UUronL

Agreed. We have these really ridiculous Comcast commercials here that show a new FiOS subscriber, literally "aglow" because he has just had his service turned up. He parrots the virtues of FiOS and fiber optics, all the while sounding like a dolt. With the stage set, the all-knowing Comcast customer patiently but patronizingly explains that Comcast has the largest fiber optic network, blah, blah, blah. As the FiOS subscriber's enthusiasm wanes, the glow around him starts sputtering and fizzling.

I'd love to see those misleading ads exposed for what they are.

m630

Cablevision is 100% fibre optic for some time now, and it is much better than FiOS, at least on LI. I have 2 friends that have made the switch from Cablevision to FiOS and now back to Cablevision after only 2 months, the pictures are nearly as clear, but Cablevision has better equiptment and lineups and easier DVR...

pipper

i hear FIOS is awesome...wish i had it in my neighborhood.
im stuck with time warner and their HD selection is embarrassing....only like 17 channels.
anyone have sat HD (dish or directv)...they have 100+ channels.

kearflex

I coverted from COX cable to Verizon FIOS....

Would never look back.... Awesome pic...

One con with FIOS imo is the channel guide and the on demand menu. The guide sometimes lags and you can get way ahead of it before it catches up. So when it finally does... it sequences through the 15 button pushes you actually engaged but kept pressing because you didn't think it registered.

Plus the FIOS internet is sweeeeeeet....

ImolaRedM

I thought Cablevision was still running COAX in the neighborhoods, even in LI. Most cable operators use fiber to a point in a Hybrid Fiber-Coax network. I wasn't aware of any MSO's that ran fiber to the premises in the US other than Verizon.

Rudy

That's what I was thinking too. I don't know of too many (or any, for that matter) cable operators who are spening the big time bucks that Verizon is spending on a FTTP rollout...

Take a look:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...7032000868.html
http://www.news.com/Verizons-fiber-optic-p..._3-6192440.html

Now the argument can be made (today, at least) that the extra handful of feet of coax that a cable operator uses to get to his fiber network running down a street isn't going to make much of a difference but having fiber to the premises does allow a much more open future...

DRANGED

Comcast has a monopoly here in Eagan, MN....I'm screwed

m630

correct, fios comes all the way to the door while io comes to the poll then uses the coax to come in the house...today there is no difference, but it is correct to say that somewhere in the future there will be a need to further expand the cablevision setup to deliver the fiber optics to the door, and with its power and customer base, it will surely undertake that in time to meet the new tech features

ImolaRedM

I don't agree that there is no difference between FTTP and HFC networks. Comcast also uses an HFC network and there are real constraints in bandwidth. Think of the services cable is providing over that one Coax cable -- Telephone, Video, Internet. HFC networks share the same bandwidth limited Coax cable. On the other hand FIOS is running those services over fiber then splitting out the services at the ONT located at the home between RJ45(or 802.11g), RJ11, and RG-6 Coax. Even from a signal delivery perspective I have personally found the the last few hundred yards of Coax to be a problem even living in an area that is fairly new (~10 years old) and that's with two replacements of the cable from the tap to the house (about 50 feet of cable). In my case I think the Tap is bad but I have had a hard time talking Comcast into replacing it despite their own data shows that the signal level is marginal by their own standards.

m630

here on LI, Cablevision has continually upgraded the network over the past decade and does have a very crisp system. I had my house rewired and have no issues at all with pic quality or sound or download quality, we did have our polls updated in my area several years ago with the latest and greatest so i have absolutely no complaints...as i noted earlier, several of my friends did make the switch after being long time cablevision customers, but the fact on li is that Fios is no better in useable terms from the tv side and if you want to get the same download speeds, they offer optimium online boost which is about the same speed, and after only a few months, everyone i know that switched to fios switched back to iO...