Frontier Of Failure: Verizon FIOS Fumble Costs An ISP The Game (Opinion)

[DrJDC]

I'm in Tampa, another FiOS location that Frontier just took over and while I haven't had a complete disconnect, my speed seems to be significantly slower at times. I was getting 80/80 consistently when Verizon was still running things. My issue is more on the billing/account side. I've gone to the Frontier web site several times to set up my account, where you're supposed to be able to put in your old account #, phone #, email address, etc. to locate tie your login to the new billing account #. However, every time I've done it, the system can't find my account. I don't know if anyone there actually knows what's going on. Matching up account #s should be simple.

 

[lasik124]

Welcome to living the in the life of a Comcast customer, since they strong armed Verizon and everyone else out. I welcome the day Verizon or anyone else comes in. Crappy to see with Frontier however I was chuckling to myself because a lot of the similarities.

 

[blazorthon]

Frontier officially complained a lot about the new required speeds for broadband and they officially complained about wired internet being held to higher standards than cell phone data. They seem willing to do whatever it takes to not have to do anything other than accept your subscription money.

 

[theyaskedforusername]

I'm just out of Portland, OR. I started with Verizon DSL. Unreliable and constant mistakes on billing. I switched to Comcast and had a similar experience. Then Frontier took over Verizon's business in the area. They said they would upgrade us to fiber for free and give us 15/5 for 37.50/mo. And they did. They have not changed their prices for 4 years and have never messed up our bill. They don't call me every month with upgrade offers. There have been no outages. In short, they've been perfect. The best ISP is the one you don't have to think about. At least in our area, they're getting it right.

 

[logainofhades]

Had Frontier in IL. Was out so often, that more times than not, I just used my phone, to tether. Finally convinced the fiance to just make the switch to the local cable company. Much happier since we did.

 

[Martell1977]

Stellar service...Ordered HBO on 4-24-16 and was told that I would have it in 24 hours or less....here I am 2 and half days later and nothing. So I did a live chat...again...and am told that it will probably be a few more days as they don't have a technician available to do the work. Seriously, how hard is it to change a computer setting on someones account. I have a feeling this is the beginning of a bad relationship.

My Verizon contract ends in July, that should make things interesting. Going to have to find out what my alternatives are and it makes me cringe to think that Charter Cable might actually be a better option at this point...

 

[Ratsnackbar]

You're holding it wrong.

 

[Aslan7]

Comcast (Fiber) is the worst ISP I've ever had, toms of outages on business service. WOW, Wide Open West (Cable, overbuilding Time Warner's area) is the best ISP and cable company I've ever had. Time Warner is my current ISP. They love to frequently jack up prices. A $45 monthly bill is increased to $86 monthly for no reason. They said it was a reasonable increase. After lots of harassment over multiple calls I got that down to $50. Service has good the past 3-4 months. Prior to that there were times I was seeing two outages during the day and 8 outages at night in the course of the month and they loved to fake the dial-tone on my phone. A dial tone means you can make and receive calls, but not with Time Warner! I couldn't even dial 911! My solution to the problem was endless harassment of Time Warner. Every time my phone went out I called Time Warner. Any time my internet dropped I called Time Warner. I always made sure to be on the phone with a human bitching and moaning about my problems for at least 15 minutes. Humans cost Time Warner money. I got $20 and $30 off my bill some months plus cost them money in human support time and rolling trucks. In 36 months I've had 8 months of service without issues. For the last 4 months service has been great, and I haven't called Time Warner once.

 

[gggplaya]

Stellar service...Ordered HBO on 4-24-16 and was told that I would have it in 24 hours or less....here I am 2 and half days later and nothing. So I did a live chat...again...and am told that it will probably be a few more days as they don't have a technician available to do the work. Seriously, how hard is it to change a computer setting on someones account. I have a feeling this is the beginning of a bad relationship.

My Verizon contract ends in July, that should make things interesting. Going to have to find out what my alternatives are and it makes me cringe to think that Charter Cable might actually be a better option at this point...

Damn, you already missed the first new episode of game of thrones.

 

[Martell1977]

Damn, you already missed the first new episode of game of thrones.

And, as of today, 4-29, still no HBO. Only thing they will tell me is that the order is "In Progress"...

 

[Ryan_128]

I live in Texas where my Fios was changed over Frontier and I notice huge differences in bandwidth. I pay for 75/75 and before I had no problem watching things like Youtube etc. Now I cant even walk Youtube at 1080p because it's to slow to buffer that it constantly pauses. Sadly my only other option is AT&T which has much slower "speeds" however I'm not ruling them out if things don't get better soon.

 

[logainofhades]

Frontier is a shady company, imo. When my fiancee got their service the specifically told her it was not on any kind of contract, multiple times, of her asking. Even the install guy said account was no contract. We go to cancel, and they sock her with an early termination fee. I would not recommend them to anyone.

 

[leoherbie]

I used to have to Verizon DSL in Michigan which was then taken over by Frontier. When I first signed up with Verizon the service was slow (2.5 down) but it was good enough and fairly reliable. This was around 7 years ago. The past few years the DSL degraded to the point where it was cutting out daily and also 2.5 down is no longer fast enough. The outages happened most often during the Spring especially when it was rainy. I called tech support on numerous occasions only to have my time wasted and eventually told that it must be my internal network or wiring. I know for a fact this is not the case but since I was running my modem in bridged mode this is what they told me. Even when I took my modem out of bridged mode they concluded that everything is fine on their end so it must be something in my house. I work from home as a software developer and so this reliability was really problematic for me. I decided to sign up for a backup service through HughesNet. This service was absolute garbage. I knew it would be bad but the latency caused many of my developer tools to not work correctly. I guess they were never tested on high latency networks which I totally understand not being a priority in the software world. So anyway, I finally found a fixed wireless service to provide quite expensive but reliable internet and I ditched Frontier. I did have to build an 80 foot tower in order to get over the trees in my yard which is probably not an option for a lot of people. Plus this service costs me $90 a month for 11 down. I was so angry with Frontier and worried about not having them as an option that I filed a complaint with the FCC. The first complaint was marked as resolved after Frontier supposedly contacted me. They never contacted me at all. I then filed a second complaint reiterating what was in the first complaint while also stating that Frontier had never actually contacted me. With this complaint I actually got a call. The person on the phone claimed that they couldn't actually resolve my issue because I no longer had service. I asked him why I would continue to pay for service that barely worked. He told me that if I wanted my issues resolved I had to sign back up for service. I mentioned that my neighbor had just be told several days ago that Frontier no longer had available DSL ports. The Frontier guys basically said that he could not guarantee service availability but the only way they will fix anything is if I have active service. To summarize: I had Frontier. It was terrible and didn't work a lot of the time. I cancelled because I didn't want to pay for something that didn't work. I complained to the FCC and Frontier ignored me. I complained again and they responded that they can only fix my service if I was still signed up but I may no longer be able to sign up.