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Verizon officially announces FiOS expansion, including in neighborhoods they'd been wiring up for weeks now
By adamg on Thu, 09/28/2017 - 12:38pm
Verizon announced today it will soon make its FiOS Internet/cable/phone service available in all of Jamaica Plain, Hyde Park, Mattapan, Roslindale and Roxbury, and in parts of South Boston, including the waterfront.
Residents in JP and Hyde Park had been reporting Verizon workers installing the required wires for weeks now; the Roslindale expansion includes the part of the neighborhood not already included as part of the company's initial "West Roxbury" roll out last year. The area around Dudley Square in Roxbury was also targeted in the first roll out.
The city estimates this will expand FiOS coverage in Boston from 28% to 56% of potential customers. By contrast, RCN, which has long served as Comcast's main competition in Boston, covers about a third of possible customers.
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Comments
Google Fiber...
Google Fiber in Allston, Arlington, Belmont, Central Boston, Brighton, Brookline, Cambridge, Charlestown, Somerville, Watertown... Advocate for Google Fiber or for even better alternatives.
see also https://www.consumerreports.org/tv-service/is-now-the-time-to-get-rid-of...
Didn't Google give up?
And announce they're not expanding anymore?
Google it!
Google it!
OK
I asked for it, didn't I?
almost
It's Webpass, not actually Google Fiber.
RCN
Maybe they'll come down to Quincy now? Our sole internet options here are comcast or Verizon dsl (lol). I know better than to hope for fios, but God it'd be great to get out from under the comcast monopoly with a realistic competitor (dsl totally doesn't count).
They Are Getting Closer
We have them working fiber through our part of "the 'Chest" ... just a stone's throw across the river from you. So maybe!
No More DSL
Verizon ceased allowing new DSL connections some time ago. If someone has it they are grandfathered-in. Even if people drop DSL to get on cable or FIOS they are not re-allocating those slots to new people.
You may also be interested in knowing that some people in Roslindale have also begun to get notices that their copper phone and DSL service is being discontinued and that their only option is to get on FIOS or some other carrier. This is especially happening in multiple dwellings like 3-deckers that may already have a FIOS line on the building that can be tapped into.
This is likely illegal to do under DPU regulations but so far no politicians or the DPU are taking any action, and I assure you, they know about it. So your choices to stay on copper should that be your choice has been eliminated for you.
I know at least one person this has happened to and they opted to go with Comcast.
Copper retirement
You're incorrect. All carriers have the right under federal law to upgrade their infrastructure from copper to fiber. It's called copper retirement and perfectly legal under the fccs rules and State law. Copper is 100 year old technology and not especially efficient or weather resistant, whereas fiber is. It's actually an improvement and people should not be afraid of it. If you get a notice from VZ asking you to contact them to make an appt to move your copper service to fiber, my advice is, jump on that asap.
The difference is, when the
The difference is, when the power goes out the old Ma Bell phones (copper) still worked. Now if the power goes out your main "landline" phone will not work.
Something to think about.
Anyone in Westie make the
Anyone in Westie make the switch to Verizon? I'm very close to doing it and would like to hear about people's experiences.
Is "Westie" really a thing?
Sounds like a New York Times-ism :-)
Yes, it's real
No, real-estate brokers are not trying to rename the place.
Would you accept Rozzie?
We switched a few months ago (loved RCN reliability and tech support, hated the way they kept raising our rates). So far, service is fine, the two times Internet service slowed to a crawl, rebooting the modem resolved the issue, and we're paying a lot less than for the comparable service we had with RCN.
Just "fine"? Not the
Just "fine"? Not the amazingly fast, lightning speeds they promise for internet?
The deals they are offering new customers in this area is hard to pass up.
So take the deal
I mean, we're talking Internet and TV service here, not orgasms, so "fine" is good.
You get what you pay for and we decided not to pay for the gigabit service, so I don't know from blinding speed (I think I've since seen people say they got upgraded to gigabit for the same price as their 125/125 service, but that was after we'd signed up). For us, the key factor wasn't the speed (125 is fine for the way we use the Internet and streaming, and having that as an upload speed is much better than what we were getting from RCN, for those days when I'm oh, transferring entire Web sites from my laptop, which I don't do too often, but it's good to have it available).
The key thing for me has been the reliability: I turn my laptop on in the morning and I can get online, period. That's what I really need, and Verizon, at least so far, has delivered that. I've never had to talk to anybody at tech support (and as I mentioned, the two times I did have a problem, rebooting the modem, well, OK, the router, worked).
As for TV, it's the same: It works, you get HD channels, etc. The main way I think they could improve is with their bundles - I think we signed up for a "sports" package, not because I need to watch college curling or the Little League World Series, but because it was the one package that had both NESN and a bunch of news channels.
We also have landline service and, again, it's fine - the people calling from India about "Windows support" and that perky lady from "Google account services" sound clear as a bell.
I feel like there was a much
I feel like there was a much nicer, way less snarky way you could have started your reply.
So, thanks for the info, it helps. (But also.. up yours, dude)
When life gives you sarcasm ...
My apologies then. Your question seemed to have a dose of the crankiness that seems to have infected the comments here for awhile now. I must've caught some.
Adam made me actually LOL
"We're talking about internet and tv service here..."
Clearly this anon is still learning the ways and humor of Adam and "fine" is not technical enough of a term for them.
Side note, neighbors around us got Verizon and says it is "ok" and their customer service is really slow/long hold times.
Faster Progress on deployment than I expected
They have been working a lot faster on FIOS deployment in Boston than I thought they would. JP is finally getting real completion to Comcast. If they keep this pace up most of the city will be done in 3-4 years vs 6. My neighbor Bill got FIOS recently and I believe he was one of the forced coper migration customers. He had slow as dirt DSL before. my friend Dave will likely be force migrated off of DSL soon too. He is on the JP boarder on Tower Street across from Forest Hills T station. His DSL is slow and FIOS Digital voice will give him called ID and other digital features. I know that a big chunk of Newton is being migrated from coper to Fiber this year.