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I was very pleased to see markings on the road and grass along our road and was anticipating finally getting some decent high speed internet and better TV, etc. (My Verizon sticks that supposed get 4G that I'm paying for barely manage to get one bar at 3G, and the TV goes out whenever it rains or gets a bit too windy.)
When I saw the Verizon employee double-checking the marks before starting construction (might be starting as soon as next week putting in all the underground lines, etc.) I greeted her and introduced myself and said how excited I was, but then found out that they aren't going past the house just before me. And there are two neighbors behind me who also won't be able to get the service.
I would think that for the potential $80,000 worth of business I will be giving them over the next 20 years, they would find it worthwhile to run a bit more cable.
Quite honestly, the current service is just not that great, so if this doesn't happen, my loyalty for the past 30 years with all my homes, cell phones, business lines, and everything else Verizon will be quite shaky. I will certainly be looking into other options for TV immediately (Dish), and there is Hughes Net for Internet, and AT&T for cell/smart phones, etc.
Also, the way I look at it, when the County Supervisors granted access to the customer base and roads, etc., for providing a specific service, they should be required to provide EVERYONE on that road with the availability for that service. Can you imagine if the power company said there weren't enough people living past a certain point on the road to run the power lines? I have Verizon land lines, and it is the same easements and very easy trench-line to keep running the fiber optic cable, so wouldn't another $1,000 installation cost by Verizon be worth that $4,000 worth of business each year?
I've always had very good service/experience with Verizon, so hopefully, when they realize that there is a very loyal customer who is being overlooked for the truly excellent TV/phone/high speed Internet that FIOS will provide, they will reconsider skimping on the neighborhood installation project and see that everyone in our community has the same availability for their service.
Thank you!
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How does Verizon determine which areas get the Fios and which ones don't?
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I would imagine that Verizon's ultimate goal would be 100% coverage, but that will take many years to run fiber-optic replacement for all the telephone lines. So, they would have to prioritize which areas have a dense enough potential customer base to give them the best 'bang for the buck', and then move down that list of diminishing returns.
In Manassas, Virginia, where I owned a commercial building housing my businesses, I watched as Verizon scrambled to get lines in faster than Comcast could upgrade to keep their customers. In some cases I actually saw a Verizon truck on one side ot the street with workers on the lifts, and the other sde of the street with Comcast workers on their lifts. It was almost comical to watch them race down the streets together. Comcast service has never been that great (and I know, since that was all that was available to me at the time), so everyone was looking forward to the arrival of FIOS. However, compared with the Verizon sticks for Internet my family and I use in my residence, Comcast would have been a stellar upgrade. But they surveyed the neighborhood about 10 years ago and there weren't enough people who expressed interest, so the area was never cabled. So, FIOS was thought of as a real savior that would finally provide the high speed Internet that has become a necessity of life as much as electricity. Verizon certainly has felt the pinch of the loss of land line business as more people give that up and just use their cell phones. Granted, Verizon does get a lot of cell phone business, but not the 100% phone business they had with land lines.
Anyway, it is quite possible that Comcast might be taking another look at the area, and you might easily have multiple vendors for Internet and TV other than satelite systems that are the only option now. Verizon was given the mandate to wire this road, including the adjacent private roads by the County Supervisors, over some objections by environmental/historical groups who wanted less, not more. That mandate was given because of the need for everyone to have access to a dependable high speed Internet, (as well as TV and voice). If Verizon is not going to provide full coverage over this area, and instead cherry-pick only those easiest cluster residences, then that is not right. This is a very rural area, and by law (and septic system reality), most houses are on 10 acre lots, so there is certainly some long runs for cabling. Most residences have adapted by securing Hughes Net or even High Frequency transmitted Internet service, along with either the Dish or DirecTV. Some will probably not change to FIOS. Some will. I would like to be one who will change to FIOS, and to be so close to the end of their planned cable runs and know that 99.9% of the community will have access to the service, but not me is absurd. And I have lived here for over 30 years, quite a bit longer than most of the people out here. I paved the way (literally) for others to follow. I paid my dues.
In 1980, this area was a 500 acre plantation with one house on it. It hadn't even been completely planned out when I purchased my 5 acre plot with an old dairy barn on it. I spent all these years remodeling/rebuilding that barn, and watched improvements to the road (finally paved about 15 years ago) and more and more houses built and families moving out here. I had AOL dial-up, like most people. Thankfully, my business was in an area serviced by Comcast, so I just used that 6 days a week. And so did my family. But now I am semi-retired and now working out of my home. I kept a land line for telephone because even my cell phone service is on the fringe of coverage (for Verizon...might be better switching to another carrier....). And the Verizon 4G coverage on the Internet sticks keep dropping out with one or two bars of 3G. Verizon doesn't have 4G coverage for this area. We are one of those 'white spaces' on that big red map. Perhaps I should have checked with other carriers, like Sprint, At&T, etc., but being a 100% Verizon customer for so many years, I just automatically called Verizon and ordered sticks from them. I have to admit that it was quite disheartening to find I could only get service from certain rooms in the house, and then only with the use of a USB extension so the stick could rest in an area of the window in those rooms that received some sort of signal. But seeing FIOS marking the road put my thoughts for changing service once my contract is finished. But now, if Verizon is not going to provide me with FIOS service, then it will be time for a complete switch. My patience is now very thin, and I feel that my loyalty has been overlooked. So far, I haven't managed to reach anyone who can look into this situation. My last effort will be to talk with the Verizon contractors once work commences, and perhaps find that they will have the contact information for the proper Verizon supervisor.
Or perhaps Verizon will be the sort of company I always thought they were, and pay attention to forums like this one, and step in and do the right thing.