Verizon FIOS sells out to Frontier, Raise your hand if you’ve had serious technological issues with the Verizon Fios to Frontier transition during the past Three weeks. Take it from me, the companies should never have done the conversion on April 1. Not only did they set themselves up to be the butt of “April Fools” jokes, they seemed utterly unprepared. My experience is that there was no strategy, no redundancy planning, and no expert guidance to aid the customer service staff to help their customers. After countless phone calls, demanding that my issues be elevated to supervisors, and countless frustration, I’m happy to say our video services are now back up and running – but it took us a week back-and-forth with Frontier to make that happen, and no small thanks to my own troubleshooting.
Here are some simple steps you can take to remedy the potential problems you may be experiencing at home yourself:
First off, let’s take a walk outside your house to the location where the Internet comes into your home. Look at the Verizon/Frontier box. Is it damaged? Does everything look like it’s connected? Once you’ve determined that, take a flat head screwdriver and open the box. You’ll should see a bunch of flashing lights with a legend next to them explaining which lights are responsible for what action. Make sure you have no orange or amber or red lights flashing. Take note and then close the box.
Now, go back inside your house and disconnect the main power to the technology, which is usually located on the inside wall just opposite where the outside device is installed. Unplug the backup battery to make sure the device is shut down completely.
Use a timer and keep the unit shut down 100% for at least three minutes. While you are in “shutdown” mode, walk around your house and unplug every device from both the electrical outlet and the cable coming into the house.
Make sure each of these devices are disconnected for at least one minute. You can carefully touch the tip of each cable with your finger to discharge any static electricity still left in the line. Now, after a few minutes, start plugging back in all of the devices, ending with the main power battery backup. Once everything is back up and running, reconnect the battery backup unit.
Now, head back outside to the box, open it up and see if the lights are now flashing green. If so, your Internet connection should be fully restored. Hopefully, these tips will give you an opportunity to correct the problem yourself. If not, it’s time to pick up the phone, call Frontier and demand to speak to a supervisor.
And remember, a company’s lack of strategy or planning should not affect your ability to get what you’ve paid for. Afterall, “The customer is always right?”