Verizon FiOS

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FiOS ONT installed in Massapequa, New York
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FiOS ONT installed in Massapequa, New York

FiOS is a fiber to the premises (FTTP) telecommunications service offered in the United States by Verizon. According to Verizon's Trademark (No. 3001081), "Fios" is an Irish word for "knowledge". FiOS is an abbreviation of 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, and is expected to become a competitor to local cable television companies over the next 10 years. It will compete with current Triple Play offers, where the local cable company offers broadband Internet access, digital cable, and VoIP telephone service. FiOS started as a pilot program in Keller, Texas, but availability of the Internet service has expanded to Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Washington D.C., Virginia, Florida, California, Oregon, and Washington. The FiOS TV service has launched in some of these states and is expected to continue expanding.

Contents

[edit] Service offering

[edit] 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.

[edit] Speeds

Available speed tiers, in megabits per second (Mbps):

  • 5 Downstream / 2 Upstream
  • 5 Downstream / 5 Upstream
  • 10 Downstream / 2 Upstream
  • 15 Downstream / 2 Upstream
  • 15 Downstream / 5 Upstream
  • 20 Downstream / 5 Upstream
  • 30 Downstream / 5 Upstream
  • 50 Downstream / 5 Upstream

Details of the FiOS residential service plans can be found on Verizon's website. [1] Higher speeds tend to be available only in the highly-competitive areas, such as the Tri-State Region.[1]

In addition to residential offerings, FiOS business service is available in some areas, with static IP addresses and no blocked ports.

[edit] Television (FiOS TV)

See List of FiOS channels for channel lineup

Verizon is currently building a fiber-optic television service, and plans to make it available to several suburban areas in the near future. However, they first must receive legal permission (in the form of a franchise agreement). This puts them at opposition to local cable companies. On September 22, 2005, Verizon began taking orders for FiOS TV in Keller, Texas and in Herndon, Virginia on November 21, 2005 [2].

Service Tiers Include:

  • Basic — includes 15 to 25 channels
  • Expanded Basic — includes 175 to 195 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 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 optical network terminal(ONT) to provide TV to a location that already has business FiOS.

[edit] Telephone

Verizon also offers analog plain old telephone service, or POTS, over FiOS. The common model optical network terminal has 4 analog phone jacks. For residential installations, Verizon generally requires any existing analog phone lines to be "cut over" to FiOS. Note that this is a permanent modification: once converted to fiber, one can never again go back to DSL service as the copper line is made inactive (and in some cases removed). Verizon's justification for this is that installations cost them over $500 per home, and they do not want to make that investment twice. The pricing of POTS over FiOS is identical to POTS over traditional copper. No differences exist billing-wise as only the delivery system changes. The same packages, rates, deals and telephone taxes exist on FiOS POTS and copper wire POTS. The phone pricing on traditional copper will migrate to FiOS phone when FiOS is installed.

While FiOS phone service offers excellent audio quality compared to standard copper phone lines, customers should be aware that power outages may affect service availability. Unlike standard phone lines, the FiOS service depends on power at the customer premises. The FiOS backup battery will power the phone lines for 4 to 8 hours of call time (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. Verizon claims that the video and Internet streams are disabled during outages to conserve power for emergency dial tone use, but many FiOS users have observed that the Internet stream is still operational when power is removed.

[edit] Technology

Verizon is constructing a passive optical network. Optical fiber extends from central offices to unpowered hubs, in which the fiber is optically split up to 32-ways.

The active components adhere to the ITU-T G.983 standard, also known as APON or BPON, which provides:

  • 622 Mbit/s (77.75 MByte/s) downstream @ 1490 nm
  • 155 Mbit/s (19.375 MByte/s) upstream @ 1310 nm
  • RF video overlay @ 1550 nm

One model optical network terminal (ONT) being deployed by Verizon is the Tellabs 1600 series ONT [3]. This terminal provides up to 4 provisionable voice telephone ports, a 10/100 Ethernet interface for data traffic, and 1 coaxial connector for CATV services. This terminal is manufactured by Tellabs, Inc. [4] The Motorola ONT1000V is also being used in some locations [5].

Verizon includes the Actiontec MI424-WR Coax-enabled broadband home wireless-G router now for free with installs. This one device is used for FiOS TV and FiOS internet. Verizon initially used the D-Link DI-524 router but has since switched to the Actiontec for the added CATV capabilties.

[edit] Availability

It has been suggested that this section be split into a new article. (Discuss)

[edit] California

Statewide franchise set for 2007.

Currently available citywide

Available in some parts of these cities

[edit] Connecticut

[edit] Delaware

  • Suburban areas of New Castle County, Delaware, deployment is under-way. It is already active in much of the county and many consumers have already switched from Verizon DSL due to the similarity in price for previous customers.
  • Angola area in Sussex County, Delaware. FiOS Internet is available in many communities, and FiOS TV will be rolled out by the end of 2006.

Only Southern parts of New Casle County will have FiOS TV by December 18th,2006. Other parts of the state, including Newark, Northern Wilmington, and Hockessin will have TV service by early 2007.

[edit] Florida

  • Suburban areas of Tampa. FiOS Video franchise rights approved by Temple Terrace. FIOS TV service became available in Florida on December 6, 2005, and the city of Tampa approved FIOS video as of May 12, 2006

Odessa, FL added -- April 2006

November 2005. Television expected June 2006.

  • Areas of Sarasota, and Sarasota County are currently under development. And Manatee County has been fully deployed with FiOS and FiOS TV. [April 2006]
  • Areas of Pasco County......Trinty

The FIOS area map for Florida is available at http://www.cellularaddict.com/fios/FloridaTampaBay2.jpg

[edit] Indiana

Both markets currently offer FiOS Internet and telephone service only; however, FiOS TV will be available in early 2007. [6]

[edit] Maine

[edit] Maryland

Here is construction information (Verizon External Link) for the current month.

