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The Fiber to the Premises Install Process
SkinnyGuy writes "Fiber to the Premises (FTTP) or Fiber-based broadband is still in a very few areas, but PCMag's Lance Ulanoff has it and he seems to really, really like all 15MBPS of it. There's also an extensive slideshow on the whole installation process." From the article: "The power out is connected to the box, and the fiber ends in the box and comes out as Cat 5e, which runs back through the hole all the way to a new D-Link router. That's right: In addition to the box on the outside and the UPS inside, Verizon also gave me a new wireless G router, which includes four wired ports. This is a lot of free equipment (though I might incur some charges if I were to quit FiOS before the year had gone by). All this--not including the through-the-tree cable run--took another 2 hours or so."
Doctor told me to get more fiber in my diet but I don't think this is it.
It's too bad that it's not very common, it's cheaper than my 5mbps cable connection.
You can check availability here.
Oh heck, I'm quietly sobbing.
Fiber-based broadband is still in a very few areas, but PCMag's Lance Ulanoff has it and he seems to really, really like all 15MBPS of it.
Gee, I'm strangely not that impressed. I can get 10Mbps cable modem service right now ($44.95/mo), and I'm in Kansas. I just checked AT&T/SBC's site and it looks like their top of the line service in my area is only 3-6mbps.
YOU BASTARD!!
Here in France, ADSL2+ gets us 20MBps (for almost everyone), and Optic Fiber gives some lucky Parisians (not all Paris, though) 100 Mbps. VoIP and IPTV are bundled with both. It feels like a sweet revenge, given the fees we used to pay 10 years ago, compared to the US. (ADSL2+/TV/VOIP is 15 to 30 euros per month, unlimited and comes with the equipment [tv decoder, adsl modem, wifi spot] freely. Tons of sweet features such as static IP address and personalized reverse DNS and other customizable stuff like some DSLAM configuration directives [interleave & such]).
:). Well, let's just say they surrendered to ours ;). just kidding.
American ISPs are cheap... well, expensive, but cheap
Before everyone goes and gets FIOS for their broadband fixation, beware that in the vast majority of markets, Verizon *CUTS THE COPPER TO YOUR HOUSE* when they run the fiber for FIOS. They pull it out of the ground. You are off the grid. You are no longer subject to all the wonderful federal and state utilities requirements placed on telephone companies for purposes of "protecting" residential telephone customers. Your FIOS line isn't even really considered a telephone line in most states.
That means all that recent hubub about "competitive access" and "CLECs" and all that other theoretically Good (albeit practically Frustrating) stuff that opens up the telephone system no longer applies to you.
Yeah, I know we all hate the phone company, and everyone screams "well it's not like we were getting the service we paid for in the first place", but try writing a nastygram to your public utilities commissioner regarding faulty (or bad) service on your fiber, and there's a lot less they can do than if you're sitting on the "real" PSTN.
If you (or a future resident) ever wants to get the copper back, it could potentially be an administrative, technical, financial, bureaucratic, and/or logitistical nightmare.
Caveat emptor... although I sure wish it were available here.
Excuse me, but that seems pretty lame for fiber to the curb. At 15MBS, I doubt the cable companies are shaking in their boots yet.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
What they DON'T tell you is that they completely cut the existing copper pair to your house, insuring that you can never "downgrade" to a competitors DSL service if you hate them as an ISP or from ever changing your local phone carrier to any other CLEC.
CNET article on it
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From Northern Virginia? Visit Fairfax Underground! (Just added: Fairfax County wiki, need submissions)
I was one of the first people in my town to get wired for it; we happen to have the headquarters of the old GTE entity in the city limits, and they piloted the service to the towns their execs lived in. I got lucky in the old broadband roulette game.
All things considered, the biggest annoyance is the fact that the power is no longer line-supplied. That 12v battery in my garage has been replaced twice already. Sooner or later, Verizon quits paying for them; I have no idea when, but soon.
My FiOS is set up similarly to that of the article, except my run comes into the NID outside, has the power source and battery separate, and splits off 3 phone lines, my WAN IP interface, and my FiOS TV connection (which goes to a splitter/grounding block in the attic).
All in all it's definately worth the speed at 45 a month. I'm paying about $230 a month after you roll in my 3 phone lines ($85) Internet@15/2mbps ($45) and FiOS TV ($100)
They offer a 5mbit, 15mbit and 30mbit connection, but the last I checked, they priced the 30/15 connection at $199 a month.
peace
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Easy buddy. He just got fiber, it's not like he killed Kenny or something.
Does anyone have any info on whether there are download caps?
And let me warn you: the D-link router is a POS. It reboots itself way too much (daily at a minimum, compared to never with my old Linksys). Very painful when you play WoW or work at home. I finally got around to switching back to the Linksys I had, but I had to get rid of the Sveasoft firmware I'd installed in order to get above 4mbps (and get 15mbps). It turns out the Linksys gets almost 1mpbs better throughput than the D-link in my tests as well, so if you get fiber do yourself a favor and ditch the D-link. Oh sure, you could go the customer service route, but I for one am too lazy to sit there pretending to empty my temp internet files while some stooge reads a troubleshooting script.
