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."

Get that fiber!

Doctor told me to get more fiber in my diet but I don't think this is it.

Oh gee, thanks Verizon

For giving this guy all that free stuff. Now could you do something about your monopoly in my area or at least not use the opportunity to gouge us on DSL prices?

Availability

It's too bad that it's not very common, it's cheaper than my 5mbps cable connection.

You can check availability here [wikipedia.org].

1.7 gigabytes in 12 minutes

In darkened coners all over the land, *aa execs are quietly sobbing.

Oh heck, I'm quietly sobbing.

Competing technologies marching on as well.

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.

I think I speak for everyone when I say

YOU BASTARD!!

Mod article down

What kind of demented thing is this? Verizon is laying fiber so it can do an end run around cable franchising and supply TV, VOIP and broadband to customers. The cablecos are responding by rolling out higher speed broadband (like CableVision's Boost). How is that justification for some sort of Verizon puff-piece???

Sounds like...

Pronunciation is the key, you see..

You say 15Mbps

I say TURGID

Only 15MBPS?

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]).

American ISPs are cheap... well, expensive, but cheap :). Well, let's just say they surrendered to ours ;). just kidding.

No turning back

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.

Re:No turning back

Second hand intarweb posts.

No one I know with it had any copper removed. Not one.

As I said in my reply direct to him, there are a bunch of incorrect things people (who strangely don't have it) seem to keep repeating. To enumerate:

1) they do not remove copper usually. They never will if asked not to.
2) you do not need phone service
3) their phone service is regulated, if you do have it
4) Their network absolutely can handle the bandwidth. I can saturate my 15 mbit connection 24/7. 1.8meg/sec sustained, with no problems. (I know the grandparent didn't mention THAT FIOS rumor, but I thought I'd toss it in there)

I have it, they did 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

Re:No turning back

For all of the commenters asking for a source, here it is: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic le/2005/05/07/AR2005050700178.html [washingtonpost.com].

Um, no.

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)

All What?

...all 15MBPS of it.

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.

Verizon's plan for world domination with FiOS

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 [wikipedia.org].

CNET article on it [com.com]
--
From Northern Virginia? Visit Fairfax Underground [fairfaxunderground.com]! (Just added: Fairfax County wiki, need submissions)

I've had FiOS since November 2004

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

Cat 5e?

My home-improvement project involved ripping off all the old siding and running Cat 5e wiring to every room.

Why did he not run Cat 6? I know that you don't really need it today, but surely for the little added cost it would be worth some additional future-proofing of his installation -- especially since the install job is not easy.

Verizon FIOS

A friend of mine lives over in Verizon-land on the other side of town and he just got FIOS at 5Mbps for about half the cost of cable. I got a notice in the mail yesterday saying that Comcast was upgrading the cable broadband to 6Mbps. The latency on the fiber is way lower than on Cable Modem, though. Unfortunately, I live in Qwests area, so I'm screwed for Fiber. Oh well, $20 wireless is coming to town [oregonlive.com] anyways.

Verizon FIOS is amazing

We have FIOS out in Westchester County, NY and it's incredibly fast. Definitely recommended if you have it in your area and have the $$$.

Total Download Limits?

Does anyone have any info on whether there are download caps?

What's the big deal?

Aside from pricing or AUP's, etc... what's the big deal?

There are existing technologies already in place that can provide way more "bandwidth" than we actually get to use. In my area Cox offers a 9mbit connection... and is physically capable of much more.

Granted, Verizon (and all the Bells) don't have this sort of physical capability over old copper, so I see why they're trying to catch up with this fiber stuff. And I'm not saying it's a bad thing. It's just not anything very new. It's just a new method to achieve the same-old-results. So I still have to ask: What's the big deal?

Verizon is not getting it

My cable company delivers 15Mbps service on existing cable and some cable operators are experimenting with speeds as high as 50Mbps. The cable operators don't have to rebuild whole areas to do this in most cases whereas fiber pushes need massive investment to do. I wonder where that money comes from?

Oh yeah, the near-monopoly highway robbery pricing structures the Bells enjoy and the monies they expect to reap if net neutrality fails.

Silly me, I forgot they're going to rape the public to do it.

I've got it in TX

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.

