At work (a few miles from my house) we have Comcast business services, so I ran a quick comparison of the ping times on 3 of the speedtest.net servers. My location is Pittsburgh, PA.

I would like to do some more testing, but these are just my initial ping results. I will also post the speed test results below. These tests were all done 3 times on each server and averaged.

As you can see below by the initial ping tests, all of them are in favor of FiOS. This is just a simple test and definitely not 100% acturate but they give a general idea. To get optimal results it would have been best for me to think ahead and get some results from my home before I canceled Comcast. But like I said before, my office is only a few miles away so it should be relatively close to the same.

Frederick, MD server:

Comcast: 38ms (16.6mb down, 1.37mb up)

FiOS: 28ms (14.6mb down, 3.56mb up)

Advantage – FiOS

Greensboro, NC server:

Comcast: 101ms (13.4mb down, 1.85mb up)

FiOS: 89ms (20.2mb down, 4.21mb up)

Once again, advantage – FiOS

San Diego, CA server:

Comcast: 187ms (10.3mb down, 1.15mb up)

FiOS: 179ms (19.87 down, 3.63 up)

Advantage – FiOS

For those reading this, if you have any specific servers you would like me to do ping tests on just post a comment and I will try it on both Verizon FiOS and Comcast Business Services.

FiOS has been around for a couple years in my area (Pittsburgh) and I have been holding off from making the switch.  I figured now would be a great time to finally drop Comcast. In a few days Verizon will be here installing all of the new services.

I got the triple package, phone, internet and tv. I got the 20Mbit down and 5Mbit up internet tier. As for the tv plan, I got the extreme HD package along with one home media dvr and 3 HD boxes.

Comcast has become so far behind in terms of service and price that it would be dumb not to switch. The package deal I got takes off over $50 a month. It also helps that Verizon locks your price in for 2 years and is currently giving $150 cash back. 

I will post my experience this upcoming week of the entire install process.

Well, I checked this morning before work and they actually did it. Not only did they actually give us what they said they would, but they did it on the date they said the whole time also. This is big news here. Comcast never does what they say they are planning to do in any timely fashion. I”m still waiting on the new guide that they told us was being launched back in February.

But anyways, for once Comcast came through. Enjoy the new channels everyone.

You should see some lineup changes along with about 5 or 6 new HD channels.

As stated in the article linked above, yeah we will be receiving more HD programming. But they are really screwing over some people by switching some of those other stations to digital plans only. I mean, MSNBC? Come on….

I wonder if any of those changes have anything to do with the summer Olympics? Is Comcast really crazy enough to purposely move a station such as MSNBC to purely digital just to get some people to switch so they can watch Olympic programming? Or do they just totally want to screw over MSNBC for other reasons?

Anyways, what brought up the whole idea of me posting this blog was my telephone conversation with Comcast this morning. I called them regarding getting another HD cable box because currently I only have one at my house. I saw in that Post Gazette article that they had some special deals on the different cable boxes so I figured I’d ask about the HD boxes. I couldn’t believe it when she told me that a digital box would only be $1.99 a month but the HD ones are $10.99 a month. Seriously, what the hell is up with that? $10.99 a month for all additional boxes? I asked her, how is that even possible? All she said was “there aren’t any promotions right now on the HD boxes”. It took me a second to comprehend that the Comcast bill for my house would now be about $140 a month, and somehow I said alright fine I’ll take another one.

At that point I didn’t really have anything else to say to the woman because all I could think to myself was,  how the hell do the majority of people afford this? So yeah, after all of that I will have another box installed here within the next few days. And yes, I know I could have gone and picked it up. But, that really wasn’t much of an option for me because I would go totally crazy if I went into any sort of Comcast Service Center. Paying the $17 will definitely save me a lot of aggravation. And when you’re already paying them $140 a month what’s another $17, right?