As we were waiting for M’s arrival, we decided to upgrade our home communications to Verizon’s FIOS service. We got the complete package: Internet-Phone-TV. If you are in a FIOS-enabled area (where the fiber optic cable has been run), and are considering this option, here’s my take on the pros and cons.

Cost: For the same monthly fee, we now have nearly double the Internet speed, ten times the TV channels of limited basic cable (including ones we’d been missing like Discovery, Comedy Central, and Nick), tons of free on-demand TV shows for the kids, and unlimited local/long distance phone. PRO

Wireless router: Verizon provides a wireless router with the installation which was great…until I realized that every time someone picked up a cordless phone, my laptop would get kicked offline. Problem solved with a set of new phones on the 5.8GHz frequency, but both the problem and the solution were annoying. PRO

Cable box: The FIOS cable box is free and necessary to get the digital channels (which most of them are). But it has an awful interface. Compared to the awesome Tivo menus that we’ve grown to love, the FIOS menus are sloooooow and cumbersome. Bummer!
And…our Tivo Series 2 can’t process digital, so we’re limited to recording shows just on the networks. Grrr…! I’ll just have to live with it, though, since I’m not shelling out bucks for a Series 3 Tivo nor a FIOS DVR (digital video recorder). CON

Despite the drawbacks, I’m very pleased with the service and I’m glad I could say bye-bye to the evil Cox Cable folks. Then again, it makes me just a tad nervous that all of our communications (including cell phones) are in the hands of Verizon…

I must add that while I’m far from being a techno-noob, I still find it fascinating that mere radio waves allow me to write this post from my laptop while sitting on the patio, watch a streaming television show, listen to the baby monitor, and (if I wanted to) call someone from my cordless or cell phone still amazes me. I love wireless!