The FCC recently conducted a study of some of the top broadband ISPs in the country and measured customers’ actual bandwidth as compared to what the ISPs advertised. FiOS really came out on top.

The report is available on the FCC site. The bottom line, though, is that Verizon FiOS averaged nearly 120% of advertised speed (i.e., more than was advertised) and Cablevision was between 50% and 75% of advertised speeds. Latency (ping) was also heavily in FiOS’s favor.

FCC - Fios vs Cablevision

More than 78,000 consumers volunteered to participate in this study and a total of approximately 9,000 consumers were selected as potential participants and were supplied with specially configured routers. The data in this Report is based on a statistically selected subset of those consumers—approximately 6,800 individuals—and the measurements taken in their homes during March 2011. The participants in the volunteer consumer panel were recruited with the goal of covering ISPs within the U.S. across all broadband technologies, although only results from three major technologies—DSL, cable, and fiber-to-the-home—are reflected in
this Report. To account for network variances across the United States, volunteers were recruited from the four Census Regions: Northeast, Midwest, South, and West. Within each Census Region, consumers were selected to represent broadband performance in three typical speed ranges: less than 3 Mbps, between 3 and 10 Mbps, greater than 10 Mbps.

The testing methodology itself required innovation on both the consumer, or “client,” side and on the ISP, or “server,” side. The server-side infrastructure, which comprised reference measurement points that were distributed geographically across nine different U.S. locations, was made available to SamKnows for the project by M-Lab, a non-profit organization that supports Internet research activities. Each consumer participant’s broadband performance was measured from a hardware gateway in his or her household to the off-net test node that had the lowest latency to the consumer’s address.

On the “client” side of the test, consumers self-installed a measurement gateway that was provided by SamKnows. These gateways, or “Whiteboxes,” were installed between the consumer’s computer and Internet gateway and came pre-loaded with custom testing software. The “Whitebox” software was programmed to automatically perform a periodic suite of broadband measurements while excluding the effects of consumer equipment and household broadband activity. This approach permitted a direct measure of the broadband service an ISP delivered to a consumer’s household.

Anyone who’s experienced both Cablevision and Verizon can probably corroborate these results. Unless Cablevision significantly improves their services (DVR/TV as well as Internet), at the same price there’s no way I’d go back to Cablevision; I’d even stick with Verizon if it meant spending $10-$20 more per month, the service is that much better.

Well, that was quite an ordeal. But Verizon came today and finally installed FiOS. All’s well that ends well, I suppose. My phone number was finally ported over and the internet is insanely fast. This is 25/25 internet with my desktop Fedora box plugged into the TP-Link router which is then plugged into the FiOS ActionTec router. I didn’t want to have to reconnect all my computers to a new SSID so I’ll just continue using the TP-Link until I have a reason not to.

FiOS 25/25 Speed Test - May 20th, 2011

One thing I did right away was change my DNS servers. The default DNS servers with Verizon were 68.237.161.12 and 71.243.0.12. By default, Verizon uses “DNS assistance,” meaning that DNS queries against these servers will return IP addresses when they should return NXDOMAIN, so if you mistype the hostname in a URL it can direct you to a page full of ads. You can disable this by replacing the last octet of the default DNS IP with 14. So for the two IPs above, it would be 68.237.161.14 and 71.243.0.14. I figured I’d compare the response times of these servers with Google’s 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4. I used dig to time DNS requests and also used ping to measure latency. 68.237.161.14 was the fastest for me, followed by 8.8.4.4 and then 71.243.0.14, so those are my primary, secondary, and tertiary DNS servers.

Several weeks ago, I scheduled the FiOS install for 5/14/2011 and they said it would be between 8am and 5pm. I got confirmation emails (welcome to FiOS) and a confirmation call on 5/12. I waited all day yesterday for Verizon to show, and they never did. I called at 11:58 AM and gave my order number to see if they could tell me roughly what time the tech would be here, since I didn’t want to sit around all day if the tech wouldn’t be there until 4 PM. They couldn’t. They said we were still scheduled for today, between 8 and 5. I asked if they could call the tech scheduled to do the installation and see when he thought he’d get here and I was told they couldn’t.

At 5:45 we called Verizon to find out what happened, why the tech didn’t show, since we’d waited around the house all day. They told us the order had been put on hold 2 days before because Cablevision wouldn’t release our phone number. I understand things happen, but not calling to let me know, and then giving me incorrect info when I called, is inexcusable. The Verizon rep we spoke to afterwards wasn’t even apologetic. Disappointing.

Verizon is coming tomorrow to hook me back up with FiOS. I figured I’d do one final speedtest with Cablevision’s Optimum Online Boost (30 Mbps down, 5 Mbps up advertised). The speed’s been pretty consistent, but it’s just not as good as FiOS.

Bandwidth test:

Optimum Online Boost Speedtest 2011-05-13

Ping test:

Optimum Online Boost Pingtest.net latency test 2011-05-13

Optimum Boost advertises 30 Mbps down, 5 Mbps up. Here’s a speed test I just ran at Ookla’s SpeedTest.net:

(My desktop is plugged into the router, the router is plugged into the Arris cablemodem.)

