I wrote this for those people thinking of
switching from Cable to FIOS.
We used cable for Internet /TV for about six years and later
added VOIP and had very few problems. The cable company
service was good, but the cable prices never seemed to stop
rising. What made the decision for me was a flier I received
from the cable company. It explained how we could get
a Special package of TV/Telephone and Internet if we sign up
for a Two year contract for an amazing $159.00
a month. Guess they know FIOS
would be available in our area in the next few months and
they want to get people locked in 2 yr. contract.
Maybe they are taking advantage of what I think is Verizon's
big marketing mistake. Verizon should have kept people aware their
service was coming soon and at a much better price than
the cable company was offering.
We see ads on television with a cute little kid talking
about fiber optics, but no one knows that it is actually
here in our area.
We found out about it because we kept asking the
people in the Verizon trucks working around our neighborhood. One guy told us it
was ready now so a quick call
and 3 days later, we had FIOS. Like I said, no one knew it
was available yet and there was no waiting list
yet. We were lucky, really lucky. Some of our
neighbors came over when it was being installed and asked
how we knew, who should they call, etc., etc., etc.
One neighbor already had FIOS in his shore home and liked it
enough to drop his cable at his home also.
OK, how much money did we save? When I called to order, the
woman asked me what package I wanted and what was the price
I saw advertised. I was a little taken back by the question
and hesitated. I then told her I saw TV/Telephone and 20/5
Internet advertised for $94.95 a month. She responded with
"That will work for us". Pleasantly surprised, I told her to
"Sign us up."
In 72 hrs we had FIOS. We did however have to sign up
for a two-year service contract as is also required by the cable company
for the same package.
The reasons that made me switch to Verizon
FIOS.
At this time for basically the same package, Cable is $159.95 - FIOS is
$94.95 both are less extras with a two year signup.
That's an amazing $65. a month savings
and includes
a much faster internet. Our FIOS speed tests usually show 20400kbps
Down and 4200kbps up. This is very fast... Also,
we find our VOIP is much clearer than with cable. It may be
because the speed is almost triple than what it was with
cable. More surprises below, see updates.
Verizon charged us a
$19.00 service charge to cover what, I don't remember...
We live in New Jersey so prices and installation times may vary.
Cancel Cable Service day
The day I brought back all the hardware to the cable company,
I couldn't wait to tell them about the price savings between
Cable and FIOS but they didn't even ask why I cancelled their service.
They should keep track of the reason people drop their
service so they can improve their business. They didn't seem
to care. Personally I think their attitude will change
sooner than later.
Three days after we placed the FIOS order
they came for the install.
Two trucks showed up. One with the equipment and a bucket
truck to run the fiber down to the corner fiber junction box
up on the pole. As soon as the cable was finished being hung
and tested, the truck left. The installer was left to do the
rest by himself. He told me he was fairly new and new little
about computers. Seems they push the installers though
school because they need
them so badly. Whatever the case, he did a excellent clean
job.
From what I understand the fiber cable to the
house has one strand of glass covered with Teflon or
something like it. Over that was a Kevlar wrap and a plastic
outer covering. The fiber can not be bent too sharply or it
can break but a new type should be coming soon that can bend much
more with no damage. The fiber cables are pre-terminated on
both ends and come in different lengths. This is so they
don't have to place a terminating connection in the field.
Any extra fiber is coiled at the ends but never cut.
An ONT box goes outside of the house. This accepts one end
of the fiber and converts the light to electric to be used
by the Coax/CAT5 for TV and Internet. It also has four
telephone plugs for up to 4 landlines. Inside the ONT is where the magic
occurs. It converts the light to electrical signals and it
has a small Laser to convert electrical back to light for
outbound Internet data and TV requests. Here is one thing I
could not understand. The ONT can accept either a Coax or a
CAT5/5e/6 to run to the new Verizon router. I heard that
using a CAT5/6 is better so I ran one before they came. They
want their routers to be used but you can use another if you
know what you are doing. You can also use your old router behind
theirs. One of the reasons they want their router used is because the set-top TV boxes each have their own IP address on
your network.
They update them with fixes and time / weather settings and much more.
They also can repair many problems without sending a
serviceman
out.
A couple small holes are needed to run the wires from the
outside ONT, into the basement. Inside the basement they install a
power supply and battery backup for the phone service, and a TV
coax splitter. This must have a
wall outlet near by for the power supply. It can not be a power
strip or an extension cord. Get this installed before you
order your service.
Also run new cables if required, such as a CAT5/5e/6
from your router location to the outside ONT location. They will
use your old cable coax if new no new cable has been
installed. Coax or CAT5 can both be used so either
is OK.
Your installation will vary depending on what service you get and
how it is wired. Our install took six hours. He did a near
perfect job with everything. They also seem to go out of
their way to be helpful and answer all the questions before
they leave.
After the install was complete, the serviceman did an
equipment check. We experienced two small problems.
The internet was dead so he called his people and found the ONT was programmed by default for coax
between the ONT and router
instead of the CAT6 I ran. They fixed this from the office
in a minute. The only other problem was with the telephone.
We had a local radio station blasting in. He said "No problem"
and it wasn't. A tiny filter was put in the box outside
and the connection was very clear.
As soon as he left, I started to setup my network on the new
router. They gave us a Verizon Actiontec MI424WR Rev.C
router. This was the only thing that gave me problems. If you need to make any changes to this router such as
port forwarding etc. you better download the full manual
from Verizons website. Be sure you get the correct manual
for your router. You will need it. Trying to make a
simple setting change was confusing. I never had
such trouble doing something that should have been a simple task.
