I enjoy watching TV.  There I said it.  I have a HD big screen TV and I want to use it.  I guess this is where my consideration of FIOS started, with the purchase of my High Def TV.

I was a Comcast subscriber my whole life.  That's all their was.  Well, that and rabbit ears. I never really had any problems either.  At the time of my switch to FIOS I was paying about $150 per month for Internet, the extended channel lineup, HBO, Showtime, Stars and a HD DVR.  I was paying an additional $40 per month to Verizon for my phone service.  All together a little under $200.  Pricey, but I was happy.  Comcast's HD content was acceptable and I had a pretty good selection of channels, including premium ones.

Then one day along came a FIOS truck to my neighbor's house.  I had of course heard of FIOS and Verizon's claims of a better picture, more channels and lower cost.  So I gave them a call.  After much deliberation I ended up with a cheaper plan with my phone bundled in and no movie channels, about $150 total including a HD DVR.  A little bit of a compromise on my part, but they promised more channels and a better picture so I didn't think I would miss the movie channels that much.

Installation went fine.  Only thing to say about it here is that they put a big ugly box on the side of my house.  FIOS also comes with a router and the tech was very helpful in getting it all setup.

The first word that comes to mouth when describing my first time using FIOS is disappointment.  It was SLOW.  I'm not talking about the Internet which was plenty fast, I'm talking about changing channels and using the menus.  I know, we all expect instant gratification these days, but in a strict comparison to Comcast FIOS was much slower.

This is also the moment where I became disappointed in myself for falling for the marketing hype about a better picture.  Without going into to much detail about the various HD resolutions, HD is HD.  Comcast HD looks the same as FIOS HD.  Except that Comcast had more of it.  Things I was used to watching in HD on Comcast's On Demand were in low def on FIOS's.  All of FIOS's pay per view movies were in low def too.  Why would I pay $10 (more than Comcast) for a low def movie?  Ridiculous if you think about it.

Disappointment number three was with all of the extra channels FIOS had.  Talk about crap.  I don't think 24/7 infomercials counts as a channel.  Tons of music channels, but how many rap channels do you really need?

After suffering through three months of FIOS I finally called Comcast and got an unbelievable deal.  Everything I had before except Showtime for $99 a month, including phone!  It's a little more with the taxes and what not, but the best deal by far.