A brief timeline of my recent FIOS-TV adventure

FIOS is, in my experience, 10 times better than the average cable company, but it ain't perfect. Case in point:

Late May: I drop the movie package which includes the Showtime and Starz networks.

Early June: A FIOS rep calls me and asks if I would like two free months of all the movie channels, INCLUDING HBO and Cinemax. Uh, yeah! But what's the catch? It's not a good time when she calls, so I ask her to try again later. She says she'll call back the next day.

5 days later: She finally calls back, making no mention of the fact that it's 5 days later, and asks if I want that deal. I've done some research and confirmed it's legit, so I say, sure, let's do it.

The next day: No premium movie channels.

The NEXT next day: no movie channels.

June 12: I'm ready to call and ask what the deal is when, lo and behold, HBO is on.

June 13: I realize that there's a free HBO/Cinemax weekend, and so I don't actually have the deal yet. After the weekend expires, I still don't have that great deal. But, hey, it's free, and we haven't been billed for it, plus I'm busy and don't have a lot of time to enjoy it, anyway, so...

June 24: Hey, I have premium channels...including HBO, Cinemax, and Showtime! The whole deal! Cool. But, wait, no On Demand stuff. I get an error when I try to access that. Oh, well. Maybe it's just a temporary quirk.

June 25: Still no On Demand stuff.

June 29: Still no On Demand access, and now yours truly, who never has understood the concept of leaving well enough alone, calls Verizon.

30 minutes later: After waiting on hold and trying several things with a tech rep, he says he's gonna reauthorize the box to try to force some kind of code to go through to access the On Demand stuff. Sure, I say. He warns me that I must let it be for 15 minutes after the box is back "on." No problem. I go upstairs and start lunch.

15 minutes after THAT: NOW it occurs to me: Uh, what about all the stuff I had recorded on my DVR?

Just about the same time: I get an...unsettled feeling in my stomach. I wish the FIOS guy had thought to warn me in case, you know, I actually recorded stuff on my Digital Video Recorder.

Mere seconds later: I head downstairs and turn on the TV, and, yep, my DVR is wiped. Nothing like that 0% recording space message to bring it home. Zero is pretty definitive, isn't it?

2 minutes after the DVR Cleansing: I call Verizon, get a different guy, and say, "I have a stupid question. If all my DVR recordings disappear after a box reauthorization, can I get them back?" He replies, "No, once it's gone, it's gone."

This was the first of several statements which I did not want to hear. The next came soon afterwards as he examined the record of what the previous guy did.

"Oh, man, he usually knows what he's doing."

Then there was this: "He was wrong about THAT. Man, I usually go to HIM with problems. I don't know why he told you that."

And the capper: "Oh, this is a billing issue. We should have just sent you there because they have to fix this so you can get the On Demand channels."

So the whole rigamarole with the previous tech rep was all for naught. And all that precious video on my box died in vain.

Did I mention that at this point, I didn't have the premium channels at all? So I had lost all my DVR recordings and the movie channels...and the problem I had called about in the first place had not been resolved!

This guy was nice, though, and he told me he'd take care of it but would call back at 6pm to ensure that everything was fixed. This was at about 2.

About 2:15: He calls back early and tells me there's good news and bad news. The good news is I'm getting 3 months of HBO and Cinemax now. The bad news is, the previous promotion was no longer being offered, so I could only get the HBOs and Cinemaxes, not all the other channels. Oh, and sorry about the whole losing all your DVR programming thing.

At this point, I sighed and figured, well, I'm still ahead since it's all free. Well, except losing all those shows and movies. But whatever. So I say, sure, fine, and wait till tomorrow, since the guy said billing couldn't authorize the deal till tomorrow.

You got to love how when you get something free, it takes forever, but if you lose something or cancel it, it's gone before you hang up with the company.

Anyway, the next morning, I get up, turn on the tube, and discover...I am getting all the premium channels I was originally supposed to get. The On Demand works as well.

Even if it doesn't, I don't think I'm gonna tell them. I'm just gonna enjoy this while it lasts.

As for the DVR wiping, that sucked, but it's the third time I've experienced premature evacuation of the contents of a DVR (first time with FIOS), and I have learned a valuable lesson: If I record something rare or something I really want to see, I watch it ASAP. Most of what was on there is shown regularly or available elsewhere.

And having written all this, FIOS is STILL 10 times better than the cable companies in the area. Yeah, I lost some stuff, but at least I got some stuff, too. WIth the usually competition, you lose stuff all the time, but the only thing you gain is a price increase and a resolve to switch to another television provider.