Is there anything worse than Metrocast?

[Aquadeziac]

Metrocast services my yacht club in Gilford. I wanted the seasonal service shut down Oct 1st. I have been calling Metrocast three to four times a day for 2 WEEKS!! I get flipped to their phone bank and have sat for anywhere from 5 to 20 minutes listening to their recording tell me that my call is important to them and please stay on the line for the next available operator.It also tries to con me into upgrades and new featrures, telling me to ask the customer service rep that will be answering my call in the order it came beacuse my call is important to them. Having to go to the lake to work on my boat I stopped at Metrocast yesterday morning. When I walked through the door the two customer service women were just sitting there chatting it up with each other. As I started telling my problem to one of them I hit the autodial on my cell phone in my pocket set on Metrocast's number. I listened to the service rep whine about how busy their phone lines were due to some new kind of billing system. I asked her how people were supposed to get ahold of them for real service work if they never answered their phones. I then told her that i had hit autodial on my phone when i walked in and let her listen that it had already gone to the phone bank without even ringing her phone. She then proceeded to tell me their were 30 people answering phones upstairs and ALL lines were busy. I told her they must have all carpooled to work today because there were only 4 cars in the parking lot and one of them was mine. She was speachless. She had no answer. I told her I could have mailed a letter and had it get here faster. I told her this type of service was not exactly a glowing recomendation for Metrocast. She told me she would backdate the shutoff to Sept 30.....like that was supposed to make everything right. I told her Sat Dish was looking better and better to me.
Surely I am not the only feeling like this about their quality of service. Thanks for letting me vent.

[Diver1111]

I love the auto dial part-outstanding move-really smooth. And the cars in the lot? I believe the word "gothca" says it all. Lets not forget most of these companies are monopolies in any given community. But miss a bill payment and they're on you like white on rice. Default on your contract-oh thats another story too.

Cingular Wireless thought their contract only applies to consumers. When they defaulted on THEIR obligations to me (for a free phone with the contract-thats all I wanted them to produce) they told me to stuff it. So I sued them in Small Claims. They never showed. Because I sued for the max. under NH law-$5,000 (always sue for the max.) thats what they owed me. When they ignored the court order to pay I sent a Cert. Letter to the president in Atlanta GA informing him I own the Domain Name www.cingular-arrogance.com and was going to post my troubles and paperwork to the 'Net, 5 days later my check for $5,000 plus court costs showed up...Not a bad way to pay for my Side Scan Sonar, no?

Gothcha.

[Weirs guy]

Is there anything worse than Metrocast? Root canal? He*l? Permanent dirt nap? Nope, nothing I can think of. I had a similar experience with them over a pay per view that failed. They are terrible.

[EllyPoinster]

After two years as a seasonal broadband customer (I move my work-at-home office to my cottage for the summer) I called Metrocast in June to reconnect. They told me that my seasonal account records had been deleted and service was disconnected at the pole. I would have to wait for a re-installation and - get this - pay another installation charge. Plus, it would be a full week before the tech could come out, basically putting me out of business in the interim.

Union Communications (formerly Union Telephone) bailed me out. They had a tech out the next morning to install a DSL line. The internet speed test tells me the service is slower than broadband but in actual use, frankly I can't tell.

Next year, if I call in the morning, Union promises to have me up and running the same day.

[SAMIAM]

Great story Diver......nice to see someone persistant enough to beat the big guys.Aren't they also in violation of their contract when we lose cable and internet every time it rains or snows?Seems they should issue a credit to all customers for every day without service.

[Grant]

Originally Posted by Diver1111

I love the auto dial part-outstanding move-really smooth. And the cars in the lot? I believe the word "gothca" says it all. Lets not forget most of these companies are monopolies in any given community. But miss a bill payment and they're on you like white on rice. Default on your contract-oh thats another story too.

Cingular Wireless thought their contract only applies to consumers. When they defaulted on THEIR obligations to me (for a free phone with the contract-thats all I wanted them to produce) they told me to stuff it. So I sued them in Small Claims. They never showed. Because I sued for the max. under NH law-$5,000 (always sue for the max.) thats what they owed me. When they ignored the court order to pay I sent a Cert. Letter to the president in Atlanta GA informing him I own the Domain Name www.cingular-arrogance.com and was going to post my troubles and paperwork to the 'Net, 5 days later my check for $5,000 plus court costs showed up...Not a bad way to pay for my Side Scan Sonar, no?

