Not me. They got us a FIOS deal when we got our house. I used them for 2 years. Super fiber speed, except they would throttle youtube. So here I was paying to this supposedly superior quality and speed and getting throttled by them. So I dropped them and switched to a plain old cable provider (just for internet, we don't really watch tv anymore). Cut my costs more than half. On paper the speed is lower, however, the latency and lack of throttling for things like Youtube and other media is better.
Now since Verizon installed their equipment on our premises, they keep coming back every few months, in person -- as in they have someone drive out to our door, begging us to come back. They even offered to match the price we pay for cable currently (but it is always some stupid 2 year contract thing, that I know will go throught the roof when the time is passed).
https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/youtube/CPW7r...
http://lifehacker.com/use-a-vpn-to-bypass-your-isps-throttli...
You can search for more. While it could be a coincidence that somehow after switching poviders Youtube fixed their servers at the same time and got faster, I'd have to believe it was because of Verizon.
Someone from a Verizon forum remember mentioned, defending them, it could have been Google not paying for peering with Verizon enough. But I consider that still Verizon's fault. I don't really care about the details, I was paying a hefty sum to Verizon for Internet connectivity and not getting it. However they setup their peering agreements is their problem, I pay to not have to know that.
Comcast I know went through and systematically shut down private interchanges with major content providers and also refused to upgrade public peering points. There were some peering points that we're seeing 10%+ packet loss. The result was terrible performance to any provider who didn't buy "internet access" from Comcast even when the only access that was needed was to Comcast's own customers.
A friend worked as a peering coordinator for a major content provider at the time and nobody had ever asked to be paid to deliver content to their own customers before. This created a standoff and I'm not sure how it ended but I believe the content providers caved.
Of course I'm pretty sure this is what was the spurred Google Fiber. One thing that Google seems really good at is to ensure that nobody can use their monopoly position to cut them off from the customer (Android, Chrome, Fiber).
http://insidertestprep.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Vertic...
The money should flow from the carrier to the content providers, but they saw them initially as a nuisance and later as leechers, despite that they are essentially the product that the carriers are selling and getting paid for in the first place, and they are getting it for free.
Reality TV aside, my general view is that most companies that view original/exclusive streaming media as an "add-on" versus a core competency are more likely to buy in cheap and rebroadcast ideas that were already popular, chasing the trends, and delivering less enduring quality than typical TV/cable stations. For streaming media it's more about cramming as much (exclusive) garbage as you can, and having enough videos that someone can always find something to pass the time on your service. Traditional TV can only offer you one piece of content at a time, so they at least make some effort to put budget and thought behind the quality, even if they often miss.
Comcast, on the other hand, has bandwidth caps at 250 GB, but I think they recently raised them to 1 TB. However, even 1 TB isn't huge by today's standards, especially with everything migrating towards the "cloud".
However, The FiOS TV service isn’t that great. The standard definition boxes are so slow that they are unusable and tend to simply break every year or so (gets stuck in a boot loop and flashes “FPGA” on the front display, which is kind of interesting). The HD boxes are much better, but I don’t want to spend the money. Also, it’s expensive, but I doubt Comcast is any better. They probably compete very tightly with each other in areas where both are available.
YMMV, Anecdote != data, etc.
Not me. Verizon upsold my elderly mother for a bunch of crap services she didn't need or have use for (a "bundle"). Their customer sales, like Comcast's, is nothing more than a slimy boiler-room operation.
Luckily, I was able to back her out of the plan with a solid hour on the phone and a careful appeal to the humanity of the customer service rep.
Or is it 15 euro on top of your phone and tv?
However, this is not a price you would get when you walk in - the price list is 17 EUR for 250/15, upping upload to 100 is 5, upping upload to 250 (from 15, not 100) would be 15. Additional fees if you want TV or phone, or static IP.
This network has been in operation for years - I've been customer for 9 years already, hence the lower price. In the beginning, it was slower of course, about 40/10, but I imagine the network has already paid for itself.
The reason why it is was built in the first place were bad conditions for accessing DSLAMs operated by our ILEC at the time - T-Com. It was impossible for any ISP to offer flat-rate DSL, because the ILEC was asking for data-based charges, quite high at that. So Orange threw it the towel, built its own optical network, set the prices as another DSL providers, but with order of magnitude faster speeds with no data caps - and had a runaway success with it. The other big ISP were in shock, but to remain competitive they quickly built their own FTTH networks, or at least upgraded their HFC (UPC). So in the end we have a cheap Internet thanks to T-Com greed :).
People don't want to work for Verizon, or Comcast, or other such companies. They treat their employees like dirt, and are generally unconcerned with user experience, doing things the right way, and view customer service as a cost center.
All of their products have been developed in a centrifuge of "just good enough" with an eye toward minimizing effort and maximizing profits. Its entirely a cultural thing set by the leadership of these companies and will not change until there is a fundamental (albeit unlikely) shift in leadership at the top.