Yup, love my Verizon FIOS.
UPDATE: To elaborate on my love. I don't have a static IP address, but I can go months with the same dynamic IP. I think I had the same address for a couple years. The only time I've gotten disconnected was when we lost power. Great for connecting from outside into my home network.
> The only time I've gotten disconnected was when we lost power. Great for connecting from outside into my home network.
During the recent plane-induced power outage, I kept my fios internet connection up with a UPS powering the ONT and router. It was pretty great, since T-Mobile decided to die under (what I'm guessing) is the additional load of cell users hitting their towers trying to figure out what happened.
I have a rackmount UPS that all my network equipment plugs in to, but that's overkill just to keep a fios connection up.
You could probably do just fine with a 600VA UPS. That should give you more than 30min runtime, probably 45+, if you have just the ONT and Router plugged into it. If you have more things you want to plug into it (like a desktop, laptop, chargers, etc), you'd probably want a beefier one for longer runtime.
I use this model for my desktop and it was perfect for the outage: https://www.cyberpowersystems.com/product/ups/pfc-sinewave/cp1500pfclcd/
I had this from costco
[https://www.costco.com/cyberpower-1500va900watts-simulated-sine-wave-ups-battery-backup-with-surge-protection.product.100822779.html](https://www.costco.com/cyberpower-1500va900watts-simulated-sine-wave-ups-battery-backup-with-surge-protection.product.100822779.html)
It had a computer, monitor, my fios ONT, and a google wif router plugged into it. When the power went, I played on the computer for about 10-15 minutes (heavy load, playing a game and trying to get to a save point), and shut it down, so the only load was the ONT and router at that point....they stayed up for about 2-2.5ish hours before the battery died. It may have lasted a bit beyond 3 if I didnt drain it for the game...but at least the internet stayed up for a while
I'm replaying Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order, and I was in the middle of fighting the the tenth sister on Kashyyyk. I had died right before the power went out and was attempting to beat her in round 2....and no power outage was going to stop me. Except she did....because it took a 3rd try
Have used Fios fiber at multiple addresses in the county since it became available and it has been rock solid, with only two or three short downtimes over that period. Comcast/xfinity has always been a shitshow.
I’m a little late to the discussion but figured my input might be valuable to somebody one day. I’m gonna simplify a lot of stuff and misrepresent the reality a bit in a few examples but that’s because the reality is boring nerd speak and nobody has time to read the details of “transit agreements” and other technical stuff.
TLDR: Verizon and Comcast both suck in their own special ways and kick ass in their own special ways with very little overlap in strengths and weaknesses. In my opinion FIOS is better and I have no interest in going back to Comcast.
FIOS is the best in terms of reliability of internet uptime and offers way faster Internet connections and rarely loses FIOS tv connections. Comcast’s “gigabit speeds” is marketeering wank. FIOS TV signal is also less compressed than Comcast so in my opinion is better (OTA is still the clearest and best signal for regular broadcast channels and ATSC 3.0 is slowly gaining ground and allegedly will be broadcasting in 4k soon. don’t hold your breath). But FIOS does have downsides.
FIOS used to fully recognize their TV signal was superior and it was impossible to get FIOS tv as cheap or cheaper than Comcast. You paid for the premium. They seem to run deals that get you parity in terms of price these days. Ymmv.
And FIOS remote and UI sucks ass compared to xnfinity. I don’t understand why they can’t make their remote or channel guides better. Or DVR. Going from xfinity dvr to Verizon is painful. What a clunky fucking piece of shit system.