Gothcha.

Gotcha indeed. That's the best Cingular story I've ever heard. Kudos.

[salesguy77]

They are awful. We also are a customer of Comcast in Bedford, NH. I have high definition in both places. I got a new TV which can use a Cable Card instead of another box. I called comcast to get the prices and then called Metrocast. This company is so over priced that they should be embarrassed. The standard high defininition package (offering)is poor at best. Comcast allows you to pick up your box and set it up for free. Metrocast won't allow that so you have to have a service call by a technician. Metrocast may advertise that the have X amount of HD channels but the reality is why would you need 3 CBS high definition channels? They all play the same show. I can only hope that Comcast acquires this company in the near future or I will be trading in my cable box for a dish.

[Lake Lady 6]

I made airline reservations for grandchildren to come to Florida during Feb. vacation last week through travel servcie associated with my credit card (believe it is Carlson Travel). The agent gave me the itinerary, confirmation number, travel insurance policy, etc., and said I would receive an e-mail wiith all the information as well.
By this morning nothing had been received - called and was told by a different agent "the agent made an error and your reservation is null & void" and proceeded to tell me he could book another but it would cost more and was a very late arrival which was unsatisfactory to me.
Spent about three hours calling and being transferred before finally being connected to an agent who knew what she was doing and confirmed that it had been the agent's error and was able to re-book for me.
While not quite as frustrating as MetroCast it does show the customer service is a oxymoron.

[SteveA]

I was able to resolve several issues with Metrocast by contacting the parent compay.

They are a little tricky to find... If you type in www.metrocast.net... you just get the local office..

Type in www.metrocast.com... and you get the parent.. Harron Communications, in PA

They have a list of the corporate officers... and a contact us link. A few polite but firm messages to that line got me a call back and a quick resolution to Billing and Service issues..

Hope this helps

[Island Girl]

Yes there is worse than metrocast... try dial-up from an island.... throttled down to 24k speed.... painful, very painful.. Fortunately my job provices a Verizson data card that gives me 60-120K, but is very expensive.

Where is DSL for Rattlesnake... that was promised last year???

IG

[jrc]

One advantages of Mountain View Yacht Club. There they deal with Metrocast, the boater pays a single payment to the Irwin for a full season of cable. There are no start-up or shut down issues.

The cabling looks a little shabby but it works. I don't know how they handle internet service, but there were at least two WI-FI signals this summer that I could see with my laptop.

[mrylmbt]

if you email them you get a very fast response.....I have had issues with them and trying to call in get's you no where.

[jetskier]

Hi all,

We just installed broadband up at the lake and (yes) we have Metrocast. We looked at HughsNet and it is considerably more expensive than cable modem plus you need to invest in a separate dish (can not use your existing DirecTV dish). They are currently running an installation special for $299 (normally $599) and their professional plan (about 1Mbps) is $79/month. Soooo...this one is a bit pricey.

I do have a couple of interesting cable company stories. First (your favorite and mine) Metrocast. When we had our service installed it appeared to be working correctly. One week later, when we came up to the lake it would time out. I called Metrocast and they had me connect directly to the cable modem (phone in one hand and the laptop balanced on my knee). It would not work; they indicated that there was a regional outage which seemed strange since our neighbor's connection worked just fine. With their assurance of an overnight fix, we waited until the morning. Guess what? It did not work. At that point, I called again and went through the laptop on the knee and phone balanced on the shoulder sobriety test. I was told that there might be an issue but they hung up on me. I called back and guess what (laptop on the knee...) and this time they indicated that there was a red alarm on my modem (well shucks, I had that one figured since I could ping it but not anything else). It turns out that their installer had not tightened down the coax connection and it was attenuating the signal. ARGH !@#$#!

Comcast is not much better. Last winter the snow plow dug up my coax cable and severed it. Comcast told us that we would have to wait until May for them to fix it.

But my best story is years ago. I worked for Bay Networks and I knew the guys building the Lan City modems (pre Motorola). I had one that died. I called Comcast and they agreed that the modem had died since they could not ping it. This was prior to their ability to do caller id to identify you. So, I was surprised that they knew who I was to be able to ping me. So, I asked them how they knew who I was. They said that they heard me call my wife Mary. At that point, I asked them how many cable modems they had in North Reading. The answer was 3.