Without DSL

Where I live optics are a bad thing:

Down the road there are optics not coppers so currently I can not get DSL
But I also can't get optics....for some reason
so I have dial-up

And behind the scenes, the real dangers

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.

thoughts on ONT bandwidth, etc.

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.

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 = .097).

Are we supposed to be impressed with 15Mbit fiber?

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 [slashdot.org] which was about some people in the town I live in..

Phone is not coupled with FIOS

From TFA:

Verizon has, unfortunately, coupled its FiOS service with its telephone service.

As a Verizon FIOS subscriber (have been for the past 4 months or so), I can attest that you don't need to have phone service through Verizon to get FIOS. In fact, I did have phone service through them and the day after my FIOS was connected I shut off my phone service and went with Vonage.

Does this guy do his research?

Also the article states that the speeds are 5, 10 and 15 MBps. That's wrong. It's Mbps.

port blocking and upload.

Knowing Verizon (and looking at their terms of service), they will block ports and tell you that servers of all types are forbidden. Combined with a lack of static IP address, that, IMHO, makes the bandwidth useless - I like to access my files from locations other than home, have a mail server, host a small web page, etc. Who really cares if you get tons of bandwidth if you can't use it for anything except watching a TV show? (maybe the rhetorical question is asked and answered)

I have FIOS 30/5...

I have FIOS 30/5 service and i love it. I'm lucky enough to be in a Cablevision market and FIOS 30/5 is offered for $50 a month

The install process is a few hours long. I'm proud to be the first person in my area to have it. (I've had a few months now) I cant tell you how happy i am to no longer be a Cablevision Optonline broadband subscriber. I was one of the first Optonline subscribers and saw their service degrade horribly over the years.

FIOS has forced OOL to "BOOST" their speeds but they're still plagued by the same upload usage caps and harrasment.

FIOS is the internet as it should have been 10 years ago. Every house in America should have had Fiber 10 years ago.

If you can at all get Fiber and the service provider is capable of actually delivering on its promises (like Verizon FIOS) then by all means look into it.

I'm hardly a coporate fanboy but Verizon has done right this time. They made a very bold and expensive move by rolling out Fiber services to the house. Other companies should be as bold. Cablevision once was... and they may be again some day.

The great thing about Fios is that it will wake up the broadband world. We demand speed... So the Broadband providers of the world better deliver.

I get solid performance and I really cant be anymore happier with FIOS. Well if they gave me 100/50 ;)

Anyways... Bravo to any company willing to advance our civilization by not holding back technology and delivering it to the people.

Ouch!

Asshole. (Kidding, just kidding.)

Envious actually.

Do they NAT?mowgli

My question is if they NAT or do you get an IP?
More specificly, do they allow non-established TCP ports to your home system, or do they lock everything down and call it "security"?

I use a service like http://www.everydns.net/ [everydns.net] so that my home compter has a dns entry, and grandma can view pictures of the kids (the IP can change, and your url still works). To do this I need to make sure that they allow TCP ports 80, 443, etc. I had Verizon DSL for a short while until I realised that I was not able to send web traffic to my home system, so I went with cable internet.

I wonder if they block incomming (non-established) traffic. Anyone know?

thanks!

What's the point?

I mean, how many sites are really going to give you content at 5, 15 or 30 Mb/s? Bittorrent is the only program I've seen that will ever get download speeds above 800k on my computer, and the max is around 1500k.

Fiber hype

I'm from a small town called Lafayette, LA. We just had our government run utility system approve a bill to provide the funds for fiber to the home. While this sounds great, it doesn't mean it's going to happen. There is nothing in the bill that claims they MUST use the funds for fiber to the home. I'm curious what they mean by FTTP. Is this fiber to the curb or to the home? Is Verizon going to end up pulling the old telco trick of over-subscribing the one fiber drop and once this guy gets 20 neighbors on the same connection he'll be down to 5 Mpbs? One particular group in our town (which i will modestly boast to be lightly involved with) made sure that if this bill got pushed through, the fiber would be run to the home and not the curb. All I'm saying is that 15 Mbps is hype and nothing more. Verizon could easily turn up their speeds to 40 and 50 Mbps without even beginning to hurt their backbone. Then again, so could cable and phone companies too. Why don't they do it? Why does some cheese eating brown-toothed frenchman get extreme rates when we're drooling over 15 Mbps?

