VERIZON FIOS

'FiOS' is a fiber to the premises (FTTP) telecommunications service offered in some areas of the United States by Verizon. According to Verizon, "Fios" is an Irish (Gaelic) word for "knowledge". In mailings to New Jersey customers, however, Verizon states that it stands for "fiber-optic service." Verizon has attracted consumer and media attention in the area of broadband Internet access as the first major U.S. carrier to offer such a service. Verizon has also launched a television service with its fiber optic lines. FiOS started as a pilot program in Keller, Texas, but availability of the Triple Play service has expanded to many states.

Contents

Service offering

Internet access

Speeds

Common Speeds

Speeds Available in Certain Markets

Television (FiOS TV)

Telephone

Technology

See also

Notes

External links

Official

Unofficial

Service offering

Internet access

There are several tiers of residential Internet service. Availability depends upon the location of the customer; in areas of intense competition, speeds are higher. Service not available in Canada.

Speeds

Available speed tiers, in megabits per second (Mbit/s)

Common Speeds

★ 5 Downstream / 2 Upstream

★ 15 Downstream / 2 Upstream

★ 20 Downstream / 5 Upstream

★ 30 Downstream / 5 Upstream

Speeds Available in Certain Markets

★ 10 Downstream / 2 Upstream

★ 20 Downstream / 5 Upstream

★ 30 Downstream / 5 Upstream

★ 50 Downstream / 10 Upstream

★ Higher speeds tend to be available only in the highly-competitive areas, such as the Tri-State Region, Greater Boston, and Northern Virginia.^[1]

★ In addition to residential offerings, FiOS business service is available in some areas, with higher upload speeds, static IP addresses and no blocked ports (for the static IP option).

Television (FiOS TV)

Service tiers include:

★ Basic — includes 15 to 46 channels

★ Expanded Basic — includes 175 to 270 channels

★ La Conexión — Spanish-language package, includes 130 to 150 channels

★ Movie Package — 44 movie channels (Starz!, Showtime, Encore, TMC, Flix and Sundance)

★ Sports Package — More than a dozen sports channels including Fox College Sports, Outdoor Channel, Gol TV, and the Golf Channel

★ Movie & Sports Package — All the channels from both the Sports and Movie Packages

★ Premium Channels — HBO and/or Cinemax

★ International Channels — Individually priced international channels including ART, TV Japan, RAI, and TV5

★ Spanish Language Package — More than 20 channels of news, sports, and movie telenovelas in Spanish

★ On Demand library (with over 1000 Free programs) (not including movie channel subscriptions)
All service tiers beyond basic require a digital set-top box or CableCard to receive the television signal and decode for display on the television set.
TV is not available on FiOS business installations, though in some circumstances Verizon will install a second ONT to provide TV to a location that already has business FiOS.

Telephone

Verizon also offers analog service, or POTS, over FiOS. The common model optical network terminals have 2 or 4 analog phone jacks. Verizon does not do anything that would affect or disable the pre-existing copper lines that carried phone service or DSL, though the official company policy is that customers cannot retreat back to copper service without higher level management approval . However, there have in fact been reports in various markets that Verizon has physically deinstalled the copper lines at the time that FiOS was installed, effectively removing any "path of retreat" to copper based services.^[2] Verizon is required by law to share copper media with competing service providers, but no such requirement exists for fiber media.
Power outages may affect service availability. Unlike standard phone lines, the FiOS service depends on power at the customer premises. The replaceable FiOS backup battery will power the phone lines for 4 to 8 hours of call time per battery (reports vary). This may be an issue for sites that experience extended power outages that depend on analog phone lines for remote monitoring, alarm systems, and/or emergency calls.

Technology

Verizon FIOS is a passive optical network. Voice, video, and data travel over three wavelengths in the infrared spectrum. To serve a home, a single-mode optical fiber extends from an optical line terminal (OLT) at a FIOS central office or head end out to the neighborhoods where an optical splitter fans out the same signal on up to 32 fibers- thus serving up to 32 subscribers. At the subscriber's home, an optical network terminal (ONT) transfers data onto the corresponding copper wiring for phone, video and internet access^[3]. .
One of the three wavelength bands is devoted to carrying television channels that are compatible with Cable television products. The other two wavelengths are devoted to all other data, one for outbound and the other for inbound data. This includes IPTV video, telephone and internet data.
This allocation of wavelengths adhere to the ITU-T G.983 standard, also known as APON or BPON. Verizon initially installed slower BPONs but now only installs gigabit PONs [GPON] specified in the ITU-T G.984 standard. These bands and speeds are:

