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Verizon says it starts actually installing FiOS in Boston residents' homes tomorrow

Hizzona signed an agreement letting Verizon offer TV channels and the company says it begins cabling up homes in parts of West Roxbury, Roslindale and Dorchester tomorrow - with Dudley Square by the end of the year. The move means parts of Boston now have three main broadband/TV/phone providers: Verizon, Comcast and RCN; Verizon says it will roll out FiOS to the entire city within six years.

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Only Comcast will touch my 'hood.

In places with choices, do they offer lower prices or are they qucker to deal?

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I've had RCN for almost 10 years and they are very good at putting together a package of services I'm looking for at a fair price. I've called them when prices go up and they work hard to find a better deal. Previously I had Comcast and they refused to budge on their high price after the first year. I called them repeatedly and they offered nothing, so I cancelled. Two weeks later they were begging me to come back with a "special offer." RCN has been reliable and reasonable ever since.

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Also so far, so good (a big improvement over Verizon DSL).

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GTK, not much more $$ either. I pay $70 for DSL & landline (with 3 phone numbers and 8 voice mail boxes) .

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Comcast is the worst :(

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It's Comcrap!

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Will fiber be coming the Beacon Hill, South Boston, NE, Allston, and Brighton?

VZW seems to be tight lipped as to of it'll be fiber or "FiOS 5G". While delivery on 5G isn't bad, latency and jitter (line quality) is shit and will make latency temperamental software such as gaming a problem. Then you got the tin foil hat crowd.

There are low latency wireless options, but they're not ready yet.

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It says fiber-optic network platform. That sounds like weasel words.

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This is what I've come to learn from the senior repair managers sent to fix my DSL& LandLine Oh, & frm the 1000's of follow up phone calls with Verizon Escalated ResidentiaServices DSL will fios come to Brighton. Yes. At some point.
No. That's the short version.
the long version is Menino knew what they were up to, installing fiber line for Verizon Wireless, for cell phones, not fiber for residential TV's. They were charging for TV service wheich was crappy at best but laying fiber for wireless service. Bait & Switch in a way. That's what Menino balked at, not "not enough kickbacks" as he was blamed for. He said no to Verizon theivery. But our new mayor Walsh said yes. Yes to his favorite neighborhoods those which I refer to as the Sex Neighborhoods (poor and crime ridden) - Dorchesta, RocksBerry, MattaPan, Challstown. With regard to Brighton ? We don't exist on the radar. I was told by Residential Parking, "We really consider youi more Brookline than Brighton". What ?? If only. They don't consider us part of Boston, we see that every winter, every street cleaning day (none) they take away our Residential parking, they don't even care about the disabled, seniors or children, we simply do not exist to them. The only thing Walsh and croonie see in Brighton is $$, destroying land to build condo's which the city won't support.
With regard to FIOS, it's not gonna happen- according to the the techs who do the work, it's not on the 5 year plan- it's not even been discussed - why ? Because the test neighborhoods aren't spending the money to buy FIOS, probably because they're not laying fiber optics for TV and individual homes but for wireless cell phone towers thus TV reception is shite.
As the deterioriate and the trees take over, humidity and old wiring, snow , sleet, freezing , I've been stuck with broken down DSL and tempermental copper lines for the past 15 years, I know the staff at verizon so well, I'd recognize them better thanmy extended/birth family. In fact when greeting me at the door, they ask for my dog. The 800 line people recognize my voice - my linesand DSL are that unreliable. I stopped using DSL and piggybacked off of my neighbors Comcast Cable (he offered , he's the one who calls verizon for me when phones go down, he offered me his username and password from modem until I got DSL again, total of 6 months later) He thinks I should dump verizon and my landlines and split the cost of Comcast (he's got no TV , only iPhone). I like having a landline and don't want to use only a cell phone even if that's how he communicates - he's a doctor w/an office where he can make phone calls from landlines all day, I am not working at an office. But - Verizon just removed my $25/ discount, I'm paying more than most pay for triple play. $70 for copper land-line (I do have 3 phone lines, that will be hard to give up) and shit DSL. No TV. I'm calling RCN on Monday.

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> VZW seems to be tight lipped as to of it'll be fiber or "FiOS 5G".

Except when they've stated multiple times in public that it will be fiber.

For instance, at http://www.universalhub.com/2016/verizon-says-boston-fios-customers-wont...

> the FiOS build-out in Boston will be based on "fiber to the premises," Verizon attorney Paul Trane said.

So, the FiOS build-out will be fiber to each building. Stop listening to the anti-verizon zealots making stuff up. Bruce Kushnick is just a conspiracy nut.

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Much of the cabling in Roslindale has been to lay out hard-wire cable feeds. They have been mostly working on truck lines and installing junction boxes. From the junction boxes they would then measure a specific length of glass to each home that signs up.

That said, be careful.

At roll-out this is only Internet and phone. They do not as yet have a contract that allows them to offer TV. That has yet to be taken up with the City Council to be hashed out.

So buyer beware.

I think I will wait until they have TV as well and see what they want fo ra price. My building is already cabled for Comcast so I have a choice.

