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."

Oh gee, thanks Verizon

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

All What?

[Nom du Keyboard]

...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.

Cat 5e?

[whoever57]

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.

Total Download Limits?

[abscissa]

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

Re:And behind the scenes, the real dangers

[Wesley Felter]

Most of your complaints are irrelevant, because FIOS is a form of consumer broadband and whether we like it or not, consumer broadband is totally different from business-class dedicated Internet access.

they also have great difficulties with VLANs, and IPV6

DSL and cable ISPs don't support VLANs or IPv6 either.

can they update their hardware to accommodate multiple concurrent IPTV QoS-based streams at HD raster/frame/color levels?

A HD H.264 stream is only 10Mbps, so FIOS can fit roughly 62 streams per fiber, with a 32:1 split ratio that's about 2 streams per customer worst-case. In real-world situations it will be better.

Can you join an MPLS network

I've never heard of any consumer broadband ISPs that support MPLS, so FIOS is hardly special.

Can you get them to do an SLA?

Yet again, no consumer ISPs offer SLAs. If you want an SLA get a fractional T3 or dedicated Ethernet connection and be happy.