That FiOS isn't available in Irvine is a major disappointment. A casual computer user might not really notice the difference, but I don't know a single techie who doesn't drool at the thought of 50 Mbps down and 20 Mbps(!!!!) up.
FiOS is fiber right into your home. It's the right way to do it, but costs a lot. Verizon has taken a lot of flak from people saying they're wasting so much money doing a full fiber to the home rollout.
U-Verse is a hack. Thrown together by AT&T because they were too cheap to do fiber to the home, but needed something to compete with FiOS. Inferior to FiOS in every way. But because of our lame telecom laws, some people can only get U-Verse and then there are the places that can't get either...