Fios TV Upgrade Worked!

I was anxious to see if the upgrades to Fios TV were actually done, and, if the service would actually be better.

I am happy to say that I can now go through channels that I want to see and skip the channels that hold no interest to me. This was, without doubt, the biggest complaint I had about the service.

The favorite button still doesn't work, but it doesn't matter now, because I can skip channels by using the channel button.

They've added a live TV picture while surfing through the guide, which is a nice feature.

Joe is scheduled to call within the hour and I'm curious to see if they did anything I haven't found yet.

Fios TV Upgrade

My cell rang at 19:36 tonight - unknown number - so I didn't answer it. The only friend who calls with a blocked number is Dawn and I knew it wasn't her because of the time. I also owe her a call (which is coming soon, I promise.)

So I just checked the message and it was Joe from Verizon Fios - calling from Washington state. His message stated that they were on schedule for their scheduled upgrade for today - 1/8. It should take place between 03:00 and 05:00 and that he would call me tomorrow morning at 10:00 (my time, 07:00 his time) to go over the changes and see if I am a happier customer.

We'll have to see about that, but as of tonight, I still hate Fios TV!

Oh Happy Day!

At 14:23 today I received a call from Joe, a nice young man who works at Verizon about the problems with my Fios TV service!

We spoke for about 30 minutes about some of the issues that I emailed about. (see 12/11/07)

He was able to answer many of my questions and told me that some of these issues were scheduled to be fixed on or about 1/8/08!

He also gave me the phone number, and more importantly, his email address asking that I document any problems that I have going forward. Little does he know that documenting info is what I did for 28 years in the security industry and I'm pretty good at it. I'm hoping that everything that can go wrong, goes wrong in the next week or two while I, and my problems, are fresh in his memory.

So, it took 7 days for a response to my first letter and phone call. Not so bad considering it's the ugly corporate world.

The poor man has no idea what he's in for.

Verizon Fios TV

Most of you know how annoying and frustrated I have been with the Fios TV service at my house and how I've told everyone to not even think of changing from Cox.

Tonight I wanted to watch Brian Williams on NBC Nightly News. I picked up the remote control to turn the TV on at 6:28 and finally got the picture at 6:48.

This was the straw that broke my sanity! I got on the phone (again) to the Verizon call center and asked for a name and mailing address to send a letter. What I got was an email address for some guy whose job is to answer complaints from Verizon customers (I couldn't imagine that job, probably far worse than what I did for Pulte Homes.)

Here's the gist of what I sent to him:

I agreed in September 2007 to a 2 year agreement to get a discounted price on Verizon TV, internet and telephone. I've found that whatever the price is that was discounted, it's not worth it! If I could get the TV service for FREE it still would not be worth it.

It's hard to put into words how much I dislike the Fios TV service in RI. I have called the call center more times than I can remember with questions and problems with the service. I have had 2 service techs here to fix the problems that I've had. The 1st technician was no help whatsoever as he had never even seen the TV service. The 2nd technician seemed to be knowledgeable, but still was not able to explain the problems that I have.

I hate the remote control. The often used buttons are not convenient, and having to press the STB button before pressing the POWER button is ridiculous. If anyone other than me is trying to watch TV it's almost laughable trying to get the TV and cable box on at the same time. I hate that the info banner is so big and the time it is shown on the TV cannot be shortened.

The two problems that annoy and tick me off beyond belief are the favorite button and not being able to skip channels. The favorite button goes to the guide and toggles between 2 channels with no discernible pattern. Not being able to skip channels is most annoying. I do not want to watch spanish, religion and shopping channels. There is NO way to skip them other than to block them with parental controls and then you still have to go through all the channels to surf.

I rarely watch live TV, I record almost everything I watch on the DVR because of the awful set up of Fios.

I'm ready to start a letter writing campaign against Fios TV and have told pretty much everyone I know to not even think of getting it, it's so awful to put up and live with.

I need to have this service updated, changed, removed, whatever before I lose my mind.

It should be interesting to see if this gets improved or resolved.

Stay tuned. If you can get the damn TV turned on, that is.

Today

I can't turn my living room TV on!! I had Verizon Fios installed last Thursday and have been learning it ever since. The remote is huge with about 1,000 buttons on it. I've been able to do most things once the TV is on, but tonight I've had no luck turning it on. It's funny because I was able to watch TV in my bedroom because that TV is hooked up to Cox, go figure. Somehow Cox was still active here in the house, so I watch Cox (which is familiar) in one room and Fios in the other! Only in AliceWorld do things like this happen, it seems.

I have a cavity! Went to see Ron, the dentist today after 2 years and I actually have 2 cavities in the same tooth. Aaarrgghh, not what I wanted to hear, that's for sure. Then I went to visit my uncle Tom who is not feeling well. He, I and my uncle Pat watched 2 Gene Autry movies before I showed my uncle Tom how to get onto the internet on his new (and very complicated) laptop computer. I DO NOT recommend Vista to anyone who is used to XP. Way too much work and not a good improvement at all.

My car is so full of things from the apartment that there is room only for me in it. Since Emi is sleeping over Friday night, I do need to clean it out. Problem is that there's so much stuff in the new house that I really don't want to bring anything more in until I can get things better organized. I haven't even started in the kitchen yet, though Veronica was able to wash all of the cabinets out.

There are 2 pitbull mix dogs that run free in the compound that I now live in. One is Buster, who is a beautiful white boy, the other is Micky who is brown. Both of them are very scary. This morning I yelled over to Micky's owner (Mack) because I needed to speak with him before I called the dog catcher. I set him straight on dog leash laws and the fact that his dog chases joggers, bikers and anyone who drives by slowly. We had a good talk and introduced the dogs. Tonight he and his fiance Erin came over with Mona, a cute little Beagle. Shortly after getting here, Micky escaped out of the house (all by himself, I think he went through a screen.) We tried the introduction again and he did just what I had been expecting him to do, which was to attack Hannibal!! Thankfully my boy is okay, but that dog really scares me. They realize they need to do something, I just hope they do it soon. Now I'll wait to see how Buster is with Hannibal and keep a good eye on Micky. There's lots of rocks in the yard, and I think that's the route I'm gonna go for now.

Tweety bird, on the other hand, is getting along just fine here at the new place.