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Approximately 4 years ago I was finally able to get high speed service from Comcast cable.  I've been pleased with them (except for their pricing) and have marvelled at just how well the service worked.  Except for hurricane related outages that knocked out power in my home for almost a week, I don't know that I could ever really documented an outage that lasted more than a few hours.  There were some fairly infamous DNS related problems with the service at one point in time, but even those didn't really stop the service from functioning (I simply switched DNS addresses to another source and was back in business almost right away).

The local telephone company (Verizon) also offered DSL in some areas around me for years, but the distance to the central office was too great and the service was normally deemed unavailable for me. 

There were other alternatives too, including satellite-based broadband internet service, but that service has always been pricey and is not quite real-time (there is an inherent delay in the service due to the transmission of signals in either direction.  Enough delay to make real-time internet gaming impossible, and enough to keep you from using the service for any VOIP {Voice over Internet Protocols} communications).  The higher costs for equipment, the higher monthly fees, and the lack of real-time communications killed that option for me before even really starting to consider it.

Now Verizon is offering up high-speed via FiOS.  FiOS gives me another choice.  A choice I'm happy to make.  One where I can have high-speed service without being beholden to Comcast.  Comcast is still available and if I wanted to, I could get them back fairly easily and might even get some cheaper pricing in doing so.  (They offer up that Triple Play package, but I don't need their TV services and the pricing jumps considerably after the first year, and is not complete since I have several points where I'd want full TV service -- with DVR -- available.  All told, they would be pretty pricey.)

On the actual service side, I'd have to say I really don't see any difference.  I'm paying for one of the highest speed choices available to me (15/2, versus 5/2), but I don't really *see* any difference when I think of how fast Comcast service seemed to me.  With Comcast I had 5 down/368k up.  Comcast had also enabled the "power boost" technology that would occassionally "burst" my speeds up considerably higher (depending on the bandwidth usage around my area).

Comcast was fast enough and reliable enough for many hours of enjoyable Xbox 360/Xbox Live gaming with friends.  It was fast enough and reliable enough for many hours enjoyable PC gaming (including World of Warcraft and Star Wars Galaxies).  It was fast enough for very good quality VOIP communications using Vonage.  It was fast enough for all of these things happening simultaneously with little or no noticable impact on any one of the above from any of the others.

Verizon FiOS is measurably faster when doing speed tests, but doesn't seem to make any difference at all in my normal everyday usage of the net.  Mail still flows at the same speed, browser pages still open at the same speed, and my connection to Xbox Live still shows green, green, green.  So, if someone demanded information from me on which service is really faster I'd honestly have to say neither.  Both are *fast* and that is what I demand now.  Verizon happens to be cheaper for the same speeds, and is reasonably priced if you want to get more bandwidth.

Oh - one other comment on differences between Verizon and Comcast.  With Comcast I had my own cable modem (still have it, will likely sell it on eBay for whatever I can get for same).  I had purchased my own cable modem to avoid paying Comcast the $3 - $5 per month in the lease/rental fee.

Behind that cable modem was my own router(s).  I've been through a few of them over time, finally settling on a D-Link DGL-4300 w/Gamerfuel.  (Schweeeet little router by the way, highly recommended!!)  Previous routers almost always had issues that interfered in some way with my gaming and caused me to freeze up at inopportune times, or to just randomly drop my connections to Xbox Live games I might be trying to play in.

Anyway, since I had a router I was happy with, I was really not interested in getting the "free" router that Verizon promised me as part of my install.  Unfortunately though there's apparently no way to avoid taking the free router as Verizon uses an Actiontel Modem/Router combination.  It also includes wireless network support (routing) which I also didn't need since my D-Link router already was configured for my needs in that area.

In my case I turned off the wireless features of the Verizon (Actiontel) router, and then had to open up some of the security on the router to put my preferred router into a less restricted state.  Once that was done, Xbox Live was back to seeing an "Open" NAT, rather than the "Moderate" NAT that it originally saw.  If I hadn't corrected that issue than I expect that I'd have been cursing a blue streak tonite when I try to do some Xbox Live gaming with friends.

I do want to add though that the Verizon equipment is a big beast.  About the size of a large 3 ring binder.  Compared to the much smaller Motorola Surfboard Cable Modem, or the D-Link router (including the DGL-4300 or the older DI-624) the thing is still more twice the size of the combined stack (cable modem and router when stacked).  Not bad, but something some folks should be aware of if they consider jumping to FiOS.