7 ms·

Has Verizon actually had any happy content customers? Every time a carrier tries to go into content creation they try to do it on the cheap and force their mono

Has Verizon actually had any happy content customers? Every time a carrier tries to go into content creation they try to do it on the cheap and force their monolithic soul-sucking corporate culture onto creative types and it never has worked. People don't want to work for Verizon, or Comcast, or other such companies. They treat their employees like dirt, and are generally unconcerned with user experience, doing things the right way, and view customer service as a cost center. All of their products have been developed in a centrifuge of "just good enough" with an eye toward minimizing effort and maximizing profits. Its entirely a cultural thing set by the leadership of these companies and will not change until there is a fundamental (albeit unlikely) shift in leadership at the top.

shanacarp 10y ago
it is a brave new world for them....but...they acknowledge their problems....unlike many carriers
rdtsc 10y ago
> had any happy content customers? Not me. They got us a FIOS deal when we got our house. I used them for 2 years. Super fiber speed, except they would throttle youtube. So here I was paying to this supposedly superior quality and speed and getting throttled by them. So I dropped them and switched to a plain old cable provider (just for internet, we don't really watch tv anymore). Cut my costs more than half. On paper the speed is lower, however, the latency and lack of throttling for things like Youtube and other media is better. Now since Verizon installed their equipment on our premises, they keep coming back every few months, in person -- as in they have someone drive out to our door, begging us to come back. They even offered to match the price we pay for cable currently (but it is always some stupid 2 year contract thing, that I know will go throught the roof when the time is passed).
- ec109685 10y ago
  Do you have cites for throttling YouTube? That seems entirely terrible for retaining users.
  - rayiner 10y ago
    I've never noticed any throttling on YouTube (I've had FiOS in Baltimore and now in D.C.). I get a rock solid 140 mbps on Netflix's fast.com, even during primetime. 140/170 on speedtest.com.
    - cmdrfred 10y ago
      150 meg connection in Philly here. 155 mbps steady from fast.com and speed test both directions over WiFi. Not a single outage in a year.
  - rdtsc 10y ago
    Other people apparently had (still have?) these issues: https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/youtube/CPW7r7OY5Co https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/youtube/CPW7r... http://lifehacker.com/use-a-vpn-to-bypass-your-isps-throttling-of-netflix-or-1608538080 http://lifehacker.com/use-a-vpn-to-bypass-your-isps-throttli... You can search for more. While it could be a coincidence that somehow after switching poviders Youtube fixed their servers at the same time and got faster, I'd have to believe it was because of Verizon. Someone from a Verizon forum remember mentioned, defending them, it could have been Google not paying for peering with Verizon enough. But I consider that still Verizon's fault. I don't really care about the details, I was paying a hefty sum to Verizon for Internet connectivity and not getting it. However they setup their peering agreements is their problem, I pay to not have to know that.
  - monkmartinez 10y ago
    Google "ISP throttle youtube"... it is not hard to imagine isp's doing this a few years ago. My perception of youtube buffering "all. the. time." wasn't that long ago. I am relatively certain Comcast was throttling at the time, but I don't think they are these days.
  - jballer 10y ago
    Time Warner Cable in NC throttled it for me. I was only able to watch YouTube in HD through my school's VPN. How backwards is that?
  - 10y ago
- deleted 10y ago
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- driverdan 10y ago
  I hate the "ISP X throttles Service Y" meme. It's not throttling, it's bad peering. Very different but the outcome is similar.
  - spacemanmatt 10y ago
    Verizon is one of the ISPs that engaged/engages in intentional removal of peering connections. Netflix is a signature example of this.
rdtsc 10y ago
> had any happy content customers? Not me. They got us a FIOS deal when we got our house. I used them for 2 years. Super fiber speed, except they would throttle youtube. So here I was paying to this supposedly superior quality and speed and getting throttled by them. So I dropped them and switch to a plain old cable provider (just for Internet, we don't really watch TV anymore). Cut my costs more than half. On paper the speed is lower, however, the latency and lack of throttling for things like Youtube and other media is better. Now since Verizon installed their equipment on our premises, they keep coming back every few months, in person -- as in they have someone drive out to our door, begging us to come back. They even offered to match the price we pay for cable currently (but it is always some stupid 2 year contract thing, that I know will go throught the roof when the time is passed).