Also... has anyone else noticed their DSL had a price jump recently? Mine went from $43.99 to $50.99 this past month with little fan fair.

This is the same tactic they have been pulling in other states. Jack up the price of DSL so it becomes financially attractive to switch to FIOS. Then when they get enough people to their liking, the quality of the remaining DSL starts to fade to the point it is useless.

It's coming.

I've provided the city council with a lot of info and warnings on this.

No action.

Let's see now... we vote for them next fall, right?

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They do not as yet have a contract that allows them to offer TV

You posted this on the 6th, so it wasn't widely publicized then, but Verizon does have a CATV license for Boston as of December 5th.

https://www.boston.gov/news/mayor-walsh-signs-cable-tv-license-bringing-...

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Instruct the installer not to remove copper wire.

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It's apparently available here in the not-quite Back Bay, not-quite South End, East Fenway area of 02115... but predicts only 3.1 Mbps. No way that's better than just tolerating Comcast's over-priced 29 Mbps, given the hassle of swapping providers (especially since I'm moving away early in 2017). If they offered significantly faster DL speeds than Comcast, maybe I'd reconsider.

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That isn't FiOS - that is DSL. FiOS is significantly faster.

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Very interesting ...

And (as a dumb tech idiot), not how I interpreted their results when initially using the FiOS address finder. Wish I knew how to make a picture, cause I took a screen-shot of it.

It does say I'm eligible for "high-speed internet," (which a dope like me would think is a positive response to my request if FiOS is an option here). After a closer read, a few sentences later does ask me if I want FiOS in my neighborhood, and how to request it.

Partial truth in advertising. Well-played.

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I was interested in Fios when I was a Verizon customer 10 yrs ago, but there was no word on when they would reach Boston. I was initially bummed out but 10 years was plenty of time for me to get over it. And now it'll be another 6 years before it reaches some neighborhoods?

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At least on the "build your service" they offered to us.

This is what they are offering at our address:

RESIDENTIAL SERVICE
- 50 mbps symmetrical @ $49.99
- 100 mbps symmetrical @ $59.99
- 150 mbps symmetrical @ $69.99
- 300 mbps symmetrical @ $169
- 500 mbps symmetrical @ $269
- Router for $10/mo or $149 upfront
** No contract at all (pretty nice)
TV prices range from $10/mo for local signals up to $90 for "ultimate HD (425 channels)

BUSINESS INTERNET
** contract required w/ static IP pricing:
- 75 mbps symmetric $124-129 /mo depending on contract length
- 150 mbps symmetric $184 - $189
- 300 mbps symmetric $279 - $284
- 500 mbps symmetric $384 - 389

* At those prices you get only 1 static IP. They say "please call sales" if you want more

I need business class service both for the support and SLAs offered but also because running Tor exit nodes at home would violate a residential internet service agreement. I've got 150/150 symmetric from Comcast Business w/ 5-static IP addresses. Gonna price shop a bit; it would be nice to have 5-static + 500mbps ...

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I'm paying $29/month with 2 year contract which started year and half ago in Dorchester (granted the house was already wired). Can't really complain. I will switch to Comcast when contract expires for a month or two, and get promo rate again with FiOS. If cable companies are working you, you have to work them too..

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What speed?...

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25 mbps

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I live in Roslindale and have Verizon DSL. Last night, I could not get to the internet. Worked with Verizon. Was sent all over the world (oh, wait, they didn't send me to Africa!) - India, the Philippines. Dallas. Each time, they wanted to test the connection. Tried to tell me that I HAD to upgrade to Fios, tried to sell me this bundles that I didn't need.

Still trying to get the problem resolved this morning. All I want is a technician at the house - again, sent all over the world to schedule this - India, New York.

A co-worker has RCN and is very happy with it. I have simple needs - look at my e-mail, watch youtube. I just want them to fix what I'm paying for, so that I can do my job.

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I recieved a couple emails and a text saying that our address was in the new service area and inviting me to sign up (not a surprise as I watched the Verizon trucks work their way down our street last week).

I called to get more details, but on the first call the customer service agent could not hear me. So I called back and this time when the new agent put in my address to check availablility, she got back an error. After double checking the spelling etc she talked to a manager and was told that they were having problems resolving some of the addresses in the database for the new service areas in Boston.

sigh.

They said they'd call me back when the problem is fixed, but they don't identify their calls with "Verizon" or any such - and I don't typically pick up the phone for random #s I don't recognize, so I'll probably have to call them back myself in a day or two.

sigh redux.

We're long term customers of RCN (almost 25 years) - the service has been ok, although the bandwidth is always less than they claim (supposedly 50/25, but irl ~35/10Mb/s with high retransmit rate), and a lot of the SD TV stations are not boxed correctly (so the sides of the picture are cut off). The big problem though, is that for the last several years they've steadily creeped up the pricing (just a couple bucks every other month or so) and offered us very minimal adjustments when I've complained. We're now paying nearly $200/month for a triple play without any top tier cable (ie no HBO, Cinemax etc). I'm ready to jump ship if the service and price is right, but Verizon did not make a very good first impression.

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