[Grovenet] Verizon FiOS v. Comcast

[Ron D'Eau Claire]

Jeff Howden wrote:

The few times I've had technical difficulties I've called them up and had
the issue resolved in only a few minutes.  The techs have always been very
helpful, courteous, and polite.  When we upgraded our cable TV service to
digital, I was in such a hurry to get the new cable box with DVR units that
I asked if I could drive to the Beaverton office (it was only a couple of
miles from the house we were living in at the time) and pick it up.  They
said sure, even though it was nearly 11pm at night.  When I got there they
hooked me up with all sorts of extra cables (component and optical audio)
that aren't normally provided when a tech comes out to do the install.  When
the guy found out I had an HD capable TV, he even took the box in the back
for a minute to enable the HD capabilities on the box for me at no
additional charge.

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That's the most telling argument in favor of one company I can think of.
Everything goes wrong at some point or another. Being able to hook up with
real live people and resolve the issue in a timely manner it crucial, unless
it's something you don't care about and so have no justification for
spending money on in the first place! 

Verizon *might* be as good. We had very little trouble with them in Forest
Grove. I got Verizon DSL because Comcast didn't offer broadband yet at the
time. My ISP was Easystreet who also hosted our business web site (Chuck
wasn't there then either <G>). On two or three occasions I had trouble
accessing e-mail or the web pages and Easystreet determined it was Verizon
and got the issue fixed in a few minutes. They handled the communications
with Verizon for me after I tried and Verizon gave me the run-around because
I didn't use their ISP service as well. They even had a special button to
press for non-ISP customers. I tried them all. The customer button gave me a
live rep who couldn't do a thing because I didn't have an ISP account with
them and the non-ISP-customer option  gave me a voice mail message saying to
leave my number and they'd call back within 24 hours. That would have
triggered a move the first time it happened, but Easystreet was able to get
through and handled it for me. Indeed, there were two reasons I kept
Easystreet as my ISP: reliability of service and someone was there if I had
a question. 

OTOH, I can't speak to how Verizon handles their own ISP customers. I never
was one. 

Ron D'Eau Claire