★ 1310nm for upstream data at 155 Mbit/s (1.2 Gbit/s with GPON)

★ 1490nm for downstream data at 622 Mbit/s (2.4 Gbit/s with GPON)

★ 1550nm for RF (non IPTV) video with 870 MHz of bandwidth
One misconception about FIOS's support for IPTV video support is that it is assumed to be the same as support for internet video. Another common misconception about FIOS television is that it is all IPTV, when in fact only pay per view, video on demand, and guide data services are delivered via IP. All other video originates from a traditional cable head end that combines analog channels with digital QAM channels. The RF signal occupies 870 MHz and is modulated onto the 1550 nm wavelength. This optical signal is then coupled with the two other wavelengths passing data between the OLT and ONT. At the ONT located at the subscriber's home, the RF video is sent over a coax connection most typically to a FIOS hybrid set-top box that handles both RF and IPTV video. The ONT provides internet connectivity via an RJ45 connector, but also transfers IPTV video and internet IP packets onto coax using a 1.1 GHz channel to provide 100 Mbit/s of bandwidth as specified by the MoCA standard. Alternately, analog video may be played by any cable ready device, and traditional digital video may be accessed by any Cablecard certified television or digital video recorder such as a Tivo Series 3. However, services such as VOD and PPV are delivered by IPTV and are only accessible through use of one of FIOS's hybrid set top boxes manufactured by Motorola to support RF as well as the IPTV video. The FIOS STBs play IPTV only from FIOS delivered via MoCA and not from video sources on the internet. FIOS's IPTV implementation does not follow cable television formats and conventions for two way television and instead follows the DVB standard^[4].
MoCA is also used by FiOS for streaming video from the FIOS's "media hub" for the home, whose role is currently filled by Motorola's QIP6416 hybrid QAM/IPTV digital video recorder (DVR). There are several limitations to video connectivity in the home via FIOS. Only streaming of standard definition (SD) resolution video to STBs is allowed. Shows recorded in High Definition (HDTV) may be accessed, but only after first being converted to lower resolution SD video. Transfers of shows between DVRs or is also not allowed. Transfers to DTCP compliant devices via firewire is possible, but nearly all digital content except ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC and locals are flagged via CGMS-D as "copy once" and so may not be transferred.
Most of the optical network terminals (ONT) being deployed by Verizon are Tellabs 1600 series ONT. This ONT provides up to four provisionable voice telephone ports, a 10/100 Mbit/s Ethernet interface for data traffic, and one coaxial connector for CATV services. The Motorola ONT1000V is rarely used.
Verizon includes the Actiontec MI424-WR coax-enabled broadband home wireless-G router with installation of the service. This device is used for both FiOS TV and FiOS internet. Verizon initially used the D-Link DI-624 router but has since switched to the Actiontec for the added MoCA capabilities.

See also

★ Fiber-optic communication - High-speed broadband used by Verizon's FiOS infrastructure.

★ DOCSIS 3.0 - High-speed broadband specifications for use over Cable lines.

★ VDSL2 - High-speed broadband specifications for increased speeds over copper telephone lines.

★ Dynamic Spectrum Management - Attempt to achieve Fiber-Optic speeds over copper telephone lines.

Notes

1. BroadbandReports–Fios Speeds Increased. (URL accessed 1 May 2006).
2. Yao, Deborah: "Verizon's Copper Cutoff Traps Customers," Associated Press, July 2007. (URL accessed 14 July 2007).
3. Article: "Verizon's last mile" appearing in Test & Measurement World 30 April 2007 . (URL accessed 6 July 2007).
4. Verizon Ex Parte Filing with the FCC, 20 October 2005. (URL accessed 6 July 2007).

External links

Official

★ Verizon FiOS

Unofficial

★ FiosFAQ.com Continually updated Massive FAQs on Fios internet, TV and everything FiOS

★ Verizon FIOS availability/tracking using google maps

★ Broadband Reports FiOS FAQ

★ Installing Verizon FIOS fiber-optic Internet service to my house, by Dan Bricklin — many photos of the process

★ Verizon FiOS TV - an in-depth user review

★ Long Live Fiber article in PC Magazine

★ FiOS installation

★ Verizon to sell assets in NH, ME and VT

★ Verizon vs. Fairpoint Info

★ Verizon FiOS Video Verizon FiOS Signs 1 Millionth Customer watch video

★ Verizon FiOS Install Dealing with Verizon FiOS dispatch.