[edit] Massachusetts

FiOS is also currently being deployed in:

[edit] New Hampshire

[edit] New Jersey

New Jersey governor Jon Corzine signed legislation on Friday August 4, 2006 creating a statewide franchise for Verizon to provide its IPTV services. Previously any cable television franchisee was required to negotiate with each municipality for access. [7]

There has been continual opposition for Verizon Television service in NJ. Verizon's entrance into the cable television market sparked a 2 percent tax hike for the service. Verizon called tax necessary to help "Fair Play", while local cable providers urged subscribers to write their congressmen to oppose the tax.[8]

  • Bergen County - Allendale, Alpine, Bergenfield, Closter, Demarest, Dumont, Emerson, Franklin Lakes, Garfield, Glen Rock, Hackensack, Harrington Park, Haworth, Hillsdale, Ho-Ho-Kus, Lodi, Mahwah, Midland Park, Montvale, New Milford, Northvale, Norwood, Oakland, Old Tappan, Oradell, Paramus, Park Ridge, Ramsey, Ridgewood, River Edge, River Vale, Rockleigh, Saddle River, South Hackensack, Teaneck, Tenafly, Upper Saddle River, Waldwick, Wallington, Washington Township, Westwood, Woodcliff Lake and Wyckoff
  • Burlington County - Evesham, Medford and Medford Lakes
  • Camden County - Audubon, Audubon Park, Barrington, Cherry Hill, Chesilhurst, Haddon, Haddon Heights, Haddonfield, Lawnside, Tavistock, Voorhees, Waterford and Winslow
  • Essex County - Livingston, Maplewood, Montclair, South Orange and West Orange
  • Mercer County - East Windsor, Ewing, Hamilton, Hightstown, Hopewell Township, Lawrence, Pennington, City of Trenton, Washington Township and West Windsor
  • Middlesex County - Middlesex, Monroe Township, Piscataway, Plainsboro
  • Monmouth County - Asbury Park, Colts Neck, Eatontown, Englishtown, Fair Haven, Farmingdale, Freehold, Little Silver, Manalapan, Middletown, Millstone, Red Bank, Roosevelt, Rumson, Sea Bright, Shrewsbury Borough, and Tinton Falls
  • Morris County - Denville, Dover, Hanover, Harding, Long Hill, Mendham Borough, Mendham Township, Mine Hill, Montville, Morristown, Morris Plains, Morris Township, Parsippany-Troy Hills, Randolph, Rockaway Borough, Rockaway Township, Victory Gardens and Wharton
  • Somerset County- Basking Ridge, Bernards, Bernardsville, Bound Brook, Franklin, Manville, Somerville, South Bound Brook and Warren
  • Passaic County - Clifton and the City of Passaic
  • Union County - Clark, Cranford, Garwood, Mountainside, Westfield

[edit] New York

Verizon has sued cable company Cablevision, for refusing to negotiate to add their sports networks MSG Network and Fox Sports Net New York to their FiOS systems. Verizon has signed up competing regional sports networks SportsNet New York and YES Network to their systems.

[edit] Oregon

[edit] Pennsylvania

[edit] Rhode Island

In February 2006, Verizon applied for a cable television franchise to serve one of nine service areas in Rhode Island. The regulatory process is expected to take several months. Source: http://www.backchannelmedia.com/newsletter/story/8933093064/Verizon_Seeks_Cable_License.html

[edit] Texas

[edit] Dallas/Ft. Worth Metroplex

[edit] West Texas

  • Lubbock, Texas, Installation available in select areas. FiOS TV available.

[edit] Virginia

[edit] Northern Virginia

  • Falls Church, Virginia – Installation is (mostly) complete in the city of Falls Church, with deployment in the Falls Church mailing address partially completed and moving rapidly.

[edit] Central Virginia

  • Richmond, Virginia – Several neighborhoods have been upgraded to fiber and Verizon is taking orders for FiOS. FiOS TV is now available in Richmond, Virginia.

[edit] Hampton Roads

  • Newport News, Virginia – preparations are now being made to deploy in the Jefferson area.
  • Norfolk, Virginia – Prominent areas by the water have been deemed as fiber capable at this time. Installations have begun.
  • Virginia Beach, Virginia - FTTP is being installed in widespread areas around the city. Implementation began in the Great Neck area and has fanned out from there. FiOS internet is now available in most areas of the city, while the TV service is not yet available.

[edit] Washington

[edit] Western Washington

  • Snohomish County, Washington – Verizon FiOS service is available in select Bothell and Mill Creek neighborhoods. Television service is not offered at this time.
  • King County, Washington- Installation is underway in some Kirkland and Redmond neighborhoods.
  • Some Kirkland and Bothell neighborhoods are ready for ordering now. Only telephone and data are being readied.

[edit] Criticism

Availability of Verizon's fiber optic service has been very slow to deploy in many areas, despite the success it has found in its limited range of service. This network is limited the states listed above.

[edit] See also

  • Fiber-optic communication - High-speed broadband used by Verizon's FiOS infrastructure.
  • Docsis 2.0 - High-speed broadband specifications for use over Cable lines.
  • ADSL2+ - High-speed broadband specifications for increased speeds over copper telephone lines.
  • Dynamic Spectrum Management - Attempt to achieve Fiber-Optic speeds over copper telephone lines.

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ BroadbandReports–Fios Speeds Increased. (URL accessed 1 May 2006).

[edit] External links

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