Jetskier

[pmj]

We recently upgraded from basic cable to digital and MAYBE we have digital about 3 times a week when it is finally "on air" ARGHH. Then of course we can't get through to find out why we are paying for a service that we are barely using because the digital is "temporarily off air" more often than not.

Does anyone else have a problem with digital going "off air" often?

We have no complaints with internet connections. The support on line for cable internet is quite good and they respond quickly.


I love ,love love Aquadeziac's story. Have you considered forwarding this story to the corporate offices??

pmj

[Paugus Bay Resident]

We've had Metrocast for quite a long time, and haven't had any issues (other than an HD box that needed to be replaced). We use their broadband for our business and have had no problems there either. When we have a tech issue, we email them and usually get a pretty quick response. Other than the cost no complaints here.

I will say that the spam filtering system they switched to a while back is awful. The old one worked well.

[pmj]

I agree about the new spam filtering system. It is terrible. Postini worked much better.
pmj

[Aquadeziac]

Actually as a matter of fact I did just that Sunday night. I sent it to both their customerservice@ and their comments@ addresses. And now, as of 4:30PM Tuesday I have not heard from them. No big surprise there!!

[SteveA]

I liked to old spam filter.

The new one is letting way to much spam through. ( mostly viagra ads) they tell me the ads are from China..I called their tech service, (which is pretty good) and they told me that they are looking for a new system.. and admitted that they have had alot of complaints...

I get most of the same stuff on my work e-mail... seems the folks from China have figured out how to beat the filters....

Wish they could send me winning powerball numbers!

[MJM]

I'll chime in with an Adelphia story....

Last Summer, we had a lighting strike on our street (underground utilities). Cable went out, because the lighting fried it. So, Adelphia came out the next morning (which we felt was good service). There were LOTS of problems for them, and to make a long story short, there were Adelphia tech guys working on our street every day for 9 days. We had no service the whole time, but at least we could see them working on it every day.

So, the next bill comes in the mail....yep, you guessed it, for the full month! I called the 800# to point out that we didn't have cable for 10 days, so take 10 days' charges off the bill.

What a runaround.
Adelphia: "Well, sir, did you call us to let us know you were without service?"
Me: "My neighbor called you, and your guys showed up, so I didn't call because obviously you knew about it."
A: "Well, if you didn't call specifically about your own service, we have no way of knowing if you specifically were without it."
Me: "Sure you do - just check with your Service Dept., and see that they were here for 9 days. I assume you don't send crews out to a neighborhood for 9 days when everything is working fine..."
A: "We have no way of checking with Service."
Me: "Huh? These trucks were Adelphia trucks. It's you guys. Same company."
A: "Um. Ok, but it'll take two to three weeks."
Me: "No. Put me on hold and find the answer now."
A: "Sir, that can't be done."
Me: "Sure it can - a minute ago you told me it can't be done at all, then you said it can be done, but it'll take weeks. You're moving in the right direction. Keep going."
A: "Uhhhh...well, Sir, lighting is an act of God, so it's not our fault it went out."
Me: "Correct. I'm not calling to blame you for lightning, I'm calling to correct your error of billing me for something you didn't provide to me."
A: "Ummm...."
Me: "Forget the whole thing. I'll go to the local office and hope to find someone who knows how to do their job."

The person at the local office took maybe 15 seconds to adjust the bill.

[tis]

MJM-Sounds just like conversations I've had, first with Dish Network, for which we never signed a contract. They said we did, they said it would take six weeks to research it, I finally had to call the company I ordered it from who got it straightened out. I never did get the reply (from them directly)I was supposed to after six weeks. Then when it wouldn't come in any more and over the phone adjusting didn't work, they were going to send someone out, at our charge, after they had assured us, it was their equipment and we would never get a service charge. These were only two of the major issues I had with them. When I cancelled, they expected us to go up on the roof in the snow and take it down and send it back to them. They assured me I would be charged if we waited until spring. They finally settled for a small part, can't remember what it was. Have had similar frustrating conversations with cable. When they installed it they, cut wires in three place. One of them was our phones so we had no phone service. When I called, she said, "Oh, no we don't cut your phone wire." It was so frustrating, I can't tell you. Anyway, we called the local office the next morning, fortunately one of the service guys gave us his number, and they came right away and fixed everything.

BUT WHAT DO YOU DO? IF YOU WANT TV, THEY HAVE US!

