Bits from Bill
My Verizon FiOS is Speedy
Early this week I wrote about my switch from Time Warner Road Runner to Verizon FiOS. The Verizon installer was here all day and then I spent the next couple days fine tuning my computer to finally obtain the full benefits of the advertised 20 Mbps download and 5 Mbps upload.
I’m spending a long weekend in Portland so I thought I’d give everyone an update before I flew across the country.
Ta-Da!
I wish I could point to a single example of what I changed to double my download speed but it required a couple applications to do the job.
Our friends at PC Pitstop have a cool little app called PC Pitstop Optimize. This application allowed me to do a lot more than the optimize program provided by Verizon. Even better, it actually told me what it was changing so I could decide for myself if I wanted to make the change.
I also used WinPatrol PLUS to review many of Windows Services which were set to Automatically start even though I had no interest in using their associated product on a regular basis. I certainly didn’t need six services running just to phone home to check for autoupdates. WinPatrol allowed me to set some Windows Services to Disabled or Manual and I immediately noticed that more memory and resources were available.
I’m still not ready to give my full blessing to Verizon FiOS but I’m really happy with my new found speed. Stay tuned for more FiOS details as I discover them.
Labels: FiOS, optimize, pc pitstop, speedtest
posted by Unknown | 10:31 PM
4 Comments:
I am so envious. You can do in the blink of an eye what it takes me literally hours to do. Then again, your monthly bill is what I pay annually for dial-up. So I guess I'll just have to deal with it. RR and the local phone company are the only broadband options for me. The RR lite package is the same as six months dial-up. Still hard to justify.
Have a safe trip to Portland!
Bil: Is the FO all the way to the modem or only to the the building then copper to the modem?
No modem.
Fiber comes into home and then coax to the wireless router with four ports.
They will take your phone off the copper which seemed like a good idea but wasn't. I'm now having trouble getting on phone back on copper so my fax machine will work.
If you get an installer tell him I'm still waiting.
I'd much rather read Bits from Bill than Bill from EMBARQ. As an ex MaBell (NY Telephone Co.) employee, I sort of knew the divestiture process (federally mandated anti-trust manuvere) meant little more than corporate restructuring. I have to agree with corrine's previous post. My geek younger brother has Verizon FiOS and brags about the speed factor. I'm running Windows 98 on a dial-up accelerated??? Juno connection to my HP Pavillion 4430 tower with a whopping 32.0MB SDRAM (upgraded to 64MB, netting me 60MB memory) and a spacious 3.2GB Ultra DMA hard drive. Needless to say, the envy factor exists here but there is one advantage to using such a slow-assed dinosaur system: telemarketers have quite a hard time contacting me while I'm online! Verizon isn't wired in my neck of the woods, so my options are limited. I'm in agreement with corrine about the upgrade justification, being a cheapskate at heart & living in a log cabin, to boot. Oooopps! System froze again; time to re-boot and run PCPitstop Optimize yet again.
P.S. Remember the inserts (lap cards) in your old telephone bills? They began with the greeting: Hello!
Translation = proposed rate increase.
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