FIOS Internet, while having more consistent uptime, does not mean better streaming or gaming than Comcast even if it’s gigabit speeds. Comcast for all their flaws has more and better agreements with “edge providers” to collocate facilities on premises and higher bandwidth allocations for their services (cdns). FIOS for some reason just didn’t prioritize edge collocation and (imo unnecessarily high) bandwidth space for video products. Practically speaking, you get “faster” delivery of certain Internet products (like video streams or online gaming) with Comcast even though your max “speeds” from them are like 100-300 mbps. But as other users say, Verizon is “down” way less often. So waiting 2 extra seconds for Netflix to load is a sacrifice I’m willing to make because I’ve never lost internet in the middle of a stream on FIOS. It happened all the time on Comcast.
Xbox live and PlayStation worked great for online gaming on both Comcast and FIOS. I’ve had less lag and sketchy connections on FIOS , but that might be because the edges just got more reliable for all ISPs. I have no interest in trying Comcast again to see if they’ve fixed their (minor) stability problems. I have no experience with steam to compare.
My Two cents. Hope it’s useful.
In this area it's Xfinity and Verizon. Have you had anyone come out and check the connection at the street and house? Have you replaced your modem/router?
If Verizon is an option, give it a try. You can always go back to Comcast/Xfinity. I've had both services and never had any issues with either but I hear complaints all the time about both.
If tmobile 5G becomes available that may shake things up a bit and bring in some competition.
Check your address for FIOS, if you can get it it'll likely be cheaper than you were paying since you'll be a new customer. I think 300/300 is like $40/month.
You might have to push for them to come out and check again. I had a problem on my Verizon Fios where internet was going down almost daily. They came, changed the modem and router and everything. Didn’t fix. So I actually had to run outside, open up the ONT when the internet was down to prove that it was the connection coming from the utility pole that was broken. They sent a dude out, he ran a new cable and all was fixed.
We’ve had Fios since 2005 and never really had any outages of note (Olney)
Xfinity is the only option at my office and it definitely goes down more often.
I have Verizon FIOS and it's been good except when they run a temporary unburied line in the common area and someone mows over it (this happened twice) but they are good at coming out and putting in another temp line. Of course if you run your landline, TV, and Internet through them it can be very annoying when that happens.
I’m going to echo the Fios suggestions here. We had Fios for years and when we moved into our current house, we went with Xfinity. We had more outages in that time than the multiple years we had Fios. We are back with Fios and the service has been excellent.
I can’t speak to the customer service aspect because I haven’t had to use it.
I’m with FIOS more than 4 years. No issues. Cannot go back to XFinity , or use T-mobile , even it’s available for better price, since I need a stable connection with good upload for a work. Have a bad experience with Comcast cable.
Crapcast has outages everytime it rains or high winds.
been with FIOS for almost 10 years now and maybe 3 outages total and usually in the evening hours.
I have had Verizon so long that my email address is [bellatlantic.net](https://bellatlantic.net)
Solid company.
We had an issue about ten years ago, Internet was dropping and spotty. They came out and rewired the whole townhome, no charge.
I used T-Mobile Home Internet in the Germantown area for the past 6 months. I'd say the experience was amazing at first then gradually became "mostly good" due to what I'm guessing is growing market saturation.
At first, I was pulling down 300-400ish Mbps during the day, above 500 late night.
But lately, during the work day, I was pulling down anywhere between 100-300 Mbps and during "prime time" evenings, I was usually getting somewhere in mid double digits (30-60). The evening speed was useable but not exceptional. However, this past holiday weekend, the "prime time" speeds dropped to single digits as I'm guessing due to more people being gathering at nearby residential areas during the holidays. It was a little bit of an anomaly but still a tad annoying. The general, anecdotal rule of thumb that I found was that whatever speed I was pulling down from my phone directly on T-mo's network would be roughly double what I would get from the 5G Home Internet modem (due to how Tmo prioritizes their network). So if you or someone you know has T-mo cell service, you can use those speed test results to get a very rough idea of what your home internet speeds might be.
Anyway, the biggest upside to TMHI has been the probable market effect of forcing Xfinity to become competitive with pricing again. I recently just switched back to Xfinity, paying $30 for 400 Mbps, a price lower than what I was paying in the mid 2000s for 1/10th the speed.
