At this point I must give them credit for perseverance: Verizon's Eric Rabe, senior vice president of media relations and an apparent graduate of the University of Any Publicity is Good Publicity, has weighed in on the matter of whether there was a minor electrical fire or merely a wall torn asunder at a home on Pine Grove Street in Needham Aug. 8.
No one disputes that a Verizon employee caused whatever damage happened.
You'll have to go to Verizon's PolicyBlog to read Rabe's contribution, but be advised that there are photographs purporting to be from the fire (or non-fire) scene, all manner of drippy apologizing, a fair number of barbs about my attention to accuracy, and careful tiptoeing around the non-journalists -- including a deputy fire chief and the wife of an acquaintance of mine -- who insist that there was a fire, albeit -- as everyone has agreed from the start -- a minor one.
But I must share with you Rabe's opening salvo here: "Well, one certainly hates to fan the flames of Paul McNamara’s efforts to take down Verizon."
Take down Verizon? … Little ol' me? … With my little ol' blog?
The first time I tried to take down Verizon -- after experiencing four major failures of my FiOS TV service in a two-month span -- the company responded by sending flowers to my home (I kid you not).
Now they've got a vice president out with the long knives.
Of course, in his haste to prevent a lone blogger from sinking a multibillion powerhouse (or whatever he was really out to accomplish), Rabe has clearly forgotten The First Rule of Holes: When in one, stop digging.
(Update, Thursday: The Consumerist does a swell job of recapping this whole tempest.)
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FIOS...........
Typical Verizon Spin Doctor in action. I will try to remain objective in my review of Verizon FIOS despite my annoyance for Verizon Business and my dealings with the company in my place of employment.
Had FIOS Inet service installed over year ago install went smoothly and despite the Actiontec router having to be reset on two occasions the service worked quite well.
A year later FIOS TV is finally available in my area (RI), and I decide against my better judgment to give it a try. I gave explicit instructions to the installer to leave the coax for my over the air antenna alone, after I watched him scratch his head after he removed the direct TV receiver. I come back a few minutes later and naturally he had removed it, again I reminded him to not touch it, before going to check on the other tech that was upstairs in my bedroom. Needless to say not only did he touch it he plugged it back into the pre-amp backwards which basically ruined the pre-amp and my ability to fall back to HD over the air in the event that FIOS goes down. Ok so far I’m not too annoyed.
Then they turn on the multi-room DVR and immediately I notice that when switching from HD to 480 channels that there is a huge delay in the picture coming back on the TV. I tell them that this is unacceptable; of course they immediately blame the TV despite the fact that I didn’t have this issue on my Direct TV receiver. I finally convince them to test the coax and try a new receiver, neither of which helped. Given the amount of time I watch TV I decide it’s not worth it to waste any more of my time with these guys that clearly don’t know what they are doing. I decide to take another HD set from upstairs and test it out on the receiver (both HD TVs are less than a year old (Sony, Toshiba)), same issue. I then record a HD show and notice that to view it I have to first be on a HD channel. If I select the DVR and then move to show while on a standard def channel the recording will not play. Ok whatever if it annoys me enough I will kill the service before the 30 days are up….
My final complaint is that it is extremely slow when trying to use the widgets or on demand features. Not only is it slow the behavior is almost unpredictable in terms of response time. I have noticed on more than one occasion that I find my self repeatedly pressing the buttons because the response is so slow.
Anyone else have similar issues with the newer Motorola multi-room DVR box? I’m going to give Verizon one more chance to address the issues tonight when I contact them for the third time, after that I will probably go back to Direct TV.
I almost forgot to add that
I almost forgot to add that on more than one occasion (on more than one of my 3 recievers) the audio stream will completely cut out, and I have to change the channel to get it back. Also I have seen where the audio will stay on after the STB is turned off. Great quality stuff.....
Verizon FIOS PAIN
just to join the fun. I'd recently purchased a new home, so i figured, upgrade from DSL to FIOS as well.
I was scheduled for an August 6th install. Even had a computer call the night of August 5th to confirm the appointment. took the day off because the best they could do was 8-5 installation. at 2:30, i get a call "Hi this is verizon, i'm calling to confirm your appointment for August 7th". Needless to say, i was a bit miffed. Nothing they could do, had to reschedule.
Got my service up and running the next day. WOO HOO, look at me.
A week later, i realized they'd not disconnected my DSL a week prior to the FIOS install that i had scheduled. Called to have that disconnected. got home that afternoon and didn't have FIOS any longer.
Called to complain, they had disconnected my FIOS service, not my old DSL at a different address. At first they said "oops, our bad, tomorrow we will reconnect you". I kept pressing on. "Sorry, there's a problem with your billing, have to call back tomorrow we can't adjust billing issues". Now today, my FIOS service was some how terminated and no one i've spoken with yet can tell me why.
Between ISP's and Cell Phone companies, i don't know which provides the worst service. However, i'm expecting to hit the black hole of service now that i'm dealing with the same company that handles each of those service industries.
More FIOS fun
My neighbor (across the street) has FIOS, but when I checked the Verizon web site to see if I could get it, the web site tells me that it's not available in my area yet. I called Verizon, and the person with whom I spoke told me the same thing. And they want to know why I won't come back to them for POTS or cell service...
your side not wired?
its possible that they did not wire your side of the street for FiOS.
Call your local PUC and complain.
-Verizonite.
Sides
I don't think it's a did they wire your side issue as most area's only have poles on one side of the street (residential). It would seem to be a database error, which was bad data likely entered by a temp employee.