FiOS in Pinellas

[Kendo]

Driving around the past two months, I've noticed the fiber installs Verizon is doing all over the Northern end of Pinellas County. I was surprised when saw fiber being buried by contractors south of SR60 along US19 near Honeywell and also in areas around Largo (like Bryan Dairy). Since outside contractors are doing the work, I’m assuming its Verizon’s cable because they are being buried and not run on poles (which seems to be a trademark of FiOS). If this is the case its great for people who live in those areas.

I'm assuming those residents will have a choice between Brighthouse, Knology and Verizon!

[runningnak3d]

I live in Seminole and there are little flags all over the place where the surveyors have been to determine where the fiber will be buried. Talking to Verizon, it looks like FiOS will be available sometime in the 2H of the year.

I would really like to see a Verizon HD channel on a large > 71" screen before just making the jump though. Brighthouse does an OK job with HD, but I have certainly seen better (IE: OTA).

--Brian

[Roger 9]

I was on the horn with Verizon and St. Pete may be the last to get it in Pinellas. The rep told me they have not been approved yet (they don't anticipate any problems but it could take a few months and more months to install the FO. Depending on where you live (I am on the far west of St. Pete) the guess was six to ten months.

I also spoke to BHN todau about moving over to FiOS and she came right back saying their top Internet speed was 5 Mbps. Anyone know if that is true? When I ordered my MLB EI I was bumped up from 7 to 10 free of charge for a year - pretty quick if you ask me - and the streaming of my shows don't get as interrupted (dropoffs and box resets) as they once did.

As I have plenty of time to make my mind up about BHN or FiOS, I just need to know what Verizon is offering for Internet speeds.

Thanks in advance.

[Harry]

I know that I am getting 15mbs on Fios and I think there is also a 30mbs. You pay a little more but it was equal to what BHN was charging me for 7mbs back at the time.

Harry

[Kendo]

Just as Harry said - it runs from 5 to 30 depending on how fast you want and how much you want to pay for it. I currently have 15 too. There are a couple important differences though - with FiOS you have your own pipe to the CO were with cable it's shared with your neighbors. FiOS also has faster UPLOAD speeds than cable: 2mbs to 5mbs.

It took my sister an hour to upload a home video for me to "yousendit" using Comcast and 49 seconds for me to download it.

[bdraw]

kendo,
No doubt FIOS offers higher speeds than BHN, but your comparison isn't fair.

For starters with BHN you are sharing a 38Mbps connection of which you can get as much as 15Mbps.

Also, both connections are faster down than they are up, but that is fine since most of the time we are downloading.

Either way I would rather 30 down 5 up, than 15 down 2 up, but I do get the speed that BHN claims.

[Roger 9]

Thanks for the info folks. It will come in handy when they finally get around to my neighborhood. :)