also with FIOS, I heard Verizon tears out all your old copper lines. Some people that might not bother, but I have heard news reports that some people were furious about it because Verizon did not warn them adequately, and it prevents people from going back to a normal phone service if they are dissatisfied with FIOS
Sheesh.... they should at least ask you if you want the copper lines removed. Of course, the correct answer would be "NO".
true. once they install fios internet-you phone will work thru that ONT box. with small battery backup(which you have to change from time to time and it may cost you 100-150 bucks) so-if there is no electricity in neighborhood-within few hours you will be without a phone. i said-i don't want that, give me my old line, that i'm using for backup(phone and dial up internet)-no luck, cause by new âdesignâ they both operate thru same box. on top of that they put backup battery box behind huge drawer, that i can't move and i'm lucky enough last year, to have for first time, outage, that last for few days. on very first night that f**g battery start making beeping noise, just like a sputnik. low electricity level warning⦠and it's beep's for almost 20 hours before battery completely dies..man..there is no way to shut this thing down..only unplug the battery..brilliant design.. so.. there is some drawbacks with verizon. Internet quality and speed s great, but, yes, no more old copper line and if you plan to sign up for it-find good spot for backup battery and think about, what you going to use for backup.
Is the battery backup special - does it have connectors on it unique to FiOS - or is it just an ordinary UPS with standard power receptacles on it? If so, you can buy a replacement at Circuit City or Best Buy that has an on-off switch and a beeper that can be turned off.
I was talking to a Verizon tech recently. I'm an hour west of Boston, the Verizon swithing station has the hardware for fios installed, but running the cable is prob 2 yrs away, Apparently Verizon is concerned about the profit horizon.
don't know if it special or not. tech said-it should last at least 5 years and can be purchased from verizon. if you need all those details-dslreports.com probably would be a better choice than me
FYI: With Comcast "Blast" I've gotten Speakeasy speed test results of 21 mb's on the download within the local fiber optic network inside of California . . . ie. ) from LA to SF. However, as soon as you jump onto the internet "superhighway" you are at the leisure of other people's networks ( ATT&T, UUNET, Level-3, etc ). As a result, my speed tests back to NYC from the West Coast are around 5.8 mb's on the download; 7.5 mbs to Chicago.
DOCSIS 3.0 will come out at some point this year via Comcast, with "up to 160 megabytes per second" download speeds. This will help Comcast compete with FIOS/Verizon. http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/01/08/ces.comcast.ap/index.html
That's megabits, not megabytes (bits x 8), but DOCSIS and cable are still contention networks so you still share bandwidth with your neighbors. FIOS is not contention. Nobody's gonna see 160Mbits anytime soon. I have FIOS, near Boston, and 20Mbits/sec, it's impressive. Cable has a long way to go to catch up.
What is your download speed when you try using a "SpeakEasy" speed test server in LA of San Francisco?