maxxxxx 10y ago
I had FIOS with them for a while. It was really stable with constant bandwidth, much better than my experience with cable. But I never had any real interaction with them.
rhino369 10y ago
Fios and Verizon cdma/LTE are the best mass deployed communication networks compared to their domestic peers. They are expensive, but their service delivers. I'm very happy with fios. I pay 60 bucks for 75 up and down, and almost always get 80 up and down.
- diafygi 10y ago
  I'm on T-mobile now, but when I was at a previous job that had to work out of a ton of backwoods locations, everyone on the job used Verizon. The huge push they had to expand coverage everywhere combined with the 700Mhz LTE bands they got to ensure good quality through long distances and obstructions, a lot of the people who don't work in big cities love Verizon because it works. As much as I hate their shady practices, they aren't going to be beat in their core market until someone else offers better coverage and reliability.
  - rhino369 10y ago
    Yep I'm on vacation in the backwoods. My personal T-Mobile phone doesn't get any coverage. Luckily my firm let me borrow a Verizon hotspot. Though tmo just deployed a 700mhz network, but my phone doesn't have the LTE band on the baseband chip.
- vetinari 10y ago
  Well, it seems to me that you are overpaying. I'm paying 15 EUR for 250 down and 100 up for the FTTH service (GPON terminal in my cabinet), and the ISP (Orange) even has its own Youtube cache.
  - rocqua 10y ago
    Those are some good prices. I am paying €40 for 50/50. I could get a lower price at a slightly worse ISP, but nothing in that range.
  - cpfohl 10y ago
    Yeah, welcome to the USA where you pay more for worse internet.
crispyambulance 10y ago
> had any happy content customers? Not me. Verizon upsold my elderly mother for a bunch of crap services she didn't need or have use for (a "bundle"). Their customer sales, like Comcast's, is nothing more than a slimy boiler-room operation. Luckily, I was able to back her out of the plan with a solid hour on the phone and a careful appeal to the humanity of the customer service rep.
ngoede 10y ago
I am reasonably okay with my FIOS service. But only really in comparison to the hell that Comcast put me through. I am sure at some point Verizon will fuck it up. Too bad I am out of providers to try.
Unklejoe 10y ago
My FiOS internet has been good to me. It's always able to achieve the BW specified by them, and there is no throttling/cap. I've even been running a web server for years without any issues (you aren't supposed to do that with a residential connection). Comcast, on the other hand, has bandwidth caps at 250 GB, but I think they recently raised them to 1 TB. However, even 1 TB isn't huge by today's standards, especially with everything migrating towards the "cloud". However, The FiOS TV service isn’t that great. The standard definition boxes are so slow that they are unusable and tend to simply break every year or so (gets stuck in a boot loop and flashes “FPGA” on the front display, which is kind of interesting). The HD boxes are much better, but I don’t want to spend the money. Also, it’s expensive, but I doubt Comcast is any better. They probably compete very tightly with each other in areas where both are available.
- chadgeidel 10y ago
  I've heard about the Comcast bandwidth cap and it's my opinion that is only for the "lowest tier" of service. I've got the "middle tier" (there are so many levels I don't know where I lie) and use way more than 250 every month. I've never received a notice - not even the one month where I was over 1 TB. YMMV, Anecdote != data, etc.
lanaius 10y ago
Since it seems like most responses misunderstood your question, I will say that I've never been entirely pleased with "startup" content creation. Netflix and Amazon do fine, but Yahoo's offerings outside of picking up Community were rather weak. Hulu's original offerings are not great. Comcast produces some things under the Universal label (or NBC) so it's hard for me to tell what "Comcast" is making versus the purchased entities. I guess AT&T has a whole network on DirecTV but I don't know the quality of their shows. I suspect that Verizon's offerings are going to be completely disposable given their usage model and rate of production, probably similar to Youtube Red's exclusive offerings - good if you already care for that sort of stuff. Reality TV aside, my general view is that most companies that view original/exclusive streaming media as an "add-on" versus a core competency are more likely to buy in cheap and rebroadcast ideas that were already popular, chasing the trends, and delivering less enduring quality than typical TV/cable stations. For streaming media it's more about cramming as much (exclusive) garbage as you can, and having enough videos that someone can always find something to pass the time on your service. Traditional TV can only offer you one piece of content at a time, so they at least make some effort to put budget and thought behind the quality, even if they often miss.