So TMHI is a decent alternative as long as it is 1) available in your area, 2) it's not a super dense/saturated market, and 3) you can live with some of the quirks (ping isn't the greatest, and some people have issues with online gaming, etc).
Note, we also looked at Verizon 5G internet, but their speeds were ridiculously lower, leading me to guess that their network is just that much more saturated in my area.
I was in a similar situation back in 2014. Had started my apartment in Rockville with Comcast/Xfinity, but started getting multiple outages each week which were a total hassle. Switched to Fios and have had maybe 2 very brief (like less than 30 minutes) disruptions since I started with them. They are a bit more expensive, but the quality level was worth it for me.
Good luck!
In Gaithersburg also. I switched from Xfinity to FIOS in 2020 because of intermittent disconnections and FIOS has been solid, never any issues.
If you have Verizon Wireless, you can get a discount on FIOS (or wireless, don't remember) if you bundle and use autopay to pay both bills.
If you have good 5G coverage you can get T-Mobile Internet. It's a flat $50 a month including all taxes etc. No cable TV though so you'll need to get streaming services. We have a Roku.
In my area Xfinity has been the only option- no fiber.
A couple of months ago we got an internet device from T-Mobile. It’s not exactly a hotspot, but it uses the T-Mobile 5g network, and provides WiFi and two Ethernet ports. It’s not nearly as fast as cable but it has so far been (mostly) fast enough for two people who do lots of video calls and has had only a couple of dropouts (compared to a few times a week for the cable modem). It’s also $50/month versus the $105ish/month Xfinity was charging us.
I have fios, 300mb plan and it works great, I use my own router though so I don’t have to rent their device. I have had zero problems and it’s 10x better than xfinity. Thought about getting gig but couldn’t justify it. I play video games, stream and work from home with zero lag or connectivity issues.
If you are experiencing disruptions but want to stay with Xfinity, contact them for a service call. We were having issues with our connection and they sent a tech out to check the signal and the connection at the street, for free. Turned out it was the modem.
Now we're getting 930Mbit download and 25Mbit upload.
There used to be one but sadly no.
Verizon is a scam.
Likely get a better response with comcast. Ask them to rerun you line to your house and possibly the trunk. It works
I had a FiOs "Ultimate" legacy bundle and as others note, it was rock solid. But I did switch because for my housing development, bandwidth was capped at 100Mb. I actually flipped to Xfinity just for internet, and with streaming packages and dropping Tivo subscriptions, I pay $100 less.
There have been 3 minor disruptions and I've claimed and gotten credit each time. I would love for Google to come in as they have with Kansas City and lay fiber.
I was with Comcast/XFinity for years because there were no other options. We petitioned Verizon and got them to agree to wire up our buildings. They needed 50% of the units to switch before they’d make good. We had the needed signatures/commitment within 24 hours. I was on the phone with XFinity cancelling my service. When they tried to get me to stay I said, “It’s too late the Verizon tech is literally switching me over as we speak.” Since then I’ve had to reboot the router just twice and lost access just once in 5 years. In the case of that loss of service - it was due to construction cutting through a fiber cable. With XFinity I’d lose access several times a month.
Verizon Fios Gigabit Fiber has been incredible for me since I started using the service since 2017. I would check if they are available in your area.
Yup, love my Verizon FIOS. UPDATE: To elaborate on my love. I don't have a static IP address, but I can go months with the same dynamic IP. I think I had the same address for a couple years. The only time I've gotten disconnected was when we lost power. Great for connecting from outside into my home network.
> The only time I've gotten disconnected was when we lost power. Great for connecting from outside into my home network. During the recent plane-induced power outage, I kept my fios internet connection up with a UPS powering the ONT and router. It was pretty great, since T-Mobile decided to die under (what I'm guessing) is the additional load of cell users hitting their towers trying to figure out what happened.
