined the look on the Verizon guy's face when a man answered the door wearing a sports bra.

Verizon guy: "Sorry, wrong house!"

You: "Hey, wait!"

[jrm01]

Now you're just rubbing it in.

I'm just crushed I'm not going to be able to watch the Phillies game tonight. I was really looking forward to it!
Not as crushed as they'll be. :)