First, note that this isn't a symmetrical implementation. The Verizon network uses a PON scheme that can't really do symmetrical, and so, please download more than you upload. Secondly, they also have great difficulties with VLANs, and IPV6-- try it to see (not that IPV6 is worth a crap).
Let's see if it's future proof.... can they update their hardware to accommodate multiple concurrent IPTV QoS-based streams at HD raster/frame/color levels? No. Are they going to guarantee your network applications-- no matter who provides them-- won't be port blocked or attenuated by service type/port? No. This is called 'net-neutrality' and Verizon isn't net-neutral (just their services of course).
Can you join an MPLS network, even though Verizon supports their own internally? Nope. Can you join theirs? Nope-- not today anyway and no date in sight.
Can you run Skype and Vonage, or are they blocked? Can you run mulitple QoS- VoIP streams without raising eyebrows? Nope.
Can you get them to do an SLA? Nope.
Can you currently up-and-download stuff amazingly fast? You bet.
And no- I do not work for any carrier or affiliate of any kind. Instead, I've been following FTTX for 20 years.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
I am wondering what the maximum service offering from Verizon is. I get the sense from the article that the AFC ONT is underutilized. It shows the 4 POTS lines are connected but the author says "we don't need them all". The video port is not connected, and it looks like the connector has a cover installed (also the video LED is not on) so this is not being used.
.097).
Does anyone know the speed of the PON interface and whose OLT that Verizon is using? I'd be curious how much bandwidth from the optics the end user is actually getting to use. The typical value for upstream is 155 Mbps, so I'm guessing this guy is getting less than 10% usage of the optical interface (15 Mbps / 155 Mbps =
I got the Verizon service last month at home and it absolutely rocks. Of course, the 15Mb download speed exceeds the the bandwidth of many smaller sites, so those don't go any faster. The install took about 2 hours and the installation was top notch. They ran Cat-5e to the other side of my house where I have all of the networking gear in a closet. The installers were quite professional and knew their stuff. :-)
Pricing is something like $32/mo for 5Mb, $39/mo for 15Mb, and $170/mo for 30Mb. The installers mentioned Verizon was bumping the 15Mb service to 20Mb in some areas with no cost change to stay competitive.
My office is on a large fiber ring in downtown Portland, Or and has an uncapped (due to a problem at our ISP) OC-48 connection. I can pull files at a solid 15Mb/s and ping times are exceedingly low (~30ms). Working from home is much more pleasant now.
For instance, turn the clock back 5 years and the bandwidth up by 6.7x and you get the old slashdot article http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/08/215523 8 which was about some people in the town I live in..
I've heard from other Verizon FIOS users that the D-Link router provided by verizon runs a special "-V" version of firmware that is not supported directly by D-Link. Can anyone confirm this? Does anyone know what the different are (assuming it is true)? Has anyone tried to replace the D-Link with something else or is there a requirement to use it?
I've got FIOS and my traditional phone line now runs over the fiber They completely removed the existing phone box on the house and put the ONT in it's place... it has a similar block for wiring the house phone wiring to it. This is why the FIOS install comes with a UPS- so that your phone line will keep working if the power goes out. They didn't actually tear out the copper wire from the ground, but hooking it back up would be a project.
However, he's gone a bit too far with the regulatory fear-mongering. Yes, the fiber line is excempt from the regulations passed in 96 that forced the phone companies to allow competitive access to the copper that enabled Covad, Northpoint, and others to start building out DSL networks of their own. However, the FIOS phone line is still a tariffed / regulated service, with the same Public Utility Commission oversight as before.
-R
I have FiOS. And contrary to the "they remove the copper" bullshit people seem to hype up online, I still have copper lines. And, contrary to that article, I do not have (and never have had) a Verizon phone line.
If you order FiOS and don't want them to remove the copper, tell them you don't want them to. If you don't want phone service, don't order it. I think I pay $5 more a month for the service because I don't have phones, but that may be wrong. Its $44.95/month for 15mbit. Someone who knows what they pay with phone service can chime in if its less than that.
There's no grand conspiracy to force people off copper. Of course they'd rather do that, but they don't force it on anyone.
Oh, and your phone service is quite considered a telephone line if you are getting phone service from Verizon over the fiber -- you still pay all the taxes and have all the "rights" associated with phone lines. Only if you use a 3rd party VOIP over FiOS would you lose those. (Verizons fiber-based phone service is NOT VOIP)
DSL and cable ISPs don't support VLANs or IPV6 either
Not so. Do your homework.
That's if you don't have several children.... eschew things like QT7.... and want to have any kind of reasonable future running non-carrier-controled QoS streams! As for consumer broadband ISPs that support MPLS, again-- you need to do your homework. The big guys don't, but the little ones are getting smart. SLAs are becoming important, too. What happened to 5-9's? Is it one 9, two, or three or four or what? There are no guarantees at all. And no guarantees that you won't get blocked-- what with Net Neutrality out the window.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.