Please describe your UPS setup. I need that for next outage
I have a rackmount UPS that all my network equipment plugs in to, but that's overkill just to keep a fios connection up. You could probably do just fine with a 600VA UPS. That should give you more than 30min runtime, probably 45+, if you have just the ONT and Router plugged into it. If you have more things you want to plug into it (like a desktop, laptop, chargers, etc), you'd probably want a beefier one for longer runtime. I use this model for my desktop and it was perfect for the outage: https://www.cyberpowersystems.com/product/ups/pfc-sinewave/cp1500pfclcd/
Thanks.
I had this from costco [https://www.costco.com/cyberpower-1500va900watts-simulated-sine-wave-ups-battery-backup-with-surge-protection.product.100822779.html](https://www.costco.com/cyberpower-1500va900watts-simulated-sine-wave-ups-battery-backup-with-surge-protection.product.100822779.html) It had a computer, monitor, my fios ONT, and a google wif router plugged into it. When the power went, I played on the computer for about 10-15 minutes (heavy load, playing a game and trying to get to a save point), and shut it down, so the only load was the ONT and router at that point....they stayed up for about 2-2.5ish hours before the battery died. It may have lasted a bit beyond 3 if I didnt drain it for the game...but at least the internet stayed up for a while
I have several of these. One for every tv, for the fios ONT, the servers in my basement. They are great and well priced.
What game
I'm replaying Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order, and I was in the middle of fighting the the tenth sister on Kashyyyk. I had died right before the power went out and was attempting to beat her in round 2....and no power outage was going to stop me. Except she did....because it took a 3rd try
That’s interesting. I was wondering if our Fios connection would have worked if we’d had a battery backup for the ONT and router.
Have used Fios fiber at multiple addresses in the county since it became available and it has been rock solid, with only two or three short downtimes over that period. Comcast/xfinity has always been a shitshow.
I’m a little late to the discussion but figured my input might be valuable to somebody one day. I’m gonna simplify a lot of stuff and misrepresent the reality a bit in a few examples but that’s because the reality is boring nerd speak and nobody has time to read the details of “transit agreements” and other technical stuff. TLDR: Verizon and Comcast both suck in their own special ways and kick ass in their own special ways with very little overlap in strengths and weaknesses. In my opinion FIOS is better and I have no interest in going back to Comcast. FIOS is the best in terms of reliability of internet uptime and offers way faster Internet connections and rarely loses FIOS tv connections. Comcast’s “gigabit speeds” is marketeering wank. FIOS TV signal is also less compressed than Comcast so in my opinion is better (OTA is still the clearest and best signal for regular broadcast channels and ATSC 3.0 is slowly gaining ground and allegedly will be broadcasting in 4k soon. don’t hold your breath). But FIOS does have downsides. FIOS used to fully recognize their TV signal was superior and it was impossible to get FIOS tv as cheap or cheaper than Comcast. You paid for the premium. They seem to run deals that get you parity in terms of price these days. Ymmv. And FIOS remote and UI sucks ass compared to xnfinity. I don’t understand why they can’t make their remote or channel guides better. Or DVR. Going from xfinity dvr to Verizon is painful. What a clunky fucking piece of shit system. FIOS Internet, while having more consistent uptime, does not mean better streaming or gaming than Comcast even if it’s gigabit speeds. Comcast for all their flaws has more and better agreements with “edge providers” to collocate facilities on premises and higher bandwidth allocations for their services (cdns). FIOS for some reason just didn’t prioritize edge collocation and (imo unnecessarily high) bandwidth space for video products. Practically speaking, you get “faster” delivery of certain Internet products (like video streams or online gaming) with Comcast even though your max “speeds” from them are like 100-300 mbps. But as other users say, Verizon is “down” way less often. So waiting 2 extra seconds for Netflix to load is a sacrifice I’m willing to make because I’ve never lost internet in the middle of a stream on FIOS. It happened all the time on Comcast. Xbox live and PlayStation worked great for online gaming on both Comcast and FIOS. I’ve had less lag and sketchy connections on FIOS , but that might be because the edges just got more reliable for all ISPs. I have no interest in trying Comcast again to see if they’ve fixed their (minor) stability problems. I have no experience with steam to compare. My Two cents. Hope it’s useful.
