I've had FIOS (20/5 plan) for my ISP for about a year and finally decided to take the plunge and move from Direct TV HDTV service to FIOS TV.
I chose the Ultimate HD package which includes 35/35 internet speeds, all of their basic cable offering, and Showtime and Epix bundled, plus 3 free months of HBO and Cinemax. I've chosen to go without a landline phone though I may add an Ooma box at some point. Basically I've saved so much by giving up my landline that it pays for upgrading my cell phone to unlimited minutes.
The install was clean and the entire installation process took about 5 hours. The tech even fixed a cable routing mess left by the guy that originally ran the fiber into the house and I plan to call his boss on Monday and give kudos. My only real complaint about the install is that their configuration program left bloatware on my PC. Coincidentally my PC crashed hard and I spend last night reinstalling the OS. I have no clue if it was related and I'm not all that bothered because it was time for a clean install anyway. One other thing to note: Verizon claims to have stopped the practice of cutting the copper lines but I saw mine cut. That rules out ever going back to DSL or copper voice. The plus side to cut copper is that I can plug an Ooma box into phone jack and have it handle all of my phones without it interfering with Ma Bell.
The first thing that caught my eye was the picture quality. Verizon claims that they do not use any signal compression and I believe them. I have a top of the line 52" Samsung LCD in my family room and FIOS TV's HD picture quality flat blows DTV's HD picture away. The audio side also seems to have a bit more meat to it but I haven't spent enough time with it yet to say much more than that.
I haven't done an HD channel count yet but it looks like they share the same basic cable HD channels but when you get into the premium channels FIOS pulls away like Ferrari pulling away from a stock VW Bug. It seems like every HBO, Showtime, and Stars channel is available in HD instead of just one or two of each.
On the downside the box's user interface is way too busy for my taste. Where direct TV's menus are simple and clean the FIOS menus are super busy and mildly confusing. Where direct TV allows you to set the guide button to default to your favorite channels, FIOS' defaults to show all channels and even the "favorites" button has a mind of its own. My Harmony One and Harmony 880 have no trouble controlling both boxes.
Extras: The FIOS DVR has very limited storage (20hrs of HD) but is accessible from other TVs. Verizon makes up for the storage limitation by storing many popular shows and channels at their end and allowing you to play them back up to 2 weeks later. Basically they have free on-demand programing of many the stations you subscribe to (basic or premium) and pay on-demand service for new releases.
My rating of the TV service is far is 4.8 out of 5 stars with the .2 deducted for the busy user interface and limited DVR capacity. Hopefully it won't take me long to adjust to the interface in which case I might bump that rating up a bit. Oh and did I mention 35/35mb internet surfing speeds. That part gets 5 out of 5 stars.