[upthesaukee]

We got up this morning (Saturday) after the high winds of Friday night and the ensuing power loss here in Alton Bay, and lo and behold the cable was out. Last time we lost cable for any period of time, I assumed (hate that word, and it did!) that someone else would be calling in from my street. Wrong it was only me, as in Moi, as in just us folks who were out. Called, got to talk to a real live person right off, and was back in business in about 4 hours.

This morning, I called (not wanting to assume again) right after 8 AM, the Saturday office is open time. I was faced with a voice menu that is 1. Seasonal disconnect, 2. business svcs, 3 billing questions, 4 something else, 5 downgrades and or disconnects, 6 internet problems, and 7 repeat the options. I hit 7 'cause I didn't hear anything about loss of power/service on both cable and internet. Still didn't hear anything, and didn't think that billing questions would be place to call, so I hit 6, and after a short wait, got a nice polite gentleman, to whom I explained my situation, and said he's probably not the person to talk to, but Metrocast, unlike the power companies, doesn't have a number to hit off their voice menu to report loss of service. He said, just hit 3, and transferred me (nice job, and very pleasant and respectful).

After an 18 minute wait, I finally got a nice lady, who took my information and said they should have it fixed today, thanked me for calling and we said goodbye. She was pleasant and understanding.

It just seemed a little strange not to mention loss of service as an option, and a little frustrating to have an 18 minute hold right when they are opening up. (my time was very short...not much more than a minute.)

I must say, I don't have too much to complain about Metrocast normally, but I can see the frustration others have had lately. Too bad.

[Drummer Boy]

I live in one of the larger condo associations in the Lakes Region. Many of our owners have been having the same poor service experiences that have already been mentioned in this thread. For the most part no one gets back to you from Metrocast, that is if you're fortunate enough to get through to leave a message. Problems exist with poor HD quality and intermittent email service head the list of complaints. It was suggested to me that we reach out to our City officials for assistance which I tried to do today. There suggestion to me was mobilize the unhappy customers in each of the respectives towns, leak the problems to the local press, and get the local politicians involved.

[Weekend Pundit]

Originally Posted by Weirs guy

Is there anything worse than Metrocast? Root canal? He*l? Permanent dirt nap? Nope, nothing I can think of. I had a similar experience with them over a pay per view that failed. They are terrible.

Yeah, Adelphia Cable is/was worse. That's why they were bought out.

Fortunately I haven't had problems with Metrocast that others have had. Then, on the other hand, Metrocast is a customer of ours and maybe that has something to do with it. Then again, maybe not.

[SAMIAM]

It's going to be windy today......if you're serviced by Metrocast.......say goodbye to your cable and internet service.

[Winni]

Originally Posted by Weekend Pundit

Yeah, Adelphia Cable is/was worse. That's why they were bought out.

Fortunately I haven't had problems with Metrocast that others have had. Then, on the other hand, Metrocast is a customer of ours and maybe that has something to do with it. Then again, maybe not.

I agree. We used to have a condo. in Merrimack. I was an IT mgr. for Lockheed Martin. I had quite a bit of network experience and called Adelphia for service on my Internet connection one day. It's a pretty funny story.

The first tech. walked in and, having done my own trouble shooting I said, "It's my personal cable modem." Tech's answer, "Oh, no! Cable modems never fail. It can't be that!" (Read on...)

After they did not test my modem, but rewired most of the condo building I was living in, changed out the router in the building, and even did something to the outside transformer. Surprise! My Internet connection was still not working. About 15 techs later they said, "Geese, it must be your cable modem!" Duh!!! But then, I'm a female and how could I possibly know what I was talking about? They changed the modem and my connection returned. And no, I did not say, "I told you so." I just smiled at how much wasted man hours and money they spent. 'Course that translates into my fees eventually, but the insanity of it was worth biting my tongue.

Then, when we gave up the condo, they continued to charge us for about a week after the new owner took over. I disputed it and refused to pay for the week. Even though they reimbursed me eventually, they refused to take the collections tag off my credit report. I'm stuck with it to this day, if you can believe it! Yeah, Adelphia is the worst; may they not rest in so much peace.

I've found, if you get the right people, after a while Metrocast can be cooperative. I don't know if it's a change in the country's view on females, technology, or what, but I've actually had a few of them listen to me, amazingly enough, when I've told them, "I've already done this, that, and the other test, and here's what I believe the problem to be." It takes some manipulating of the system, but at least there is hope.

