Verizon fios with new house construction

Posts: 1389 · Posted: Tue Jul 19, 2005 9:50 am Post subject:

I gave a quick email to my buddy there in Cochese etc, and right now he is in Malawi, Africa. But he replied and said that he talked it over with the installer when the house was being built, and as FAR as he knew, you are right.

Posts: 646 · Posted: Tue Jul 19, 2005 9:54 am Post subject:

The thing is, there's nothing magic about Fios once you get inside the house. All you need for Vonage to work is a good Internet connection, and phone jacks that are connected to each other, and not connected to anything outside. If you can do that, then you're good to go.

(The only kind of connection where you should run into problems with that is DSL, because the Internet connection already uses the copper phone lines.)

Posts: 23 · Posted: Tue Jul 19, 2005 9:54 am Post subject:

Trowski wrote:

I gave a quick email to my buddy there in Cochese etc, and right now he is in Malawi, Africa. But he replied and said that he talked it over with the installer when the house was being built, and as FAR as he knew, you are right.

WOW that is going out of your way, thanks sir, i really appreciate that

Mike

Posts: 1715 · Posted: Tue Jul 19, 2005 10:50 am Post subject:

Could someone who's played with FIOS tell me what the actual FIOS stuff looks like? Do they run fiber all the way up to the house or just along the street and then use copper to the house? If it's fiber all the way up to the house, does it require power at the house? If so, does anyone know how much power it draws? and a question that Verizon couldn't answer for me -- does the fiber run straight from the CO or are there repeaters along the way?

I was looking at FIOS, but prefer to be up 24/7, especially during power outages. Verizon couldn't confirm or deny whether their fiber would go dark in a power outage, so I went with DSL...and so far, so good. Power goes out, DSL stays lit.

As an aside, beware of all those electronic add-ons...they add up after awhile. Example: My Time Warner digital cable box draws 60 watts 24/7, whether it's turned on or off. If you do the math, that works out to $63/year in electricity (@ $0.12/kWh) just to keep that single box going.

Posts: 646 · Posted: Tue Jul 19, 2005 11:14 am Post subject:

I don't have FIOS, but I can answer some of the questions.

The fiber goes to a box on the side of your house. It draws on your own power, but I don't know the wattage. They install a battery backup inside your house that's wired to the outside box. It's supposed to run for about 6-8 hours, but the battery needs to be replaced after some number of years.

I suspect that it's a fiber going directly to the central office, because it'd be pointless to have a battery backup at your house if powered amps were used along the way.

This site has some more specifics, and pictures of the equipment:
http://asymptomatic.net/wp/2005/03/08/1364/fios-really-installed/

You claim that you want to be up during power outages, which implies that you probably have a generator. If you run your house on a generator, then that could also power the ONT if the battery dies.

Posts: 1715 · Posted: Tue Jul 19, 2005 1:06 pm Post subject:

Much appreciated! That pretty much showed me everything. I'm still unsure if they have repeaters on the lines... from what I've read on a few sites that I found from links on that site, it sounds like repeaters are used at times.

I find it interesting that ripping out the old copper line from the street/can to the house is part of the "installation"... Of course, Verizon doesn't tell the real reason for doing this -- they're not required to share their fiber lines with anyone else, whereas they are with their copper.

At my main residence, I do have full generator power and can't imagine living without it. At my other place, I have a decent size UPS, which I'm replacing with a battery bank & dedicated inverter system, so I'll be "on battery" 24/7.. Won't even have a flicker in the lights when the utility fails.

Posts: 646 · Posted: Tue Jul 19, 2005 1:26 pm Post subject:

Note that DSL isn't always going to work during a power outage either. During the big blackout in August 2003, our phone line went dead after a couple days. Even WWJ-950 (a major Detroit news radio station) was off the air for a while.

Granted, the phone stuff around here seems to be much better than cable... that usually drops out after a couple hours without power.

Posts: 24 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Dec 02, 2004 Posts: 24

Ok guys,
Sorry for the delay in replying, but hadn't checked in a couple of days.
I have FIOS running at my house for the last 8 months. The way they do it is run optical fibre to the ONT outside your house (The ONT replaces the traditional NID - they rip out the NID). This box is powered, or rather needs power, so to ensure continuity of phone service during power outages, they install a small battery in the garage (or other suitable location).
This ONT box has 4 phone ports and one data port (along with a TV port, I think). They will run a Cat5e cable from the data port to where your computer is - could be anywhere in the house, its part of the install). In the room where the PC is, they will terminate the Cat5e cAble with a wall jack.
All you have to do is plug your ATA (or router, depending on what your setup is) into this jack, and you are good to go. Of course, if you want your entire house to be wired for Vonage, you would run a phone line from the ATA to a normal phone jack.
Now Verizon will allow you to order naked FIOS service, all they require in that case is a credit card to automatically bill to. Just make sure that when they install, all the 4 phone ports on the ONT are free i.e. they have not inadvertently connected you internal house wiring to their phone line. Once you do that, you should be ok.

Let me know if you need more specific details on router setup etc.

Posts: 1715 · Posted: Tue Jul 19, 2005 11:37 pm Post subject:

paul248 wrote:

Note that DSL isn't always going to work during a power outage either. During the big blackout in August 2003, our phone line went dead after a couple days. Even WWJ-950 (a major Detroit news radio station) was off the air for a while.

Granted, the phone stuff around here seems to be much better than cable... that usually drops out after a couple hours without power.

I'll give the phone cos around here credit for minimal outages. Even when hurricanes totally trashed the barrier island, we still had phone service on some of the phone lines in the building. Sprint (the local co down there) had generators all over the place at the concentrator boxes and all of their switches already had permanently-installed generators. I see a bunch of wimpy trailer-mounted generators at the Verizon switches in Tampa... not real reassuring.

Most of the broadcast stations in the area are well-prepared. The ones I've worked for even had full air con on generator power and usually a week's worth of diesel on-hand. Even the one radio station which lost their roof & most of their studios was back on the air within a few hours of the Cat 4 hurricane passing overhead... no roof, no AC, no phone lines, and absolute ruins of a building, but they were still making the best of it.

I didn't understand much of the problems the NE had with the blackouts. Maybe the power's so reliable up there that no one ever thinks about it not being there. Maybe it's because we're in hurricane country, but many down here have thought ahead.