 Hey, how you doing out there today? For once I'm gonna see if I can do one of these videos without sounding like I'm yelling at anybody. But I make no promises because you never know where I'm gonna go. Anyway, I've been asked by a couple of people to do a comparison between Verizon files, which I now have, and Time Warner Cable. And I wanted to at least give it a month before I could really judge on these kinds of things. So I will first begin by saying that the reason I left Time Warner Cable is because it seemed like the price just kept going up. And there was a couple of issues, minor issues, but still a couple of issues every once in a while with the service. And it seemed like I was getting this great deal to switch over to files. And then I started having some problems with that, and I will probably link to both of the videos here so that at some point if you want to, you can go back and see my little rants about those issues that I had. But suffice it to say that I've now had Verizon files for a month, and I think I can do an adequate, pretty adequate comparison between the two services. And it may surprise some people, but you know what, you gotta tell it like it is. So we're gonna start with phone, only because phone is the easiest one to get rid of. So the comparison between Verizon phone and Time Warner phone, Verizon wins. Not that there's anything wrong with Time Warner's phone. As a matter of fact, it's fine, it's perfect. For many years, it was the only way that I had voicemail with the, I had the original Verizon phone, and I always had to have answering machines with it. And it turned out that in actuality, the last three or four years, I could have switched over to the digital Verizon phone at any time and had voicemail with that. But the people on the phone kept telling me that I didn't have it in this area. So those weasels were wrong. But the reason that Verizon phone wins is because if the power goes out, I totally lose my Time Warner phone, whereas with Verizon, I always have it. It's not dependent upon the power. Yeah, I know most people have smartphones these days, and I do also. But the thing is, if the power went out for two or three days, I can't charge my phone. But it's nice to always have that Verizon phone available. I still have a couple of old phones that works out well. That's really the only reason that Verizon phone wins. So we'll do that one first. Next let's take a look at TV. Now Verizon likes to tout how many HD channels that they have, and they do have a bunch of HD channels. It just depends on what package you get. It turns out the package I have, which is supposed to be their next to highest package, really omits a whole lot of stuff. You have to buy a lot of things independently, which we decided not to do, and it just eliminates all these channels. So I don't really have as many HD channels as they purport. As a matter of fact, I probably have the same number that I have with Time Warner. This is where things get really odd. With Time Warner, locally we have Channel 3, 5, 9, we have 11, which is PBS. And here with Verizon Fios, it's not 3, 5, and 9. I've had to try to get used to 503, 505, 509, I don't even think it's 511. Every other channel is in the wrong place. That's because they automatically default on all of my TVs to the high-def. The problem with that is one of my TVs isn't a high-def TV that it's hooked to. So it doesn't look as good. And I have to always try to go and find my other channels. And in the middle of the normal channels, you have this kind of progression because you have the Fox channel. We have another couple of local channels that are in there. They throw in all these sports packages that are within the area that used to just be a whole bunch of other different channels. And some of those packages we don't have. So you're flipping channels and then you keep getting all these channels that say, well, if you want this, you've got to pay for it. If you want this, you have to pay for it. If you want this, you have to pay for it. That's irksome. Those numbers on Time Warner are way up high so you don't usually see all that mess. But with Verizon Fios, they're in the low numbers. Now you know the TV guide that you have on the TV where you can go check those things out. Every fifth or sixth channel on Verizon is a fake channel and it's actually an advertisement for one of their services. It's usually quantum or turbo. And the thing is, we have quantum. So why are they advertising every single thing? Time Warner doesn't do that. So that's a failing. Time Warner actually has their own news. You have your own local cable news. It's on 24-7. Verizon doesn't have that. With Time Warner, you get the weather channel. With Verizon Fios, you don't have that. Now supposedly, I have AccuWeather, but I haven't been able to find it. And let's face the fact here, weather channel is pretty cool. Weather channel actually has different types of documentaries that I always thought were pretty cool. I love documentaries. So I don't like that. Now what Verizon does have is they do have this package where you can get the 3DVD, you know, wrong, wrong. Oh my God, what do we call it? Where you can record the thing. DVR, DVR. I knew it was one of those letters. It has the DVR where you can basically record on one and you can watch it on any TV at any time. And that's kind of cool. However, it turns out, Time Warner also has that exact same package, which I hadn't thought about before. Here's another difference with Time Warner. Time Warner is cable. And as stupid as that sounds, my house had seven televisions. With cable, I didn't need a box on all those TVs. I didn't need them to all be digital either. I could take a cord