FIOS: I'm a 30 day free trial churner

The FIOS installation went great and yes, they ripped out the copper. No problem with that. My telephone line used to be noisy and now isn't. The Internet throughput speed was as advertised, but with a gotcha. The 15MB transfer rate was only possible when I was transferring megabytes of data within a single socket connection (like FTP). Connection set-up time sucked. There must be some sort of proxy slowing down the set-up of each TCP socket. On web pages with lots of small objects, there is a lot of latency followed by bursts of speed. Page load time on sites like CNN was similar to the Comcast 4MB speed, but it looked way more jerky. I write off the lack of a clean internet pipe to the connection vs connectionless oriented telco switch mentality. I gave FIOS an honest 30 day shakedown, but canceled the service. The tipping point for me was the way Verizon operates its FTP server. Timeouts galore. Very unreliable. I could live with the bandwidth characteristics but not the way they operate the ISP services that come with it. I'm glad that I have a choice of broadband to the home. Comcast cable or Verizon FIOS. For now, Verizon is not ready for my business. It was polite about canceling my service and the bill it sent me, and leaving my voice phone on FIOS for the same basic rate. Who knows, maybe some day... The FIOS box is still in the basement and has a cable TV tap. When Verizon comes calling with a package that includes a lower price for TV service, I'll be ready to talk to them again.

FiOS availability in Cedar Park/Austin, TX?

Anyone know when Verizon FiOS is supposed to be made available in Cedar Park/Austin, TX?

As if Verzion will actually play ball

I keep getting these "Come back..." mailings from Verizon, about once every quarter. In them they quote some obscene price for basic phone services with a few extra calling features. It's always somewhere around $45 a month. And you still pay a per minute for LD and toll.

But once they roll out FIOS I might call and beat them up a bit, tell them that if they can give me unlimited to the U.S., Canada, France, Italy, Spain and the U.K. as well as CLID, CW-CLID, Three-Way calling, voice mail, and a ton of other features for $24.99 a month I might consider coming back.

They know they're losing business. So of course they'll use every trick in the book to lure people back to them knowing full well they'll hike the rates two months later and you're stuck in a one year contract. Anyone who can't see that is a fool.

slow to the development

Back when I was in college at Virginia Tech, I lived in a town house development (1997-2000) called Pheasant Run Crossing where before the foundation was laid for all the units, two pairs of redundant fiber was laid out to each lot so that each town house had fiber access. At the time, each town house came with its own fiber-to-RJ45 hub, each with 4 ports that ran into each of the four bedroom. The uplink at the time was only a pair of T1s which could have easily been changed over to something fatter. The cool thing was that through IP Masquerading our monthly cost of $27 was able to support 5 users with a single static IP. Ahhhh... those were the days.

They installed the fiber, then cut the copper!

One essential part of the fiber install process, at least for Verizon, is to cut the copper. Why? Because thanks to rules drafted by politicians to whom Verizon has contributed megabucks, Verizon is obliged to allow competitors to rent and use the copper, but not the fiber. Let Verizon run fiber to your home and you're stuck with them forever. It's a Faustian bargain.

FIOS Facts

I've had FIOS for a little shy of a year now. Was barely able to keep cable up due to bad neightborhood wiring that would go out every time it got above below 40 or above 80 degrees (often in Texas). DSL wasn't possible, too long of a run, was barely able to get 128k on DSL before going to Cable. My old 128k ISDN line was more reliable than either of them. FIOS has gone down absolutely 0 times and I've got 15 down, 2 up with four fixed IP's. They don't block ports, I run my own mail and web servers here. Normally they will switch your copper out and put the telco on fiber also, but I've currently got data only. They didn't touch my existing telco box.

The speed is nice, but the latency is the truely nice part of it, it's virtually non-existant.

I'm not a Verizon fan either, switched away from them for our telephone the moment we had other companies in the area.... but they've proven me a fan now. The one time I did need to call tech support (because I misplaced the IP address of one of their DNS servers), the first person that answered the phone not only knew what a DNS server was (At Comcast you have to go a few levels up for that) but they had it available right away and didn't have to IM fourth level support in another country to find out. It was literally a 30 second phone call.