The bottom line is there is still no competition in our basic utilities. You want cable in Alton; you get Metrocast. The end. Only when competition is allowed will we get any improvement.

[PaulS]

Originally Posted by Weekend Pundit

Yeah, Adelphia Cable is/was worse. That's why they were bought out.

Adelphia was bought out because the owners, the Rigas family, used the company as their personal back account. According to this article, they'll have lots of time to ponder the error of their ways... http://money.cnn.com/2005/06/20/news...cing/index.htm

In southern NH, those with Adelphia have or will be becoming Comcast customers.

[TomC]

Originally Posted by PaulS

In NH, those with Adelphia have or will be becoming Comcast customers.

in Moultonboro, the papers Adelphia included with recent bills indicates that Time Warner will become the cable provider....

[Lakegeezer]

Originally Posted by TomC

in Moultonboro, the papers Adelphia included with recent bills indicates that Time Warner will become the cable provider....

The deal is done, but the same folks up in North Conway are running the show. The cable works OK when its working, but technical support is terrible. You can't just call North Conway and talk to the people that run the head-end. When I had a problem (DNS was not working even though the Internet was), it took me four sessions with Time Warner tech support for them to even admit that it was their problem. At one point they asked "Oh, are you one of the former Adelphia customers?" As if they wanted to wash their hands of the scum they had just purchased. I was told that a level two tech would call me within two hours - so I waited around - and then, just like magic, the problem was fixed... no call of acknowledgement from support. But, its a monopoly. No Verizon DSL or FIOS, and no satellite because I'm behind a hill. I'm left feeling glad I have high-speed Internet at all.

[Steveo]

Not that we need to hear more about Metrocast but I need to vent!!!

I just called Metrocast to turn off my seasonal service. I got the infamous initial recording with the options. I picked option #1 being the seasonal turn off option. Then I waited… I must not have a life but I really wanted to see how long it would go. After 30 minutes I started to email local Metrocast every 5 minutes with how long I was on hold. I also emailed the parent company Harron Communications with my complaint. After 1 hour of listening to their god awful commercials on the hold line the phone starting ringing on their end. I thought finally someone is going to pick up…but no, after 2 dozen rings where did it send me – back to the initial voice message - unbelievable. So I picked option #2 this time thinking they will respond faster to someone wanting new service. After 5 minutes on hold it started ringing so I thought I found the trick…but no, it went back to the main recording again. I picked option #1 again. After 1½ hours on hold I finally couldn’t take it anymore so I hung up, sent them an email stated that “they had won and beat me” I then sent and email to CEO (Jeff Cohen) of Harron Communications.

Don’t know if any of this will do any good but I like I said I needed to vent.

[Steveo]

Metrocast did respond to my email as follows:

Good Morning Mr. ,

Thank you for your email. Your service has been suspended for the
winter dated 10/31/2006.Please disregard any bill you may receive. I would
like to apologize for your inconvenience, due to the seasonal disconnects
and billing our call volume has been extremely high. Please feel free to
email at any time if this works better for you. As MetroCast updates our web
site, in the future you will be able to request service to be disconnected
through our web site.

Thank you,

Brenda
Customer Service
1-800-952-1001
Ext. 644


To be fair they did respond quickly (1 1/2 hours) to my email.

[Skip]

From the FCC FAQ web page on cable complaints:

How can I file a complaint against my cable company?
Complaints about rates or service should be directed to your local franchise authority. A franchising authority is the local municipal, county or other government organization that regulates certain aspects of the cable television industry at the state or local level. The name of the franchising authority may be on the front or back of your cable bill. If this information is not on your bill, contact your cable company or your local town or city hall.

In addition, filing a complaint with the FCC is very easy as this referenced link shows!

Good luck,

Skip

[BBS]

For those of you who hate voicemail jail, and want to talk to a real person rather than walking through menu choices (or hanging on hold) here's a neat website that gives you the keys to the castle.

http://gethuman.com/us/

Unfortunately, Metrocast isn't listed but I'm guessing that one of these tips might work to reach a human being.

[Paugus Bay Lake Girl]

Contact the townhall in your area.

[SteveA]

Originally Posted by Paugus Bay Resident

I will say that the spam filtering system they switched to a while back is awful. The old one worked well.

I also liked the old spam filter. Have you noticed the daily messages from proofpoint stopped about two weeks ago.