Here’s one of the last speed tests I did with Verizon, on 2/15. I had the 25/15 internet package:

(Desktop was plugged into 8-port Linksys 100 Mbit switch, the switch was plugged into the FiOS/ActionTec router.)

Verizon’s upload is much better than Cablevision’s, as you can see. Most people probably won’t notice it, but I do. Another thing to consider is that the FiOS router has pretty good WiFi built in. I got pretty good speeds using 802.11g on my laptop upstairs connected to the FiOS router downstairs. With Cablevision I went back to my old Netgear WGR614v7 router that I’d bought in 2009 after my trust Linksys WAP54G AP had died (at that point I was using my Linux box as router/NAT). The WGR614v7 is pretty crappy. The UI is fine and I guess for basic usage it’s acceptable, but the antenna is pretty small and the signal was very weak. When I connected 6-7 devices to it (Wii, 2 laptops, Mac Mini, 2 iPhones, Kindle) it would randomly not work on one of them. Rebooting the router fixed it, for a while. Somewhere in the logging facility of the router I saw an out-of-memory error. The kicker was that we’d get errors in the browser randomly when loading pages, and wifi speeds were pretty lousy – 10 Mbps down on the 30 Mbps Optimum connection.

I decided to right this wrong and spring for a new WiFi router. After some quick checking of Newegg I found the TP-LINK TL-WR841ND 802.11n router for $25 with free shipping and a free 802.11n USB adapter (TL-WN727N). Seemed like a no-brainer. I got it, set it up in under 10 minutes, plugged the N adapter into my wife’s laptop and can easily max the 30 Mbps cable connection from upstairs now. My laptop is still using G and the speeds & signal are pretty good. The TP-Link has 2 antennae and both are much larger than the Netgear’s single antenna; I can get a strong signal outside on my deck on the opposite side of the house from the router in the basement.

So we switched back to Cablevision and it went pretty well, but apparently Verizon users can’t call our house number (ported from Verizon to Cablevision). Verizon users have to call from their mobiles in order to complete the call. I’m guessing that Verizon hasn’t updated their systems to indicate that they no longer “own” our number and is trying to route the call inside their network. Sucks because I can’t imagine Verizon jumping to help fix this since I’m not their customer anymore.

I switched to FiOS in December, 2009, and I was pretty apprehensive, having been a Cablevision customer for many years. I really had no problem with Cablevision’s service, I just thought their pricing was much too high in the face of the new competition (and deals) Verizon was offering. I ended up going with Verizon due to their awesome deal, but now it’s almost a year later and I can’t imagine going back to Optimum. It’ll probably come down to price when the current promo pricing I have with Verizon ends, but if the price was equal then no contest – I’d stick with FiOS.

Not good. The rep I spoke with had said she’d intercept the first bill and apply all the credits up front. I guess being Christmas she couldn’t, so I got this first bill of $208.22.

This is WAY more than it should be, even without the credits applied. There’s a $40/month credit missing, and they’re charging me for HBO & Cinemax, which I was told was a free trial for 3 months. On the plus side, the taxes are lower than I expected. Attaching scans of the bill. If this doesn’t get resolved when I call on Monday I’ll be heading back to Cablevision, I guess. The whole point of this exercise was to save money.

FiOS bill page 1

FiOS bill page 3

Update: New bill amount after talking to the sales rep is $42.17. That’s better. We’ll see what the 2nd and 3rd bills are.

Fios was installed today. Took longer than expected but I guess it went well. FiOS digital voice is pretty good, has one or two niceties that Optimum Voice didn’t (caller ID info in the emails it sends, for instance). The Motorola STBs are way better than the Scientific Atlanta (or whatever) that CV provides… I’m awestruck that when you hit the Channel + button, the channel actually changes.

Cablevision offered to woo me back again but since the service was already installed I said no thanks. They did say they’ll pay the termination fee for me to go back. Interesting… Anyway, Fios’s speeds are pretty good, I got as high as 26/20 on the 25/15 line. The Actiontec router is pretty nice too (model #MI424WR-GEN2).

FiOS speed test to Cablevision's server 2009-12-04

Well, this was unexpected. Verizon is really playing hardball with pricing. When I called this morning to cancel my install appointment, Verizon countered and they offered an extra $30/month discount. I asked for an extra STB for free (I figured all they can do is say no) and while the rep said she couldn’t do that, she did increase the credit to $40/month which would more than cover the cost of the 2nd box. So as of this moment, I’m on for FiOS tomorrow.

Ain’t competition great?

Well that didn’t take long. I got a call this afternoon from the same Cablevision rep I spoke with to talk about cancelling after I signed up for FiOS. Apparently they received Verizon’s request to port my number over and learned I wasn’t kidding when I said I was going to move to FiOS. And good news! I can now qualify for the Optimum Triple Play again!

