Eric Stewart: Running Off At The Mouth

Switching from Bright House to Verizon

by Eric Stewart on Aug.12, 2008, under Home Stuff, Internet Service Providers, Life, TV

I’ve been a customer of Bright House for quite some time. I’ve been mostly satisfied with their service, but I was curious as to how good Verizon’s FIOS was. I had heard from my financial adviser that he wasn’t satisfied with it and was switching back when his contract ran out. I might have decided to stick with Bright House if it weren’t for a sales call I got from them not too long ago.

The guy was simultaneously reading from a script but also straight off of a used car lot. Didn’t let me get a word in until it was time for me to say “Sure” – except that I said, “No, I don’t want phone service.” That was rapidly followed by “I understand that sir” and more rapid fire commentary about services and products. I really wasn’t interested in changes to my service at the time. But again, it was “So how about I sign you up for it?”

At that point I said, “No” and hung up. I looked at Erika after that and said, “We’re going Verizon when we get into the new house.”

So they’re on their way out Friday. They suggest it might take as much as eight hours for the guy to set everything up. I don’t think it will take that long; I know what I’m doing in this field (I think) and the previous owners of the house had Verizon.

Now when I called Verizon they wanted to give me a couple of things for the first 30 days – “firewall” and “antivirus.” Frankly, being in the business, I know enough to know how to take care of my PC … and only two of the four computers using my home internet will be Windows boxes (the other two being Ubuntu and a Mac). I’ll be interested to see how it all works out, since Verizon is providing the wireless stuff. I’ll need my workstations on a wired network – I wonder if they’ll provide that or if I’ll just end up disabling the wireless on my gigabit cable router? Oh well, we’ll see. Verizon does have a “contract” (whereas Bright House does not). I think there’s a 30 day “I changed my mind” thing where I can get out of the Verizon thing without incurring a hit. If it sucks, I’ll just go back to Bright House (and complain next time I get one of those sales calls).

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