Fiber TV Install and Experience 225
SkinnyGuy writes "The same guy who brought you the Fiber to the Premises (FTTP), FiOS broadband installation process, now brings you a detailed look at the FiOS TV install. He's thrilled and apparently couldn't be happier to say goodbye forever to Cable TV. There's a lengthy story and interesting slideshow." From the article: "I chuckled a bit to myself. After all these years of the phone company having to lease out and let competitors use its phone lines and utility poles, Verizon was using a competitor's wiring (and the work they did to run it into my house). Sorry, Cablevision."
FIOS is GREAT!!! (Score:5, Interesting)
how is the compression? (Score:4, Interesting)
Am I the only one? (Score:5, Interesting)
I feel sorry for this guy moving everything to Verizon. My experience with them has been less than stellar.
Competition is GREAT!!! (Score:5, Interesting)
If too many people change to another provider as you have done then that provider might eventually take on the attitude that your old provider had. When that happens, assuming that there is another option then people will switch to that provider instead.
Re:Competition is GREAT!!! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:FIOS is GREAT!!! (Score:5, Interesting)
These companies are trying damned hard to be content providers because it changes alot of the rules, gives them ALOT more control, and basically lets them swing you around by your balls whenever they want and do it with the protection of the government. These companies are infrastructure, and need to be taught to stay the hell out of content. When they get in the business of content we get things like the Tiered internet, and commercials about how "Net Neutrality means the consumer pays more". I think them extending the fiber network to the home is definetly very cool, and definetly the way of the future, I just don't want them to be on either end of the fiber.
Re:Monopoly (Score:3, Interesting)
The fact that his cable provider now has competition in the TV area (and possibly phone, I don't recall from his previous article) automatically removes monopoly status from them. They now have incentive to improve service, rates, offer new technology, etc, where they had none of this incentive before. This can be very good for his town.
If CableVision doesn't improve, they will quickly see their customer base dwindle and it will be their own fault.
FiOS much better than normal Verizion service (Score:2, Interesting)
So far, it's been like dealing with a totally different company when dealing with anything related to FiOS. They show none of their old nickel-and-diming that they did on the normal phone service, and they have been very responsive.
Not only that, when they got to my house, we didn't have a fiber drop to the house (it was at the end of the block), so the tech called his boss, who sent a truck full of people to dig the trench and run the line the rest of the way to the house (across several neighbors' yards). When they were done they cleaned it all up so well you wouldn't even know they had been there.
The combined install time for Cable and Fiber was about 6 hours I think, but I wasn't there for the whole thing.
Can you switch phone company later? (Score:3, Interesting)
Cablevision is Scared (Score:4, Interesting)
But, they have throttled me 3 times and have told me next time they will either not release the throttle or terminate my account. They have told me the throttle is a function of the processor load on the managed switch over time (wtf?). So I have to be very careful now. I have been referred to a section in the contract I was forced to agree to that states something very vague along the lines of "Cablevision reserves the right to do anything we want".
Verizon save me!
Re:Competition is GREAT!!! (Score:4, Interesting)
So yes, the cable TV companies really are that sleazy.
Re:how is the compression? (Score:3, Interesting)
Unfortunately, despite the fact that digital should be wildly superior to analog, this drive to squeeze the life out of every channel means I am totally not looking forward to our all-digital future. I'd pretty much rather have sharp, full-bandwidth analog than digitally-washed-out HDTV.
(Early in the adoption curve you tend to see more bits thrown at HDTV. I'd bet HDTV looks a lot better right now. As more content goes to HDTV, expect to see the HDTV channels get degraded, too.)
Contrast this to DVDs and disc technology in general, where once you've committed to printing a disc of a certain kind (i.e., number of layers), you might as well fill the disc up completely. There is no incentive to skimp on the bits.
I've been working on this stuff for two years... (Score:2, Interesting)
So what's the IP bandwidth like? (Score:3, Interesting)
The article is all about receiving one-way broadcast video content. That's fine for the couch-potato crowd, but what do you get in Internet bandwidth?
Fiber or HDTV (Score:2, Interesting)
To me, this guy seems to be mis-attributing his excitement to Fiber, when he's ready just excited to be getting HDTV for the first time.
That said, getting an HD feed is always great (especially the first time you see your new HDTV the way it was meant to be displayed).
Re:It doesn't have to be that way. (Score:5, Interesting)
Reading the FiOS article on Wikipedia, it seems as though Verizon's system in addition to the upstream and downstream data channels, also has a separate and distinct channel (1550nm) for RF video overlaid on an optical carrier. So conceivably they could be using data circuits for switching, and then send the video down the RF channel. This seems somewhat unlikely, but who knows.
My understanding is that it's not switched per say. Each fiber coming out of the CO is passively split into X number of fibers (32?) in the neighborhood that then go to the individual houses. Downstream is sent to everybody (encrypted - your terminal ignores packets not addressed to it) and upstream is shared with a TDMA scheme. With that setup I would assume that all the channels are being pushed down that fiber all the time -- regardless of what the end users are watching.
MythTV? (Score:3, Interesting)
Verizon keeps calling me... (Score:3, Interesting)
I'd like FIOS. A friend has it and loves it. But until they either open it up to other ISPs or provide a competitive price for static IPs, I'll have to stick to what I have. Too bad, as I'm also interested in FIOS TV as a replacement for our elderly DirecTV setup, but until they budge on the network issue, I won't be budging on the TV issue.
Ron
Re:Can you switch phone company later? (Score:3, Interesting)
Frankly this alone would be enough to keep me from switching. I would love fiber internet and maybe even fiber TV, but I want those copper wires still going into my house Just In Case.
I feel like their policy ought to be illegal in some way, but I haven't seen the lawyers bite on it yet, so maybe they can do it. I think they claim to own the wires right up until they enter your house, so they can take them down if they want.
Re:FIOS is GREAT!!! (Score:3, Interesting)
The problem is that the US is a Coporatocracy(the people may elect the politicians, but the corps own them) and companies can get away with shit like this. Corporate propaganda should not be given freedom of speech protection, yes there are some corps who pay some taxes, but only the richest citizens have the resources to match a corporate advertising campaign which makes their speech inherently unequal and makes any public debate biased in their favor.
Using coax is a BRILLIANT move! Seriously! (Score:3, Interesting)
The reason why they're using coax, even for FiOS Internet, is because just about every house has coax in it because of their cable company! I was fortunate in that my house is a ranch-style with a four-inch gap in the walls, so one of the first things I did was wire my house up. It now has 21 network jacks installed throughout. I'm in the minority of people who can even do that -- but almost everyone has coax throughout their house. By going "back" to coax, Verizon is completely eliminating the need to lay out new cable or to use a comparatively slow wireless connection. They're using existing resources. Each TV will get a box that connects to the coax, just like a standard cable box. When FiOS TV becomes available, they run a coax cable from my FiOS box on the outside of my house to the cable box a few feet away and each TV gets a FiOS converter box.
As soon as he explained that, the coax connection on my FiOS router made total sense.