Saturday was an exciting day. Not only did we have the MLS game to go to, but Verizon came to install FiOS for our TV and internet. I am very happy we finally are getting digital cable plus consistent internet speeds with great upload speeds. You can view my post where I was very disappointed with Time Warner here.

The installation process took around four hours for completion. That includes the guy running the cable from the pole to the house, mounting and activating the box on the house, and then checking the signal strength to each TV before plugging in the cable boxes. We are lucky that the FiOS terminal is the pole right in front of our house, makes for an easy setup when you are the main pole for the area.

Our installer Darrell was very neat and knowledgeable. He did an excellent and thorough job. I have some pictures of him connecting the wire to the pole and the box on the outside of the house. I helped him where I could since I am interested in all that sort of stuff. Learned a lot about how they deliver the fiber that day.

I haven’t been home all weekend besides just being here for the install to know how great the TV service has been. I know its nice to finally put our HD TV’s to use. Today I really tested the internet. I have been uploading and downloading files all day to see if the speeds slow down at any point, and they don’t. We have the same download speeds as Time Warner, but ten times the upload speed. We got the internet bundle with the 20/5MB speeds. What is great is they can always increase the speed dramatically if I want and guarantee the speed consistently. Here is the new speed test from www.speedtest.net while on FiOS.

Time to head down to the Time Warner office now and return the equipment.

This weekend our phones me their New Every Two date, which is a program through Verizon where they give you a discount on phones every two years. It’s an incentive to get you to upgrade your phone.

Jamie has had the LG enV for the past two years. She wanted to upgrade to either a BlackBerry or a similar PDA/Windows Mobile phone so she had a reliable way to get her email and surf the internet. Since Verizon still has its buy-one-get-one on BlackBerry’s, I figured I would upgrade mine as well. I didn’t really have any issues with my Treo besides the casing near the antenna starting to break, but a brand new touch screen BlackBerry beats the Treo 700wx any day.

After an unsuccessful attempt to get the phone Saturday, we went this afternoon and picked them up. Unfortunately Saturday the Verizon store’s system went down while we were there and they couldn’t check us out. With our discount and the bogo on the phones, we were able to get $400 worth of new technology for $100. Now that is what I call a deal. We even decided to family share the plans together to save a bit of money too. Hey, anyway helps at this point I guess.

So far I am very impressed with this phone. It has a gazillion features built into it. So many that I haven’t put the phone down since noon when I got it. I have always wanted an iPhone, but around here the AT&T service really sucks, so I haven’t switched. Now that BlackBerry introduced their App Store, I think the iPhone finally has true competition. The App Store was the only thing the iPhone had over the Storm. I will wait a few days of fiddling with this phone before I bother to start with the thousands of apps that are available now.

I signed up for the new Visual Voice Mail plan. This negates me hating voicemail. My past post was about how much I hated dialing in and wish they could just email me the voicemails. Well Visual Voice Mail gives me a list of all my voicemails and allows me to choose the one I want to hear. I then just hit the play button and it starts to play. No dialing in and listening to all those messages in a row. By tomorrow I should have some voicemails so I can take a picture of it and post it here.

Pair of Verizon BlackBerry Storm 9530 smartphones

Over the past few months the internet has really dragged at the house. It has gotten so bad that it takes me hours just to do simple downloads from the web server that I used to do in minutes. I can’t even stream radio and get on a server at work without my email disconnecting and the stream stopping. Watch an online video? HA! It’s more like watching someone stutter for thirty minutes.

So after numerous speed tests and quadruple checking the network at my house, I started up a chat session with Time Warner to troubleshoot my Road Runner modem. I have emailed them before, but they just pretty much ignored what I said and said I was getting what I pay for, which I wasn’t. Now I am paying for a 10MB download and 512KB upload. Yes the upload is horrible but the next level plan is too expensive. I was getting 1-1.5MB download speeds and 256KB upload speeds. So 1/10 the download speed I was paying for. To me I left I was on dial-up on crack, which still is slower than a turtle.

Seven technicians later and after following their stupid instructions (they refused to listen to me after I repeatedly told them I was a network admin and not someone who knows nothing) I finally was told I had to move to the next department, which was phone only. That right there was a waste of an hour and a half plus eight trips to the basement to reset the modem. Needless to say I told every single technician to check the modem for fragmentation and errors, but none of them did. I pick up my phone and call the number I was given to call and I get that lovely computer lady “This call cannot be completed from your area”. Now I was furious. Not only did I spend over an hour with idiots that refused to listen to me, but now I am directed to a phone number that doesn’t work at all. I was then given the main number, so I called that.

After being on hold for near thirty minutes, I get someone in Texas who cannot help me at all. She transfers me to the New York office, only for me to be on hold some more. Finally I get someone. Before I am sent on a wild goose chase I left my frustration out until she gets the point I’m pissed off and had enough. I tell her to check the modem since no one else has yet. She puts me on hold and comes back thirty seconds later and says “Your modem is no good, you need a replacement”.

I nearly threw the phone through the wall. I spent over two hours on chats and on the phone to have someone do what I said to do from the very beginning. UGH. Since the Time Warner office is a few blocks from me I chose just to go down there rather than wait a few days for a technician. I somehow squeezed out a thank you and hung up.

Today I went down to the Time Warner office and exchanged my modem. I came right home and plugged it in. Below are the before and after speedtests. I am now getting 20MB+ download speeds consistently, as my 512KB upload speed. I am happy now, but I really cannot wait until my Verizon FiOS gets here. We are ordering it this week and scrapping Time Warner, just like every smart person with FiOS in their area should do. Not only is it better TV and internet, it’s cheaper.

Moral of the story, don’t ever call Time Warner support unless you know nothing about the internet and networks. If you do, you will only wind up with a migraine, a broken cell phone, and a cell phone shaped hole in the wall.

Speedtest results with the old modem:

Speedtest results with the new modem:

Speedtests courtesy of speedtest.net

Don’t forget to be part of Firefox’s Download Day!

Mark your calendar, wrap a ribbon around your finger or write a little sticky yellow note. Download Day will start on June 17, 2008.

Mozilla will eventually be launching the awaited Firefox 3. There is already tons of hype about it everywhere.

Mozilla is taking this to the extreme and setting the precedent for a new category in the Guinness World Records. They want everyone to download it on the first day it comes out. Their download logs will be picked apart by Mozilla and Guinness and the record will be set for anyone else to try and break from that point on.

When Firefox 2 came out, there were 1.6 millions downloads in the first 24 hours. Let’s help make 3 even more.

Go to http://www.spreadfirefox.com/en-US/worldrecord or either of the buttons below and pledge!! They’ll even remind you to download it when it is released, which the date hasn’t been made public yet. You know you’re going to download it anyway, so pledge and help keep America #1 on the pledge list!

Don’t cheat and download it many times, let’s all be a part of a legitimate World Record.