As for installation, I'd already run Cat6 from my office to the location where they were going to put the ONT. They would run Cat5 if I hadn't though... I'm just a bit particular about the wiring in the attic so wanted to do it myself. The tech rolled up, took him about an hour to mount the ONT on the house, terminate the fiber, etc. Meanwhile he gave me the router and it was all connected and I had my machines configured with the IP addresses. By the time he knocked on the door to tell me it should be up, I was already checking email on it and disconnecting my Comcast modem.

So those are real facts about FIOS, not FUD.

Even the fiber is slow in the US

If that's the best they can do, what is the big deal? I also have fiber in my apartment, and it also is about $45 per month. The difference is, my fiber is fast. 100Mbps down and no bullshit upstream cap--that is also 100Mbps. If it took me 15 minutes to download only 1.7GB, I would be gritting my teeth.

Of course, I live in Japan.

Real world speeds: Downloading from Apple (or seemingly any big company using Akamai) I get ten megabytes per second solid. A lot of sites hosted in the US give piddly-ass downloads around 600 kilobytes per second, but that is their problem, not mine. The really cool thing is I get real world transfers (using iGet or SFTP) between here and my buddy's Tokyo's apartment at about 6-7 megabytes per second. (Which means, you can start iGetting a movie, and then start watching it in VLC 30 seconds later, for cheap homebrew video-almost-on-demand.)

I don't understand why it would be a winning strategy to incur the expense of a fiber rollout, and then offer these piddling speeds that barely outpace DSL. My office back in the US has business DSL from sonic.net that is 6/0.6 Mbps. Sure, this is incrementally faster but it is not at all mind-blowing. (And in fact, it is way way slower than even DSL here in Japan.)

I will get rotated back to the US next month and the one thing I have been dreading is the slow-ass Internet back there. I guess I will have to face that even if I can get fiber.

Did you mention the upstream?

I have 15 down, 2 up. It's the two up that really make the difference! (Although, I've almost always got it red-lined at 15....

Cablevision's Optimum Online is faster

I have had OO for a while originally some 3Mbps service, its now 10Mbs down, 1 up. This is for $40 a month. Pay a $15 kicker and you get 20down, 2 up. I like the idea of fiber, but not until its in the 100Mbps range.

RCN is fiber to within 800 feet of it's customers

RCN is rolling out, from the Eastcoast to the Westcoast, their MACH 20 service (20Mbps Down / 2Mbps Up). If they feel the need to go fiber to your door, it will be much less then the proverbial "Last Mile". They would need to only replace the current Nodes with all fiber ones and run fiber the last 800 feet or so to each customer. They planned ahead and have an Overbuilt network with a fair amount of unused bandwidth. Of course they will milk all the capacity out of the existing cable first.

Fastweb in Italy

Notice that fiber to the premises has been an option in many urban areas of Italy for the past five years - http://www.fastweb.it/ [fastweb.it] is the provider. They are famous for the good quality of the connectivity, and notorious for the unpredictability of the setup times. Once you are in, it is good, but it can take ages to get in. A flat rate connection will cost about 40 Euro per month, including 100 Minutes of VoIP and a three-port hub.

Much more common in other parts of the world

We sold our old mountain cabin above Rjukan, Telemark (in Norway) this winter to buy a new one a few kms away:

The local power company, Rauland Kraft, by default installs a PVC tube alongside the 400 V electrical cables to each new hoouse or cabin, and they pull fiber to the local junction box. The only thing needed for a "Triple Play" (IP + IPTV + Phone) connection was a 15-minute visit to blow a fiber through that PVC tube.

Terje

We Have It

We have it here, from Verizon. The basic home deal is 5/2 Mbps for $35, which is what DSL cost a year ago. My only beef with it is that it uses PPPoE, instead of DHCP. They also block port 80, and you are not supposed to host any servers on it. Our install took about five hours, which included us convincing them to put some extra wires in. Granted, we are a family of computer geeks, so we all had a good time.

We recently changed over our church from a microwave link to the fiber business deal. For $100 a month, we get 15/2 Mbps, five static public IP addresses, and no blocked ports or other interference. What impressed me is that connection is truly static and doesn't have any sort of PPPoE nonsense. Sure beats paying the same price for a 256/256 connection, with one static IP.

Both packages include the D-Link DI-624 Wireless Router [dlink.com]. For both setups, I have the router acting as a switch/access point instead of routing, due to the fact that IPCop does the job perfectly well for us.

