I'm giving Verizon a 2 spot and I gotta say I think I'm being extremely generous in doing so. Sit back and relax because this is going to be a long one....So I go to the Verizon webpage and punch in my zip code, yes they offer it in my area, yes I sign up and the ball is rolling. They send me a confirmation shortly after telling me that they've received my order and that my service will be up and running in 3 weeks (they gave me a specific date I think it was November 12th), and that my equipment would be arriving shortly. My modem arrives three days later along with my free Ethernet card, DSL filters for phone jacks that aren't going to have DSL connected to them, etc. All of this arrives and it's all free, which is great, as long as you sign up for a year of service. They also offer the first month free and I've found out why, because if they didn't they would probably have a 80% cancellation rate. My service start date arrives and I have no service, I try and be generous and give them another day and another still nothing. So I call. Now I'm on hold and I'm on hold I kidd you not for 2 hours straight listening to elevator music and watching a Napoleon documentary in the background. My girlfriend is pissed off and is telling me to hang up which I refuse to do because I figure I'll just have to wait this long again next time. So some guy finally answer (to their credit he was very nice) but tells me there's a problem with my line which they would have picked up on earlier in the past but because of the deregulation and line sharing or some jazz they don't find out now until the actual installation. So he says I have to call back tomorrow to another call center and they will re-start the whole process. So the next day I do that and they tell me three more weeks. Three weeks pass and it's up and running but the service is hit or miss. One moment it's screaming and the next minute it's pausing and nothing is being transmitted, it's dead still. So after several weeks of frustration I call again, transfer, transfer, transfer, and then they take me to the webpages where I can test my transfer rate. Of course it comes through high. Which I don't doubt, if I'm hooked up to anything streaming it seems to lock in and transfer as super speeds but in between, when it's not locked in to something it crawls. So then I move living locations and it all starts over again, they tell me I have to wait 20 business days to have them transfer service to my new place, despite the fact that it's the same phone number and I live in a small city where there aren't a huge number of DSL customers. If it's not in place on the due date I'm done and transferring to cable. For $10 more I'd have better, more consisten service and especially considering that DSL providers are all beginning to raise their rates to $50 a month for basic residential service anyway. I have no doubt that DSL can and will be fantastic but they're just not up to speed as of late. AFTERTHOUGHT: I should also give an example of how clueless they were and slow to respond to E-mails. I sent them and E-mail the day I received my equipment asking if I could push up my start date, I didn't get a response for 5 weeks after my start date had already come and been delayed. I Also then received an E-mail about a week after that which said "we are sorry but your start date has been delayed (this is the second time) we are sorry for this incovenience. If you service has already begun just disregard this E-mail." Talk about sending out mass E-mails and hoping you hit someone it applies to. They didn't even know if they had set up my lines which at that time were up and running!!! Morons! Who runs a business like this? Makes you wonder about how they might "Guesstimate" your bills. "Oh yeah sure I got a gut feeling he was probably using our service on that date let's charge him for it." AFTER AFTER THOUGHT - it is now a full year after I first left this message and an update is in order. I have since downgraded Verizon from a 2 to a 1 and here's why. After all of the above troubles were said and done I still didn't receive my service and had to cancel and go with cable, which I should say, has been very reliable and very fast. I have not yet had to make even one phone call for a problem. I pay the bill they give me service, all day everyday. Isn't that how it should be? In any case the real reason for the downgrade is this: after cancelling they continued to charge me every god damn month for a service I no longer had. I had returned their equipment and everything. Month after month for 7 months they would charge me and I would call up and say "HELLO SCHMUCK BOY!! I'VE CANCELLED!!" and every month they would promiseto strike it from the bill and what not. It took all 7 months to finally clear it up. Unfreaking believeable.