and hook it to any TV in the house. And at least I could, you know, turn the channels and see those channels as they came up and life was pretty good. With Verizon, it ain't cable. So basically, I have four TVs that I can't use at all because I'm not digital since every other TV in the world, or at least in America, is now digital TV. So there's nothing I can do with those TVs. So basically, I've got to get rid of four TVs. And it turns out my wife has one down in the basement that she hasn't watched for a few years. But basically, there's five TVs that are pretty much gone. They just are. Now, I will add one thing to Verizon Fios in that on the smartphone and on the nook. And if you have any other technology, you can actually download apps and watch programs anywhere that you have access to basically wireless or if you're paying for some kind of data plan. And trust me, you know, but don't use your data plan for all that stuff because it will eat through it fast. It's live kind of stuff, whatever. But you can watch anything live anywhere you are. So I was traveling for a long time there and anywhere I was, if I had had that at the time, I could have watched any program that Verizon had as long as it was on at that time period. That would have been pretty cool. You know, that way you don't have to get out of bed to watch anything. You don't have to turn on the TV or maybe you go down to the lobby and you put your earplugs into the thing and you could watch it there. You could watch it at the laundromat. That's pretty cool. So I give that to Verizon Fios, but overall the TV package, I got to tell you, I got to go back to Time Warner. Now, here's the thing that I really care about which is the internet. And the big selling point to me for Verizon Fios was that I was going to get 50 megabits per second and 50 megabits per second upload. And I do most of my stuff online. I'm thinking, wow, this is really going to open up the world for me. This is going to be fantastic. What they don't tell you. And I'm going to tell you this and hopefully you'll remember this if you're ever thinking about it is that those speeds are only guaranteed if you are wired. If you're using your Ethernet card, that's the only time you're guaranteed those speeds. In my house, I only have one computer that's hooked up to that and it's my wife's computer and she's out of town. My Ethernet card on my main computer burned out, I think, a year and a half ago so I had to replace it with wireless because they didn't have those cards anymore. It was old technology. So I'm not getting 50 download or 50 upload. Matter of fact, I'm getting a speed around 24, 25 which may sound pretty fast except I was paying Time Warner a little bit extra like I think it was $10 a month for 30 megabits download. Now it would only go maximum of 5 upload so at least Verizon still beats it there but let's face the fact, how often am I uploading big files anywhere? You know? Yes, that's a nice feature that things are uploading faster but it's not 50. I don't get 50 on anything. I don't get it on my smartphone. I don't get it on my look. I don't get it on my laptop. Nowhere close to it. So I kind of feel as though I lost out there. I don't know. I feel like I've lost out. Now I will be getting a new desktop maybe later on this year when they come out with a new Windows version. I think they're going up to 10. I don't know. And that's my goal and if that happens then maybe that 50-50 comes back to me and I get that connection on my main computer and now maybe I'll be a little bit happier with that but sitting here right now I don't like the fact that they didn't tell me that they didn't guarantee it on wireless no matter where you are. And that's irksome. And I didn't find that out until the next to the last tech who came here because I had five or six different times that someone came here which is in one of those videos and I happened to mention it to that guy and that guy said oh yeah there's no guarantee. You know what? You just can't trust anyone these days. Communication is really bad and you have to ask a lot of questions on different types of things. As a sidebar this has nothing to do with either Verizon or Time Warner by the way. I'm going to include just a little quick link on something that has to do with power companies and making sure that you're getting the best deal because they've got all these other providers who will call you up and say we can offer you this better deal. And it turns out that ain't necessarily true. So it's a sidebar thing and I'm just going to pop it in here so that you can check that out. You may end up saving a lot of money if you follow that. So anyway overall I got to tell you the truth. I'm thinking that Time Warner really ends up being the better deal. It just does. Now I know that they're merging with Charter and I know nothing about them. I know that I didn't like the idea of them possibly merging with Comcast because I've never heard anything good about them. But I don't know anything about Charter. So who knows what's going to change there. But right now I'm locked into a two-year deal. I could cancel it but I'll have to pay a penalty. That could still happen one day. I don't know that it will. But we shall see. But anyway, that's my thought on it. Let me know what your thoughts are. I'm sure that I can't be the only one who believes this and yet I have some other people I know who really believe that Verizon works better. And the thing is that most of them don't have all the connections in the house that I have and don't have some of the other things that I have going. So, there you go. Anyway, hope you give me your thoughts on this. And let me know. I will talk to you later. Enjoy.