Just ordered FiOS... so far awful customer service
wrxhokie
Newbie

I ordered FiOS TV and Internet 2 weeks ago.  My install day was today and my window was from 8AM-12PM.  As I would expect from my old Comcast service, the guy never showed.  Then he finally shows up at 1PM.  Says he tried to call me.  I looked at my phone, and sure enough he called, but at 12:30PM.  Not exactly the time I had been sitting at home waiting for him.  A phone call or an update to know when he was going to come would have been nice.  But nothing... reminds me of Comcast.  

Then he got here and started to work.  Worked from 1 to about 3, and said he had to go leave and hook something up somewhere else.  Its now been an hour since he's been gone and i'm still here waiting... 

This so far has been a nightmare.  I wanted to get away from the Comcast type customer service and I'm slowly finding that you can't get away from it.  Verzion advertises a different "Better" experience, but so far its the same if not worse.  At least Comcast would finish what they start.  

So i planned to be home from 8-12 today for this install, and now its almost 4 and i'm still here waiting for this guy to finish.  Awful awful awful job Verizon.  I'm so very close to just tell this guy to go home.  

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Re: Just ordered FiOS... so far awful customer service
lasagna
Community Leader
Community Leader

It's been several years for me now, but it's not unnormal for the tech to go away for a good long while to track down the connections for the fiber.  Took my installer several hours to track down where he needed to make the fiber connections to get the connection "lit up" to the pole in front of my house.   Just because they installed the fiber to the location outside your house, doesn't mean that the light comes all the way from the CO to the pole in your neighborhood -- and if you think about it since it's fiber and not shared -- each connection does indeed need to be a unique run from wherever they're aggregating out to your location.

My installer also arrived later in the day than scheduled, but I will give him credit that he stayed until after 10pm in the evening to get things up and running for me -- wanting to complete the job.

Re: Just ordered FiOS... so far awful customer service
GaryDoug
Specialist - Level 1

Hmmm. the 8am appointment should be the first one of the day. Wonder what he was doing in the morning?

My install only took 3 hours, but then I had everything set up in advance, hole in the floor, mounting location cleared, cables and outlets prepped and ready. Fios is a bit more complicated than a simple cable system. My Brighthouse install took about 60 minutes, but that only involved a junction box with one splitter. Fios involved an ONT, power supply, battery pack, router and hooking up 3 DVRs. Oh by the way I got all of two minutes of instruction from BH, and one tiny pamphlet about the remote. The Fios tech provided 30 minutes of instructions. So far, except for problems switching over the phone number, I'm satisfied with Fios. knock on wood...

Re: Just ordered FiOS... so far awful customer service
cgsheridan
Newbie

I've had FIOS for my internet for over 4 years now and was happy with the initial install.  Last year however, I upgraded to FIOS bundle package and switched my TV service over too.  It should have been the simplest of installs. BTW, I work from my home virtually and have a VOIP phone from my employer and it is support by Verizon service too.  So had the switch over happen during my vacation the week of 4th of July.  It worked great, until I went to log into my phone and computer to work extra hours for the holiday.  I noticed that my phone, which was working great with FIOS service, suddenly didn't work.  I spent 5 hours on the phone with customer service trying to figure out why all of a sudden it stopped working.  Turned out the new and improved modem/router they brought out to support the FIOS TV and internet had a firewall in it that my phone couldnt get thru to the internet.   So they set up a repair to have a different brand modem/router brought out to me that they "knew" would support my phone.  So the guys show up on July 3rd at 10am and don't have the new modem/router.  They spent 3 hours trying to figure out what was wrong because they didn't believe what I was telling them.  They found out that what I was saying was what was wrong.  Finally they were going to just leave and told me it wasn't their responsibility to make sure my equipment was working, which seems ironic cause why would you have any of this installed and then not have either your TV or computer or voip phone work. So I told them they either needed to figure it out and get it fixed or they could take it all with them when they left. Because I would no longer have a job and would not be able to pay the bill anyway.   At this point I was very upset.  They ended up band-aiding it and jumping my old, old router from the new one.  But because I can't use the new router, I only have FIOS TV.  I have no guide, no VOD, no extras that take the internet.  I lost hours of work because of this so I have been afraid to even call and complain and try to have it resolved because my boss would kill me if my phone didn't work because of this.  So I guess the next vacation I take at home I will try to get someone out to see if they can fix it.  But needless to say I am very unhappy.  Even had Verizon sales rep stop by the house and I grabbed him to show him the problem I have.  Its actually funny cause he gave me a ticket to a free VOD movie, which I can't even get.  What ts so **bleep** is everything worked fine until they brought me this router.  Anyway, this has been my experience with Verizon.

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Re: Just ordered FiOS... so far awful customer service
El13
Enthusiast - Level 2

There is a way to solve your issue, but Verizon will not do that for you - they call it unsupported configuration. But if you will search tech forum you can find lots of posts on how to use your own router and still have VOD and guides working. Last thing you can ask Verizon to do for you before you go 'rogue'  is to connect your current Verizon router to ONT by CAT5 cable , not coax. But if it is already connected - you are a free person.

Refer to http://www.dslreports.com/faq/16077

In your case (and mine) option #3 will make your VOIP phone, VPN etc. work and you will have VOD, guides, widgets etc working as well

Re: Just ordered FiOS... so far awful customer service
lasagna
Community Leader
Community Leader

What you describe doesn't make sense.   Sure, there's a NAT/PAT router on the ActionTec, but the same thing exists on your other router.   What kind of router is this other device?  (Brand/ Model)   Any way you can share the configuration on that router with us?

One thing that comes to mind (and which I'm doing with a VoIP phone I have at the moment which is using asymmetric session initiation) is to place the phone in the ActionTec's DMZ.   Plain and simple to do ... you need to hook the phone up to the ActionTEC, find out it's IP address (which you can get from the ActionTec) and then in the firewall section simply add the phone's IP as the DMZ device.

Unless the router device you are using is lighting up a VPN, the ActionTec should work just fine.   About the only issue I've seen that folks have yet to figure a way around is if more than one device needs an IPsec VPN session simultaneously.  If provisioned over coax for internet, then ActionTec seems to have trouble with this -- but does fine if you have the ActionTec reprovisioned to use ethernet from the ONT.

If you can post some configuration information, I'm betting we can figure it out.