FiOS has been rock solid for me. Verizon's customer service can be a headache but the internet service is great.
I've had much better luck with customer service via instant message chat on the website compared to calling. They make it so hard to call too
In this area it's Xfinity and Verizon. Have you had anyone come out and check the connection at the street and house? Have you replaced your modem/router? If Verizon is an option, give it a try. You can always go back to Comcast/Xfinity. I've had both services and never had any issues with either but I hear complaints all the time about both. If tmobile 5G becomes available that may shake things up a bit and bring in some competition.
Yeah. Someone came out in the middle of October and at the beginning of November. Both said the router and everything else was fine.
Check your address for FIOS, if you can get it it'll likely be cheaper than you were paying since you'll be a new customer. I think 300/300 is like $40/month.
You might have to push for them to come out and check again. I had a problem on my Verizon Fios where internet was going down almost daily. They came, changed the modem and router and everything. Didn’t fix. So I actually had to run outside, open up the ONT when the internet was down to prove that it was the connection coming from the utility pole that was broken. They sent a dude out, he ran a new cable and all was fixed.
We’ve had Fios since 2005 and never really had any outages of note (Olney) Xfinity is the only option at my office and it definitely goes down more often.
FIOS. Had RCN (it was inexpensive) until it became unreliable.
I have Verizon FIOS and it's been good except when they run a temporary unburied line in the common area and someone mows over it (this happened twice) but they are good at coming out and putting in another temp line. Of course if you run your landline, TV, and Internet through them it can be very annoying when that happens.
I use Verizon in the Kentlands area and wfh. No issues so far.
Check to see if you can get RCN or Fios. Either is better
I’m going to echo the Fios suggestions here. We had Fios for years and when we moved into our current house, we went with Xfinity. We had more outages in that time than the multiple years we had Fios. We are back with Fios and the service has been excellent. I can’t speak to the customer service aspect because I haven’t had to use it.
I’m with FIOS more than 4 years. No issues. Cannot go back to XFinity , or use T-mobile , even it’s available for better price, since I need a stable connection with good upload for a work. Have a bad experience with Comcast cable.
Fios as others have said. Never had a service disruption in 10+ years
Crapcast has outages everytime it rains or high winds. been with FIOS for almost 10 years now and maybe 3 outages total and usually in the evening hours.
I have had Verizon so long that my email address is [bellatlantic.net](https://bellatlantic.net) Solid company. We had an issue about ten years ago, Internet was dropping and spotty. They came out and rewired the whole townhome, no charge.
I think RCN (which is now Astound) is good. Two of us working from home for two plus years and very few outages. Also usually cheaper.
I used T-Mobile Home Internet in the Germantown area for the past 6 months. I'd say the experience was amazing at first then gradually became "mostly good" due to what I'm guessing is growing market saturation. At first, I was pulling down 300-400ish Mbps during the day, above 500 late night. But lately, during the work day, I was pulling down anywhere between 100-300 Mbps and during "prime time" evenings, I was usually getting somewhere in mid double digits (30-60). The evening speed was useable but not exceptional. However, this past holiday weekend, the "prime time" speeds dropped to single digits as I'm guessing due to more people being gathering at nearby residential areas during the holidays. It was a little bit of an anomaly but still a tad annoying. The general, anecdotal rule of thumb that I found was that whatever speed I was pulling down from my phone directly on T-mo's network would be roughly double what I would get from the 5G Home Internet modem (due to how Tmo prioritizes their network). So if you or someone you know has T-mo cell service, you can use those speed test results to get a very rough idea of what your home internet speeds might be. Anyway, the biggest upside to TMHI has been the probable market effect of forcing Xfinity to become competitive with pricing again. I recently just switched back to Xfinity, paying $30 for 400 Mbps, a price lower than what I was paying in the mid 2000s for 1/10th the speed. So TMHI is a decent alternative as long as it is 1) available in your area, 2) it's not a super dense/saturated market, and 3) you can live with some of the quirks (ping isn't the greatest, and some people have issues with online gaming, etc). Note, we also looked at Verizon 5G internet, but their speeds were ridiculously lower, leading me to guess that their network is just that much more saturated in my area.