Looking at the traffic graphs on our IPCop firewalls, we have yet to actually fully utilize the bandwidth available to us.

Somebody should ask him..

..how much porn he's pulled through those hoses.

Likely answer: Too much for my own good.

And you bastards think you have it bad.....

http://www.reedsburgutility.com/internet%20page.ht m [reedsburgutility.com]

Look at what I have to deal with. Yeah I have fiber, but look at those rediculous prices and speeds!!!!!!

I complained (I just moved here) and I was told that we're getting "new plans" next month with the possibility of 1x1 being the lowest and 5x5 being midrange. I hope to god they weren't lying.

The worst part: I dont even have a WAN IP. That's right, the whole city is one big god damn LAN!!! (Unless you get a business class connection, I guess). That's right folks. No bit torrent for me. No services on my boxes at home. No SSH. Nothing.

I cry myself to sleep some nights....

Yawn...

I've had 100Mbps (down AND up, with no caps) fiber for years for about the same cost of dinner and a few drinks after work. I had 8Mbps ADSL 6 years ago. I've never had an outage and never get spam since the ISP filtering is superb.

Of course, I don't live in either North America or Europe.

Pics of the ONT

For me, the bottom line is that I am getting the same download speed, 5x faster upload speed, and I got to dump Comcast, all for $15 LESS per month. Now I get to dump Verizon for local phone service, now that I have VoIP up and distributed through the house wiring. (Yes, I disconnected from the POTS line.)

At /. I probably don't even need to say this, but when I signed up, Verizon was saying you HAD to use their router with FIOS. I call bullshit. I never even powered up the crappy Dlink they gave me. All you have to do is set up PPoE on your current router. Theirs supposedly does some remote diagnostics, so you might need to switch back if you ever have issues, but given their initial stance on the router, I wouldn't give that statement too much weight either, although it did come from the tech who told me to set up PPoE on my current router.

If you want to see pictures of the ONT, I posted them here, mostly because people had questions about FIOS TV, so I got a closeup of the coax connector in the second one:

http://www.poopli.com/forum/attachment.php?s=&post id=23558 [poopli.com]
http://www.poopli.com/forum/attachment.php?s=&post id=23559 [poopli.com]

It is obvious...

after reading most of the posts here that there is still a huge inconsistency across the country and around the world when it comes to network/telco connectivity.

High speed internet accessible to anyone in the country will never exist because we refuse to let the government control and regulate these networks. Therefore they will always be restricted by local government policies and the marketing initiatives of the service provider.

I live in Dallas, TX, a fairly advanced area as far as network service providers, but I've also seen some stupid cases just in this area.

Areas are divided up by the phone companies and cable companies. You may be able to get DSL in one neighborhood and not cable internet, then in a neighborhood two miles away it's the exact opposite. The latest stupidity I've heard is Plano allowing FIOS internet, but not allowing FIOS TV. That tells me that a Comcast executive is on the city council and refuses to relent Comcast's stranglehold on Plano.

I first acquired cable internet in 1997 with @home. It then changed to attbi and finally to Comcast. Being a cable company, Comcast continually raised their rates without notice every six months (we left cable for satellite TV in 1996, partly for the money; mostly for the lack of service.) Speed started at 10Mb, was reduced to 5Mb, then finally 3Mb. I considered DSL, but the speed/dollar just wasn't there. In early 2005 I saw fiber optic being buried in our area, so I knew I wouldn't have to deal with Comcast much longer.

My installation was quick and easy. I was flying along in no time. There was no copper to cut because Comcast had already done that when we used their VoIP service. Due to their frequent outages, we finally converted to mobile phones (Verizon) in January 2005 and removed all traces of POTS.

In March we added FIOS TV. Hands-down the best purchase we've ever made. I cancelled a 10 year DirecTV account, added DVR, added HD, added VOD and saved ~$10 a month. Finally, my HD TV can show its true colors, the signal is consistent and clear and video on demand and DVR functions are marvelous. We may add a land line phone through Verizon, but the only need is for 911 auto-location and when our girls get old enough to stay home alone (like we won't buy them mobiles).