shanacarp 10y ago

it is a brave new world for them....but...they acknowledge their problems....unlike many carriers

rdtsc 10y ago

> had any happy content customers? Not me. They got us a FIOS deal when we got our house. I used them for 2 years. Super fiber speed, except they would throttle youtube. So here I was paying to this supposedly superior quality and speed and getting throttled by them. So I dropped them and switched to a plain old cable provider (just for internet, we don't really watch tv anymore). Cut my costs more than half. On paper the speed is lower, however, the latency and lack of throttling for things like Youtube and other media is better. Now since Verizon installed their equipment on our premises, they keep coming back every few months, in person -- as in they have someone drive out to our door, begging us to come back. They even offered to match the price we pay for cable currently (but it is always some stupid 2 year contract thing, that I know will go throught the roof when the time is passed).

ec109685 10y ago
Do you have cites for throttling YouTube? That seems entirely terrible for retaining users.
- rayiner 10y ago
  I've never noticed any throttling on YouTube (I've had FiOS in Baltimore and now in D.C.). I get a rock solid 140 mbps on Netflix's fast.com, even during primetime. 140/170 on speedtest.com.
  - cmdrfred 10y ago
    150 meg connection in Philly here. 155 mbps steady from fast.com and speed test both directions over WiFi. Not a single outage in a year.
- rdtsc 10y ago
  Other people apparently had (still have?) these issues: https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/youtube/CPW7r7OY5Co https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/youtube/CPW7r... http://lifehacker.com/use-a-vpn-to-bypass-your-isps-throttling-of-netflix-or-1608538080 http://lifehacker.com/use-a-vpn-to-bypass-your-isps-throttli... You can search for more. While it could be a coincidence that somehow after switching poviders Youtube fixed their servers at the same time and got faster, I'd have to believe it was because of Verizon. Someone from a Verizon forum remember mentioned, defending them, it could have been Google not paying for peering with Verizon enough. But I consider that still Verizon's fault. I don't really care about the details, I was paying a hefty sum to Verizon for Internet connectivity and not getting it. However they setup their peering agreements is their problem, I pay to not have to know that.
- monkmartinez 10y ago
  Google "ISP throttle youtube"... it is not hard to imagine isp's doing this a few years ago. My perception of youtube buffering "all. the. time." wasn't that long ago. I am relatively certain Comcast was throttling at the time, but I don't think they are these days.
- jballer 10y ago
  Time Warner Cable in NC throttled it for me. I was only able to watch YouTube in HD through my school's VPN. How backwards is that?
- 10y ago
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
driverdan 10y ago
I hate the "ISP X throttles Service Y" meme. It's not throttling, it's bad peering. Very different but the outcome is similar.
- spacemanmatt 10y ago
  Verizon is one of the ISPs that engaged/engages in intentional removal of peering connections. Netflix is a signature example of this.

rdtsc 10y ago

> had any happy content customers? Not me. They got us a FIOS deal when we got our house. I used them for 2 years. Super fiber speed, except they would throttle youtube. So here I was paying to this supposedly superior quality and speed and getting throttled by them. So I dropped them and switch to a plain old cable provider (just for Internet, we don't really watch TV anymore). Cut my costs more than half. On paper the speed is lower, however, the latency and lack of throttling for things like Youtube and other media is better. Now since Verizon installed their equipment on our premises, they keep coming back every few months, in person -- as in they have someone drive out to our door, begging us to come back. They even offered to match the price we pay for cable currently (but it is always some stupid 2 year contract thing, that I know will go throught the roof when the time is passed).

maxxxxx 10y ago

I had FIOS with them for a while. It was really stable with constant bandwidth, much better than my experience with cable. But I never had any real interaction with them.

