Details of our Fios installation

I joined the Verizon Fios waiting list in December 2004, when I saw a Verizon crew splicing fiber on a pole near our house. And since then, I've been running the "Can I Get Fios?" test at the FIOS website every few weeks.  Last week the answer was yes, so I attempted to order Fios through the website. Several interface items didn't work with FireFox and, even after switching to Internet Explorer, I couldn't schedule an alternate date for installation.  So I ordered by phone.  That went smoothly with installation scheduled for Wednesday. I had to commit to being available from 8am - 5pm.

Sometime on Monday, a pre-terminated optical cable was run, from a pole-mounted optical junction box that serves eight subscribers, to the side of my house.  That was the first truck roll.

Then on Wednesday morning a very pleasant Verizon installer showed up at 8:45am -- the second truck roll. The 8am-5pm installation window was no joke as it took him until 5:15pm to finish. He was very confident on optical, electrical and mechanical issues, a little hesitant on computers issues, but he only had to phone for advice on one occasion.

The completed installation includes an optical network terminal (ONT) on the side of the house, a battery backup unit high on the basement wall, a power supply on a post in the basement near an available wall outlet, new wiring for our traditional phone line and a new CAT5 cable to a jack in my computer area.

Since optical drop cables come in fixed lengths with factory installed connectors, the ONU mounting box includes plenty of space to coil up spare fiber.  The active part of the ONU terminates the fibers and provides connections for four analog telephone lines, one RJ-45 Ethernet connector for broadband access and one video connector, currently capped.  There's also a power cable from the basement battery unit to the ONT with two power leads and 5-6 sense leads.

By 3pm all the new equipment was in. His first step was to move our phone line over from the copper drop wire to the ONU. With his laptop, he logged into a Verizon system that made the changes at the central office, so we had dial tone over the new optical connection in a few minutes.

Then he plugged in a Verizon-supplied D-Link DI-624 wireless router.  When ordering Fios, I was told this was extra cost, so I had declined. But he insisted this was a free part of the installation so I acquiesced.  We connected my laptop to the D-Link and proceeded to install software from a Verizon Fios installation CD. The installation procedure asked for the installation order number which it uploaded to a Verizon server.  A few seconds after entering the order number, my AIM client connected automatically and then Skype connected -- we were on the air (or at least on the Internet).  The rest of the software installation took another 20 minutes as I accepted everything they offered. Apparently I am now a premium member of MSN (at no extra charge!). And I have new email addresses at both verizon.net and msn.com.

At this point we had the only glitch in the whole process. While I was attempting to turn off the open wireless signal on the D-Link, i.e. while I was logged onto the D-Link, we lost Internet connectivity.  I have no idea what went wrong.  The installer proceeded to spend 15 minutes on the phone with another Verizon employee who walked him through various screens on the D-Link. Nothing was apparently wrong, no changes were made, but suddenly things started working again.

So then we ran a few speed tests and he packed up and left.

I immediately used Skype to call Bob Frankston and gloat, as I know he's still waiting for his Fios installation.

 

Comments

[George Coyle]

Mr. Turner

I appreciate your article about your FIOS installation. A couple of questions if you don't mind:

1. Are you happy with FIOS and if not, why?

2. Where did you install your wireless router....in the basement with the rest of the gear, or somewhere else? I assume that Verizon had to connect a CAT5 from the ONT to the router and it required a power connection (plug to the wall)?

3. I looked at the link you provided in your article and the wireless router can provide both wireless and wired connections. I have an older PC without a wireless card and several laptops with wireless cards and I'm hoping this one device will serve all.

Thanks for any feedback/advice. Your article was very helpful.

[Brough]

Yes, I'm happy with Fios service. It's still early days, i.e. I doubt that they've got a lot of other customers so far. Thus, there's still time for them to screw it up, but so far the bandwidth has been consistent - about 14.8-15.1 Mbps down and 1.6-1.8 Mbps up.

Everything Verizon installed was either outdoors or in the basement with the exception of one RJ-45 Ethernet jack which I had installed in my first floor office (the corner of another room) where I have my other computer and networking stuff (some might call it the mess...) and, of course, the "wireless router". Basically, they ran a Cat5 cable from the outdoor Optical Termination box into the basement and up through the floor to the baseboard in my office area.

As mentioned above, the wireless router is a D-Link "AirPlus Xtreme G" model DI-624 which is the combination of a home router, a four-port 10/100 Mbps Ethernet switch and an 802.11g wireless LAN basestation. I'm using both the wired portion to drive several fixed Ethernet cables in my house and the wired portion to roam with one or two laptops.

The router is on a table on the first floor of our house (a 3 story 1870s wood frame building). Coverage is good throughout the house. I haven't tried outdoors. I can also see a WiFi signal from a neighbor (2 bars our of five) who lives > 200 ft away.

[Bob Seldon Jr]

I would like to order a hard copy of the Verizon installation CD

[Pat Sheehan]

Hi. Verizon is arriving at my house in two weeks to install FiOs and I'm currently in the process of dropping a cat-5 cable from my second story to my basement. (Verizon said they wouldn't fish the walls and I didn't want exposed cabling.) Shall I terminate each end of the cable, or will the installer do that? If I should, is it a male plug in the basement and a female outlet in my office? Thanks in advance for any help,

Pat

[mike lowe]

are you still a fios customer?

[brough]

Mike, Yes I am still a Fios subscriber. It's still the best option where I live.
In 18 months of service, I've had one outage that I noticed. It was something, perhaps configuration-based, that was corrected while I was on the phone once I called to complain.
The effective speed has changed a bit over time. In July and August 2005 I was getting about 14.7 Mbps to 14.9 Mbps download and 2.7 Mbps or so upload.
I ran 4 successive test last night (11pm local time) and 3 successive test this morning (11am Sunday morning). Last night I was getting about 15.2 Mbps down and 1.2 Mbps-1.5 Mbps up. This morning I get 14.3 Mbps down and 1.2 Mbps to 1.7 Mbps up. So over time, the upload speed seems to have gone down a bit.

[Conficio]

Hi there,
what is your experience with operating a server on your fios service? Does Verizon allow a mail server? Do they block any outgoing ports?

I know that most companies do not allow such things in their contract. However some enforce it all the time and make your life difficult, some only if you are making rel trouble (like running a high load server for music, game or video). Hence the question.

O

[brough]

Conficio,

They are not shutting down mail servers, at least that I am aware of.

However, if you look at their terms of service at http://www2.verizon.net/policies/tos.asp , there is an explicit "You may not use the Broadband Service to host any type of server whether personal or commercial in nature" and an open-ended catch-all "The Service is a consumer service and is not designed or intended to be used by any business or for any business or commercial purpose."

[electrical installation]

is it very hazardous if you don't know how to attend the said task and yet you still do it all by yourself?