The price Cablevision offered today was better than the $123 or whatever they stated last time I spoke to them, but I brought up that Verizon is offering 25/15, and I was getting like 8/2 at home. To compensate they added in Boost, which they couldn’t give me for free, but they did lower the price to $9.95/month, and she was able to give me the DVR for free. I said forget about the 2nd cable box (since with CV I can just plug in to the existing coax for additional TVs if needed – with Verizon being all digital you need a STB for each TV) and the final price came to around $109.

FiOS would potentially have been cheaper after factoring all the credits and the gift cards, but with Cablevision I didn’t have to do anything – no “unknown.” I didn’t even have to do anything to get Boost – I thought I’d have to get a different cablemodem, but they just logged in remotely and flipped a switch and now I get 25+ mbps down.

Sure, I bet some things would be better with FiOS, but for the time being I’ll stick with Cablevision. I got a 12-month price lock, so I guess a year from now I’ll have to start shopping again. I was all set to switch too – I figured it would take a few months before Cablevision started trying to woo me back, but I’m glad they took the smarter approach and never let me leave. I got a nice savings and a great speed boost (no pun intended) out of the deal. I do kind of feel bad for the FiOS rep I’d been speaking with though, she was really nice and I had her on the phone for almost an hour when I signed up.

Optimum Boost speed test, 2009-12-02 from Long Island

So I’ve had Cablevision for years. I mean, except for the couple of years I lived in Queens and when I was in college, I’ve basically had Cablevision my whole life. The service overall has been pretty good but the prices have been rising steadily. When I signed up a couple years ago for the Optimum Triple Play — TV, internet, and phone service — my bill came to like $90-$100. That’s a pretty good price for all 3 services as far as I’m concerned. It helped that Cablevision was for years the top-rated ISP in the country – I’d get 20 mbps down and 8 mbps up all the time. Over time they added caps to upload and I haven’t seen uploads over 2 mbps in a residential Optimum line in years, though at work I see ~5 mbps up over cable. I’ve moved around a lot over the past few years and I’ve kept Cablevision in each location and the service has always been at least acceptable. With this latest move, the service is still good, but download speed seems to top out around 8 mbps. That’s certainly not terrible, but not as good as the 15 mbps I was getting in the previous house.

Earlier this year I got a 1080p LCD tv and when I went to swap the SD cable box for a HD one I decided to get a DVR, which added $10/month to my bill, so for the past 9-10 months my Cable bill has been about $150/month (I lost the Triple Play promo pricing years ago). FiOS has been marketing hard around here and everyone who I’ve spoken to who has FiOS says it’s awesome. I checked the pricing online and Verizon is offering their own Triple Play for $99/month with 25mbps/15mbps Internet, FiOS digital voice (no POTS line), and HD tv. Since I still see ads on TV for Optimum for each service for $30/month ($90/month total) I figured I’d call Cablevision and see if I could get the promo pricing. Short answer: no. The rep said I could try the cancellation department.

At this point I was kind of pissed off. I’m paying $150/month when Cablevision is offering $90/month to new subscribers (plus $10/month for DVR, so $100/month). Then I spoke to a couple of guys at work who were going from FiOS TO Cablevision – they’re getting the $88/month pricing INCLUDING DVR. They got a 2-year price guarantee and NO CONTRACT! Wow, I thought, Cablevision is shafting me with this $150/month.

I decided to call FiOS and see what they’re offering pricewise. I figured it would be cheaper than Cablevision, and then I could call Cablevision and have them give me the Triple Play promo pricing. Well, I was on the phone with FiOS for about an hour and got 25/15 internet, 1 HD “family” DVR, 1 SD box and FiOS Digital Voice. I CAN port my number over from Cablevision (the webpage said I couldn’t, which was why I called them). Installation fee waived, base price is $99.99/month + $16/month for the DVR (free for the first 3 months), with an additional $10/month savings for 12 months applied upfront ($120 credit) and a credit for the set-top box applied upfront ($71). I opted for the $150 Visa gift card. The estimate for the taxes & fees is $11.68, so I’m guessing my monthly bill will be around $130 (not factoring in the 3-months of free DVR). So my guess for 12 months (factoring in the up-front credits and the gift card) is about $1,200. At my current rate with Cablevision that would be about $1,800. With Verizon I have a 24-month price lock and a 12-month contract.

I placed the order for FiOS and then called up Cablevision to tell them I was planning to cancel. Basically the best they would offer me was $124 a month, “$30 less than you’ll be paying after the price increase in December,” the rep said. What? They’re INCREASING rates? When I mentioned that the download speeds kind of suck, she offered to add Boost to my account for another $10/month, so it would be $133/month to be able to compete with FiOS speedwise. I said ok, thanks, but I didn’t cancel yet since my account needs to be active for Verizon to port over my number.

So as of now Verizon is supposed to come install FiOS on Friday. I’ll miss Cablevision and their lack of contracts and some of the other perks (Optimum WiFi was nice the few times I used it, and the free access to Newsday.com was cool), but in the end it seems like FiOS is a better service for less money. Maybe in 12 months when my contract runs out Cablevision will have changed their tune and I’ll go back. Oh well.