rhino369 10y ago

Fios and Verizon cdma/LTE are the best mass deployed communication networks compared to their domestic peers. They are expensive, but their service delivers. I'm very happy with fios. I pay 60 bucks for 75 up and down, and almost always get 80 up and down.

diafygi 10y ago
I'm on T-mobile now, but when I was at a previous job that had to work out of a ton of backwoods locations, everyone on the job used Verizon. The huge push they had to expand coverage everywhere combined with the 700Mhz LTE bands they got to ensure good quality through long distances and obstructions, a lot of the people who don't work in big cities love Verizon because it works. As much as I hate their shady practices, they aren't going to be beat in their core market until someone else offers better coverage and reliability.
- rhino369 10y ago
  Yep I'm on vacation in the backwoods. My personal T-Mobile phone doesn't get any coverage. Luckily my firm let me borrow a Verizon hotspot. Though tmo just deployed a 700mhz network, but my phone doesn't have the LTE band on the baseband chip.
vetinari 10y ago
Well, it seems to me that you are overpaying. I'm paying 15 EUR for 250 down and 100 up for the FTTH service (GPON terminal in my cabinet), and the ISP (Orange) even has its own Youtube cache.
- rocqua 10y ago
  Those are some good prices. I am paying €40 for 50/50. I could get a lower price at a slightly worse ISP, but nothing in that range.
- cpfohl 10y ago
  Yeah, welcome to the USA where you pay more for worse internet.

crispyambulance 10y ago

> had any happy content customers? Not me. Verizon upsold my elderly mother for a bunch of crap services she didn't need or have use for (a "bundle"). Their customer sales, like Comcast's, is nothing more than a slimy boiler-room operation. Luckily, I was able to back her out of the plan with a solid hour on the phone and a careful appeal to the humanity of the customer service rep.

ngoede 10y ago

I am reasonably okay with my FIOS service. But only really in comparison to the hell that Comcast put me through. I am sure at some point Verizon will fuck it up. Too bad I am out of providers to try.

Unklejoe 10y ago

My FiOS internet has been good to me. It's always able to achieve the BW specified by them, and there is no throttling/cap. I've even been running a web server for years without any issues (you aren't supposed to do that with a residential connection). Comcast, on the other hand, has bandwidth caps at 250 GB, but I think they recently raised them to 1 TB. However, even 1 TB isn't huge by today's standards, especially with everything migrating towards the "cloud". However, The FiOS TV service isn’t that great. The standard definition boxes are so slow that they are unusable and tend to simply break every year or so (gets stuck in a boot loop and flashes “FPGA” on the front display, which is kind of interesting). The HD boxes are much better, but I don’t want to spend the money. Also, it’s expensive, but I doubt Comcast is any better. They probably compete very tightly with each other in areas where both are available.

chadgeidel 10y ago
I've heard about the Comcast bandwidth cap and it's my opinion that is only for the "lowest tier" of service. I've got the "middle tier" (there are so many levels I don't know where I lie) and use way more than 250 every month. I've never received a notice - not even the one month where I was over 1 TB. YMMV, Anecdote != data, etc.

lanaius 10y ago

Since it seems like most responses misunderstood your question, I will say that I've never been entirely pleased with "startup" content creation. Netflix and Amazon do fine, but Yahoo's offerings outside of picking up Community were rather weak. Hulu's original offerings are not great. Comcast produces some things under the Universal label (or NBC) so it's hard for me to tell what "Comcast" is making versus the purchased entities. I guess AT&T has a whole network on DirecTV but I don't know the quality of their shows. I suspect that Verizon's offerings are going to be completely disposable given their usage model and rate of production, probably similar to Youtube Red's exclusive offerings - good if you already care for that sort of stuff. Reality TV aside, my general view is that most companies that view original/exclusive streaming media as an "add-on" versus a core competency are more likely to buy in cheap and rebroadcast ideas that were already popular, chasing the trends, and delivering less enduring quality than typical TV/cable stations. For streaming media it's more about cramming as much (exclusive) garbage as you can, and having enough videos that someone can always find something to pass the time on your service. Traditional TV can only offer you one piece of content at a time, so they at least make some effort to put budget and thought behind the quality, even if they often miss.