Recently, I have received a few emails detailing long ordeals that remind me of my own crappy experience from a few years ago, so it is my duty to post them here. When folks email me, I make sure to get their permission to post it to the blog (without their personal information, of course). When I asked this particular emailer whether that was ok, he responded "Yes. FIOS sucks..." Glad we are on the same page.
In the future, I need to establish a way for folks to post their own testimonials directly. Current functionality brings recent comments to my posts to the top of the page, but admittedly I am not an expert with this.
And without further ado...
Over that last years, I've had C-Band dish, and 3 years ago upgraded our TV's to High Definition, and obtained Direct TV.
While we are pleased with our high def TV's, living in Florida the afternoon storms created cloud cover that obscured our Direct TV signal. My in-laws had Dish Network which in our area was 20 times worse.
When FIOS was installed in our area, I was elated - but then came reality. Lets be clear here - I have no issue with the internet or phone service, but the TV service has MAJOR issues...
Main complaint - the Motorola series (all of them) are complete crap. Not only is there only 20 hours of recording time (compared to 40 hours w/ all the others), but the boxes routinely fail. Series recordings "DON'T", in other words, the box shows it's recorded, but there is no recording there.
Because there is only 20 hours of recording, you must constantly clean an remove shows you might keep if it wasn't so small. because of this, I have to pay for 2 DVR's, one in my family room, and one in the master bedroom, raising my cost of ownership.
In the 18 months of service, I have replaced the DVRs (both of them) at least 6 times. The stupid mistake of taking them into a local facility for replacement resulted in 2 months of billing errors in which I was charged for extra equipment I didn't have.
The only thing more incompetent than the DVR's, is the billing system. Finally I was able to get someone who recognized the issues (after I'd PDF'd my receipts for turn in of the faulty equipment) - and while on that subject, one of the replacement DVR's was faulty out of the box! Worse than both of those is the IVR s ystem from hell. That thing does NOT speak English.
Again - let me be clear - NO ISSUE with the internet or phone service. But the TV DVR's from Motorola are the biggest piece of crap I've had the displeasure of owning. The "On Line" system only functions if the system can communicate with the boxes, which usually requires restart of not only all your DVR's, but also the FIOS router.
They are rumored to be testing Cisco DVR's, which I've volunteered to be a "test pig" for, as I can no longer stomach the constant issues with the Motorola 6xxx and 7xxx devices. At this point I'm debating whether to go back to Bright House and deal with their issues, or just poke my eyes out.
I have to admit - at this point - I just miss my C-Band services. At least those worked.
Verizon - get your "stuff" together or at least stop wasting your money on c ommercials... This is FIOS - This is a big piece of (FILL IN THE BLANKS YOURSELF)...
-A site reader