After I read the manual and struggled through the changes it
worked perfectly. My wireless reached another building where
we backup our files each night without a problem. We have
11 devices connected to our network, including a network
camera, 5 computers and more. Some use a small Netgear 4
port switch after the router giving us the extra ports. Using
Network Magic, I check the logs. Never has any device
dropped from the network nor have we lost internet
connectivity. I find this interesting after reading about
the older routers having problems. One thing I wish the
router had was higher wireless speed (n) but it works well.
I heard from a Verizon line worker that new
electronics will be available soon that can run at 100Mbs or
1000kbps as they have now in Japan and South Korea. I wonder
what they will charge for this service. When this speed is
available
for a reasonable price, the cable companies will go the way
dialup is going now. Imagine that...
A good feature that they don't tell
you about.
One of our TV's is an old 25" RCA TV but we didn't want to spend more
money for another set top box. After looking at the back of
the set top box in another room I saw that the TV was using HDMI connection form the box. I also noticed it had a coax
connection so I connected the coax to the other old TV and
because it was close enough to use the remote, I now have
all channels on both TV's from one box. No HD on the old set
but very clear reception on all channels. The box output
sends a signal from all outputs. This is a nice feature
that they don't tell you about. Of course I could have just
plugged this old TV into the splitter and received just the
basic channels but this way we get all channels we pay for
on this old TV also.
So far everything is just fine. If we have
problems they will be posted here.
Update:
Ok we had a problem, but nothing serious. Our TV and
Internet went down at 10: pm. It should be noted that our
landline telephone did not go down nor did our Verizon telephone. I
called the help line at 10:15 pm and the support person was
baffled. They just could not find the problem. They said
they would have a person at the house the first thing in the
morning.
At 7 AM I checked everything and the TV and Internet was
working just fine. At 9:30 AM I answered the door and
two verizon support people were standing there. I said I
called to cancel the call at 7 AM as all was working now.
They said yes, they know that. "We are stopping at each
account to explain and to apologize for your outage"
"We had a system wide outage, and it was the first time this
happened. Everything should be OK now.' WOW, this was a
pleasant surprise.
Update: One month after install
We received a letter from verizon telling us that anyone
getting the triple play and did not receive any promos will
receive a free 19" Sharp LCD High Def. TV if install date is
before 1/15/08. We are waiting for delivery. (See below
update)
More information:
I did learn something interesting from their tech
support. They had told me to shut off the power to the
router for 10 sec. while I was on the phone to reset it. I
said if I do that the landline telephone will go down. They said no it won't. Amazing, I shut
off the power and it still worked fine. The reason was the FIOS phone
service is a "Landline" service as before and not VOIP. They
said it just uses fiber from the house to the switching center
as opposed to copper. So far it's great. We do use another
VOIP (Voice Wing) line with FIOS and this line would shut
down if router is off, but it is less expensive than getting
another FIOS number.
TV reception: Great picture and better than cable. I
understand the reason for this is that Fiber has so much
bandwidth the TV signals are sent Uncompressed unlike
Cable that must compress and uncompress it to save
bandwidth.
A word to the wise. You don't need any of the software that
Verizon will want to install on your system such as Custom
browser's, anti virus and backup software etc. Everything
you need to connect is supplied with Windows. We did not
choose to use any of their software. Much cleaner computer this way.
Also, the Actiontec MI424WR router has a built in business
class hardware firewall. With this we felt we don't need firewall
software which allows our computers run better and happier.
Landline phone - If your power goes out you will still be
able to use your phone (Not a VOIP phone) for a couple hrs.
It uses the installed battery backup they install. This
backup also has an emergency button to press that will give
you even more time to call 911 in an emergency.
Update: Two months after install
Our service is working however at times we
need to access our
Verizon router for IP changes to our camera or wireless USB
drive for port forwarding etc. Since yesterday we could not
access the router settings anymore. After logging in we get
a "Too many sessions are open, please wait until open
sessions expire" from the router. The "sessions" never seem to expire
so we can't access the router anymore. Power down the router
does not help.
Getting through to Verizon phone tech support is a disaster
to say the least. One hr. wait time is standard and this is
after 10 minutes of computer prompts trying to auto repair
the problem that you know it can't do.
When I did get through, their tech support person said it
was not a problem they knew how to fix. In fact she said she
never heard of it before. Amazing. So she told me to call a
number of the router manufacturer and I refused to do this.
The router is supplied by Verizon,
why should we have to go to the manufacturer I said.
She then said she would call on a conference with me.
Another hour of waiting for Actiontec.
Router problem resolved:
We found
through trial and error that the router error of "to
many sessions open" was caused by the new version of
'Network Magic" software. If it is installed on only one computer it
did not seem to interfere with the router but two or more
computers using it caused and error. Tech. support at Network
Magic said to use the older version until a firmware update
was available for the Actiontec router. I'm not convinced
that this was a firmware problem. I think perhaps this new
version of Network Magic has problems. After removing
Network Magic from other computers the router worked just
fine.
Update: We received a letter today from Verizon. Our new
Sharp 19" HD LCD TV is on the way. A gift for getting the
package deal installed before 1/15/08.
1/12/08 - We had a problem with all of our wireless
connections dropping at times. They would re-connect
after a few minutes but it was annoying. After much
trial and error we found our router was setup to use
"Auto" for a channel frequency. I reset it to channel 11
and problem was gone. I think our wireless phone was
causing the problem. From what I have read, dropped
wireless connections are a common problem, so try
changing the channel to one between 1-11 and lock it in.
Do not leave it on "Auto'. Remember your wireless
devices will use any of these channels transmitted by
the router.
The only
negatives I found so far is their tech support. They told
me they do not support help with the router settings.
If you need help with anything other than the Default
settings you out of luck.
Actiontec tech. support was good and
answered our email in about 12 hrs. Be sure you download the manual from Verizon.
I feel that if you don't require tech support, their
services are very good.