I'm seeing alot more junk... mostly ads for "pills" and "hot stocks"

[Pepper]

Originally Posted by SteveA

I also liked the old spam filter. Have you noticed the daily messages from proofpoint stopped about two weeks ago.

I'm seeing alot more junk... mostly ads for "pills" and "hot stocks"

Same here. Maybe it's time to take the advice of PaugusBayLakeGirl and start sending the message to City Hall.

[Drummer Boy]

As I have said before, our reception problems continue to occur in our association in Laconia. After many calls and complaints, including a meeting with a rep of Metrocast, our poor reception, loss of volume, and periodic loss of signal, we are writing to the NH PUC to intervene. If enough letters get sent in, perhaps we can get some action. The address for NH PUC is 21 South Fruit Street Suite 10, Concord, NH 03301-2429. Attn: Consumer Affairs Division

[Weekend Pundit]

Originally Posted by Winni

I had quite a bit of network experience and called Adelphia for service on my Internet connection one day. It's a pretty funny story.

The first tech. walked in and, having done my own trouble shooting I said, "It's my personal cable modem." Tech's answer, "Oh, no! Cable modems never fail. It can't be that!"

...

The bottom line is there is still no competition in our basic utilities. You want cable in Alton; you get Metrocast. The end. Only when competition is allowed will we get any improvement.

I had the same problem with Metrocast tech support when I was living in Lakeport. My Internet connection would go away after 25 minutes on line. After a little troubleshooting I found that the problem was the cable modem. I could almost set a watch by how long it took for the modem to die after powering it up.

They replaced the drop from the street (which needed replacement in any case) and fiddled around with interior wiring. I kept telling them it was a run time error with the modem, either the power supply or a bad solder joint on the modem PCB. Finally, the last tech that was there asked "What are you? Some kind of engineer?" When I informed him that I was indeed an electrical engineer and, in fact, that Metrocast was a customer of ours, he relented and we finally checked out the modem. Twenty-five minutes later he saw that the modem dropped out exactly as I predicted it would.

He changed out the modem. All was right with the webiverse from that point on.

In regards to competition, that may be coming sometime in the (not so) near future.

Should Verizon extend their FiOS service to this area - they claim they will be - they may be able to provide video/CATV services as well. But that may be dependent upon both town franchise contracts with the existing cable MSOs as well as the NHPUC.

[ghfromaltonbay]

Heard through the Verizon retiree grapevine that Verizon was looking to sell their landlines in northern New England (VT,NH,ME). They have already unloaded former GTE areas that they acquired in places like Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama + Hawaii. Hopefully they will be unsuccessful in doing this as they were in trying to divest themselves of upstate NY. We are just starting to get FIOS capability here in northern NJ. We suffer with Cablevision and Time Warner depending on the town. I dumped Cablevision last year for DirecTV and can't believe how much better my reception is. Cablevision blamed it on my TV's, and every time the wind blew above 10 mph my service was spotty. I'm looking forward to FIOS for both internet and TV.

[Alton Bay Resident]

Unfortunately I live in Southern New Hampshire in the ‘off boating season’ and learned that Comcast recently purchased Adelphia. Well it seems when they transferred the accounts from Adelphia to Comcast they incorrectly terminated my DSL service. I could not live through giving you the blow-by-blow details… but I spent over 2-1/2 hours on the phone with 9 different individuals before getting back online. I was cut off several times, placed on hold for 20+ minutes at a time etc… I wish they would take the pay of (3) employees, give it to one who is capable of understanding situations and has the ability and authorization to solve problems. In my area, for DSL we have only this provider. They obviously know it… and exploit their customers. So yes there is another provider worst than Metrocast…

[Weekend Pundit]

Originally Posted by ghfromaltonbay

Heard through the Verizon retiree grapevine that Verizon was looking to sell their landlines in northern New England (VT,NH,ME).

He is indeed correct, but one thing to keep in mind that Verizon wants to dump all of its copper lines. That's one reason it's pushing fiber as hard as it can. (It doesn't mean they want to dump the customers, just the antiquated infrastructure).

Copper is expensive. The support equipment that goes along with it is expensive. Maintaining copper is expensive. Copper has a limited bandwidth.

Fiber is cheap. The network equipment that supports fiber is getting cheaper all the time. It is also future-proof, meaning it has almost unlimited bandwidth for future applications and needs.

It will be interesting to see how Metrocast and other cable MSOs will respond to Verizon's move. If they want to compete they'll have to work hard to give their customers what they want.