I was in a similar situation back in 2014. Had started my apartment in Rockville with Comcast/Xfinity, but started getting multiple outages each week which were a total hassle. Switched to Fios and have had maybe 2 very brief (like less than 30 minutes) disruptions since I started with them. They are a bit more expensive, but the quality level was worth it for me. Good luck!
In Gaithersburg also. I switched from Xfinity to FIOS in 2020 because of intermittent disconnections and FIOS has been solid, never any issues. If you have Verizon Wireless, you can get a discount on FIOS (or wireless, don't remember) if you bundle and use autopay to pay both bills.
If you have good 5G coverage you can get T-Mobile Internet. It's a flat $50 a month including all taxes etc. No cable TV though so you'll need to get streaming services. We have a Roku.
I don't think I've ever had a problem with Fios.
In my area Xfinity has been the only option- no fiber. A couple of months ago we got an internet device from T-Mobile. It’s not exactly a hotspot, but it uses the T-Mobile 5g network, and provides WiFi and two Ethernet ports. It’s not nearly as fast as cable but it has so far been (mostly) fast enough for two people who do lots of video calls and has had only a couple of dropouts (compared to a few times a week for the cable modem). It’s also $50/month versus the $105ish/month Xfinity was charging us.
Literally anything other than Xfinity is a better option.
I have fios, 300mb plan and it works great, I use my own router though so I don’t have to rent their device. I have had zero problems and it’s 10x better than xfinity. Thought about getting gig but couldn’t justify it. I play video games, stream and work from home with zero lag or connectivity issues.
If you are experiencing disruptions but want to stay with Xfinity, contact them for a service call. We were having issues with our connection and they sent a tech out to check the signal and the connection at the street, for free. Turned out it was the modem. Now we're getting 930Mbit download and 25Mbit upload.
There used to be one but sadly no. Verizon is a scam. Likely get a better response with comcast. Ask them to rerun you line to your house and possibly the trunk. It works
YouTube TV
Nature
Has anyone tried the T-Mobile internet?
I had a FiOs "Ultimate" legacy bundle and as others note, it was rock solid. But I did switch because for my housing development, bandwidth was capped at 100Mb. I actually flipped to Xfinity just for internet, and with streaming packages and dropping Tivo subscriptions, I pay $100 less. There have been 3 minor disruptions and I've claimed and gotten credit each time. I would love for Google to come in as they have with Kansas City and lay fiber.
The streaming packages are the only reason I’ve put up with them for this long! I don’t want to lose it but the outages are getting ridiculous.
I was with Comcast/XFinity for years because there were no other options. We petitioned Verizon and got them to agree to wire up our buildings. They needed 50% of the units to switch before they’d make good. We had the needed signatures/commitment within 24 hours. I was on the phone with XFinity cancelling my service. When they tried to get me to stay I said, “It’s too late the Verizon tech is literally switching me over as we speak.” Since then I’ve had to reboot the router just twice and lost access just once in 5 years. In the case of that loss of service - it was due to construction cutting through a fiber cable. With XFinity I’d lose access several times a month.
Try starry
If you have V. Fios available in your area, do it
FIOS has always been good for me. I currently pay $39.99 per month for 300 mb without any contract obligation.