How to spoil a movie night in one easy step.
Last night, my wife and I decided to watch a movie using Verizon FiOS TV’s video-on-demand (VOD) feature. About an hour into the movie, the audio started breaking up and the video started pixelating. Then this error message appeared:
“Error
A problem has occurred with your request. Please ensure that the wires are securely connected to your set-top box. If you continue to experience problems please contact Verizon at (888)553-1555 and specify code (CL-14).”
Yes, happy Valentine’s Day to you too, Verizon. My wife had fallen asleep on the sofa, so I put on some soft music and used the opportunity to help Verizon debug their problem. I’m such a nice consumer.
Incidentally, in the old days, area codes were optional for local calls, which is why they were put in parenthesis. Most area codes are no longer optional, and toll-free area codes never were, so let’s all agree never ever to put area codes in parenthesis again. Mmm-kay?
I called Verizon and waited 18 minutes on hold before getting to speak to somebody. While on hold, I did what every TV consumer would do in the same situation. (No, not go to the bathroom.) I went to the basement, restarted the broadband router (being sure to leave it off for about 20 seconds), came back upstairs, restarted the cable box (ditto), and tried to access VOD again. No luck, same error message. One variant of the error message simply referred to “Error 14” and didn’t include a phone number.
Guess what the Verizon representative suggested? Yup, restarting the router and cable box. So we did, same results.
“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
– Albert Einstein
At this point, my romantic Valentine’s Day evening was toast. Maybe the V-Day Blizzard of ’07 had knocked out a Verizon server? Maybe VOD was getting hammered by all the romantic couples in New England? I asked the Verizon rep where he was. California.
I was on the phone with Verizon for 55 minutes and they were not able to solve the problem. We verified that FiOS Internet service worked fine, Verizon TV worked fine, everything worked except VOD. Sounds like a Verizon VOD server issue to me. Or maybe I was just imagining the problem. Could be either.
I had to ask the rep what Verizon was going to do to make this very patient customer whole. (Hint #1: good companies take the initiative to make their customers happy and actually have their own ideas about how to do this. Hint #2: keeping customers on the phone for 55 minutes to debug a 2-hour movie and then offering no compensation isn’t one of those good ideas.) He asked me to call back and check on the trouble ticket. After my prompting, he said that he’d ask his supervisor about giving a week of service credit (whatever that means). I explained that I had invested 55 minutes of my life on this and was not investing any more time. I said that they could email me to close out the matter. The Verizon rep said he had no means to send email to me. (They should try Verizon FiOS Internet service in California.) “Humor me,” I said, “and enter my email address in the file.” He did. I’m not holding my breath.
Verizon is making Apple TV look better every day.
Well have to add another comment to this list. I have had no FIOS Internet service for 5 days, even though TV and Phone work fine. They keep telling me its being worked on and escalating to next level but really, how hard can it be? I can tell them exactly from my end whats happening (their PPOE server isnt accepting my router sign-on) but I guess they have never seen the problem before. Its Friday night and they tell me maybe by Monday they will call and let me know the status.
I should have stayed on the Cablevision connection, it was 100% solid.
I have been using Verizon FiOS for quite some time and I am pretty excited to say it screams and blows away cable. I live on Cape Cod and this is great. I think the service will only get better.
I recently wrote a few articles on my experiences with Verizon FiOS TV, so feel free to check it out.
i have no idea how to sync my remote to my tv
Verizon picture quality is far from HD!! Grainy and not clear. What’s the point of more HD channels if the quality is terrible. I signed up for the triple package about a month ago. Verizon confirmed the install date over the phone, so I took a day off of work to be home for the install. Well, the night before they called and said they couldn’t make it, and they were rescheduling for 2 wks later. So one day’s pay was lost on my end. They installed everything 2 wks later. When the tv’s were hooked up, the installer showed me the picture, and I asked him to show me the HD. He said the channel was HD. I was shocked to see the poor, poor quality. He told me that most channels aren’t in HD until after 5 pm. I told him that isn’t the case because the Comcast HD channels were always HD regardless of the time of day. I have since called and complained,they are sending another box. Today I found out that are incoming calls are blocked because they had not finished the paper work with Comcast. What? one month and I am still waiting to get complete service. I can’t wait to get my bill!
from a 67 year old that has used a windows98SE manual to learn to do anything on my computer until I became knowledgeable enough cannot beleive all these complaints. with nothing to do this Sunday morning except Fox news Sunday read everyone of these complaints. I had FIOS hattrick installed about six weeks ago and I will gladly tell anyone, the package was overwhelming to me for about a week. Then I became very determined to figure this new thing out. while I still have not become completely knowledgeable, I have not had any trouble with anything and very excited about all of it. the whole experience, TV;DVR especially, and internet is so fast. I would not have beleived it. could some complaints be buyers remorse.
I got fios on 8/11 and it has not yet worked properly. The internet goes in and out daily (reboot of the router usually works). the HD channels work about 50% of the time and the rest of the time they are pixelated, or the entire HD TV set goes out. the VoIP works but you can’t hear the caller 80% of the time. Hows that for batting 1000. i can;t believe they have got me for a year. I am seriously thinking about paying the $199. and gooing back to Comcast.
Email me at cs1@sigmaco.com if you are having Garage Door opener problems with your FIOS installation…
The Customer Code and Account ID is 030593106494848007.Friday I was no longer able to receive channels 600, 620, and 664 (and others, but I watch these three frequently. I was receiving them fine until Friday. When I called service they said I needed the “Extreme PKG” to get these channels (I am signed up for the “Essentials” PKG.) When I print out the Essentials and Extreme PKG channel lineup from the Verizon web site BOTH include these three channels. What’s going on here? Why was I receiving them previously and now Verizon has disabled them? It is not at all clear what is in the two different packages and in fact it looks like it should not have affected my service. I told the support person to change me over to the Extreme PKG temproarily to get through the weekend, but I see no reason that I should be paying $10 extra per Mo. to get the channels that I was receiving up till Friday.
If there is a major channel lineup difference, please update the Verizon web site to correctly display the differences. It apears to be inacurate.
Dennis Bell
glyn..first of all if you have a problem with fios they would not tell you theyll send a tech out next week.They have to repair the problem within 24 hours of the call.I dont know where you got that information from.Second you said ..the phone doesnt work…does the tv and internet work?..if it does it may be your phone…and why is it more expensive then promised..wish u would explain.Verizon does have taxes and surcharges added on but thats something they have no control over.maybe you are a cable worker?? or just a verizon hater lol..let us know
Direct TV is the way to go. I couldn’t live without the NFL ticket!
Angela