Verizon’s FiOS network: Payback time?

[dbarrow]

http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=4946

Verizon reported its first quarter results and they are notable for one key reason–most of the maximum capital spending for its FiOS fiber-optic network is through the pipeline.

Simply put, the earnings hit–11 cents a share in the first quarter–that Verizon absorbs from building out its fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP) network will diminish going forward. That means it's a subscriber game...
...As this Knowledge@Wharton story notes customer service will win the day for Verizon. After all, the consumer isn't in love with Verizon or its rivals. ...

*Where's the rate wars? Aside from some limited TV advertising by Verizon, I see little push to steal customers from cable. Even the FIOS web pages leave much to be desired.
As the article states, service will be a big issue for Verizon.
Comcast has improved steadily in this area over the last few years while Verizon .... well it's still the phone company and still acts the same as always.

[Dan18960]

As a FIOS user - there is NO WAY I would EVER return to Comtragic! The speed is fantastic, the customer service is FIRST rate, and no problems with the service since day one.

I am waiting now for the FIOS TV connection. I have seen and spoken to customers who have it and it is BAR NONE light years better than Comtragics offerrings.

[kelly]

I've had to call Verizon on FIOS issues a few times and they've been great. No long waits on the phone. Once a tech answered on the first or second ring. I don't even think I had to go thru the button menu to get to a tech.

Reason for calling them: a couple of times I needed them to release my IP address. I was changing routers and the map the router MAC address to the IP. If you change routers, you need to have tell them. However, I think if you disconnect a router for a couple a hours and replace it with another one, you don't have to call them - it will work.

Another situation I had was when the ActionTek router was losing Internet connection and I had to keep reseting it. After playing around with settings, the tech said to let it go for a while and he would call me back at a certain time to see how it was going. He kept his word. We decided that the router was bad and he sent me a new one. I didn't even have to send the old one back.