I think it is also obvious how disparate service is. I see many people here complaining that they hate Verizon. I can only wonder why. When researching which mobile service provider to choose a Consumer Reports article I read noted Verizon as the only company with better than average customer service. Otherwise all of the companies were the same. We've always had good service with Verizon, on the mobile phone, with the internet and now with the TV. They're always courteous, helpful and intent on taking care of me and keeping my business. The only issues I've had are due to their rapid growth: long hold times, re-scheduled installation, etc.

My point is take anyone's experience with a grain of salt. Until you talk to your neighbors you won't know what to expect. My experience was great, I'm still enjoying it and I intend to enjoy it for a long, long time.

I got 30 Mbit/s optofiber a couple of weeks ago

..and it's really great. My landlord, which is a publicly owned company here in town, ordered the installation as a pilot project for some of the buildings on my street. The connection is 30 Mbit/s synchronous with a fixed IP, and I've found that most of the time this speed is really is what I get. The first thing I tried was to download a Slackware ISO from the Swedish University network just for fun, because I remembered doing that back in the days when 56K modems were impressive beasts. It took 3-4 minutes :)

I live in a shitty little town in central Sweden, but when it comes to Internet I really can't complain.

I'm paying about 54 USD a month for this service. I got no special equipment except for the converter in my apartment (from which I have Cat5). There are a few other operators on the fiber, for IPTV and VoIP, but I haven't looked into that yet.

Re:Looks good

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. :-)

my neighbor likes it

My neighbor likes it, he has the 5Mbps version. (He's cheap.)

I have Comcast and it's about 4Mbps so if you need the extra speed it should be good. The thing that turns me off is:

a) I hate Verizon and
B) he said it took like three days to hook it up. And he's a programmer who works from home. Go figure.

It IS good.

But it's even better if you can afford the business line relationship. 5 fixed IP's- they do NOTHING to impair your use thereof so long it's not illegal. With the consumer service plans, you agree not to host servers (this includes things like hosting Quake4, etc.) and they get to dictate a few other things to you. This translates into $99/month because they make you go with the 15/2Mbps or higher service offering at that point- but if you can spend it, it's worth it unless you can afford plunking the cash down on a fractional T3.

Re:We already paid for 45Mbps - cheating bastards

what after you are a certain size company, you get free connectivity at all the NAPs?

Yes, more or less. Those dozen or so companies are known as the "Internet Core Exchange." They include folks like MCI/Verizon and Abovenet. The process is known as "Reciprocal Peering" and the ICE move 100% of their traffic that way.

Re:15Mbps Only???

The point is "the last mile" is optical. Infinite bandwidth scale, electrically immune, proven reliability.,. Verizon is currently serving FTTP FiOS customer communities with OC12 & OC3 facilities however, Verizon is also developing new packages. 100MB/s(ETH) will be offered soon as will video(IPTV) services - some areas have this service now, all on the single optical strand., not to mention the 4 voice(VoIP) ckts. OC12 muxes become OC48's and 3's become 12's, hash Juniper.cfg and., voila! The point is, the ultimate network connection., I'm w/glass.

FTTP is a new "lighted" network, a totally glass passive optical network(PON), with backbones and hubs and splitters and terminals and drops and, of course, ONT's. This is new technology, plant and hardware are changing hourly. What your neighbor has today may not be what is installed at your house tomorrow. So, services are going to evolve.

Re:Looks good

It's awesome. They block common ports (80, 25, others?) for serving to force you to upgrade to their static IP business class service at $99. Even at $99 these speeds would be sweet with a static IP. The service is absolutely never down, never hiccups, never troubled. With Comcast I used to recycle my cable modem once a week. With Qwest I rebooted my dsl adapter nearly every other day. I haven't even power cycled my ClarkConnect linux firewall in the several months I've had FIOS. It's a great service and well worth the price. I have 15/2 service and pay 45/mo I think. And I hear they're upgrading it to 20/2 for the same fee shortly. At these speeds I start to wonder if my highly traffic'd wireless-g network isn't becoming my bottleneck even before the router.

BTW I tossed the DLINK router they sent and use the ClarkConnect box with an Apple Airport Extreme hanging off of it. The dlink isn't special at all and not required for the service.

As a bonus, over the same fiber they can delvier IPTV and telephone service -- neither of which I use. People with nice structured wiring in their home will love this service.

YMMV