posted by Joe Polk at 11:23 PM /
Verizon announced today that it is close to reaching franchise agreements with more than 15 Western Pennsylvania municipalities -- a necessary step before Verizon's FiOS TV can enter the market to compete with cable giant Comcast. FiOS TV, which will deliver television programming over Verizon's fiber-optic network, is expected to be available in Pittsburgh before the end of the year.
The agreements cover Bethel Park, Mt. Lebanon, Peters and Upper St. Clair in the South Hills.....
Link: www.postgazette.com/pg/07199/802457-28.stm
The agreements cover Bethel Park, Mt. Lebanon, Peters and Upper St. Clair in the South Hills.....
Link: www.postgazette.com/pg/07199/802457-28.stm
Labels: municipality, television
28 Comments:
There is one 'gotcha' with this service. Since Verizon owns the copper that runs into your home and this service runs on fiber only, Verizon will REMOVE all copper going into your home from the telephone company. You need to demand that they NOT do this.
Sure, Verizon may be great to you, but what happens when you want to cancel and go back to a DSL connection or use a different phone company? Can't do it..Verizon removed the copper. Verizon has publicly said that if the customer insists on keeping the copper, they will instruct their technicians to leave it in place.
Verizon does not need to share this access medium with competitors like they did with the old copper lines. This fiber is theirs and theirs alone.
I'll be the first to sign up when this comes out- just leave me my copper.
*CitizenA*
Got FIOS!
At the time of the installation my technicians said they would only take the copper down if I insisted. Verizon had come under fire for taking down the copper and locking folks into fiber and one vendor. I thought about taking the copper down because it is just clutter, but left it in place. The one thing I did different was had the FIOS box installed in my garage, instead of the outside of the house. It means if it ever needs serviced I will have to be home - but no clutter on the front corner of the house was worth the trade off.
I have FiOS internet service, in Dormont, installed last August. The tech did not remove the copper going to my house. Even back then I had already heard about that practice, but when I asked about it, he had no clue what I was talking about.
They left the copper in, and when I later ordered a landline from Verizon, then installed it on the copper, not the FiOS. The CSRs handling the order had no clue that I even had FiOS service, and when I told them, they went ahead and gave me a copper landline anyway.
IMO, however, there's almost no reason to have a landline at all anymore if you own a cell phone, unless you really make a LOT of calls. We didn't have one in Austin, and used our cell phones for everything. Once you pay the overhead of owning a cell phone, the extra cost of actually using it for all your calls is about the same as the cost of a landline.
The only reason we got one here was that we kept our Austin cell numbers, but our pittsburgh friends and family were amazingly reluctant to call us on them, despite the fact that long distance costs practically nothing now.
We eventually switched our 412 number to Vonage. Eventually I'll dump my 512 cell number, and at that point we'll probably go back to cellphones for everything.
They removed mine (without me knowing, I'm sure it was in small print somewhere).
Anyways, couldn't Comcast put it back? I would bet that they come out stating they will install for free including brining back the copper wires with a ___ year contract.
I am really glad to hear that FIOS TV is going to be a reality in Mt. Lebanon. Not only is the quality of the signal far superior to the old cable lines, but the programming available for Mt. Lebo residents is much more diverse if you want it.
The idea of having direct competition between the vaious providers will ultimately benefit all residents.
Looking forward to FIOS TV in my household.
There is one significant problem with FIOS. It is very difficult to install in older homes (gee, do you think that might be a problem in Mt. Lebo?) The installer came out today, and because I don't have drop ceilings everywhere and my computer was on the opposite side of the house from the outside phone box, he couldn't install the cable for it. He said that I was the 4th of 7 customers this week he couldn't do. He suggested that I pay an electrician several hundred dollars to run CAT 5E cable through my walls and ceilings and then call Verizon back. The further you have to run the cable, the lower the signal. I'm bummed.
signed PTA Mom
I don't know why they're removing the copper drops. There is still copper on the street, and there's still copper in the walls.
It used to be if you wanted to get DSL from a non-Verizon provider, they still had to call Verizon to get them to run the loop, because they're still Verizon's copper POTS lines. I'm guessing that it's not going to be an issue if a FiOS customer were *gasp* unsatisfied (is that possible?) to have the copper drop re-added. After all, you're probably going to still keep your phone service and that's still going to need the ONT and the fiber line out, so the only thing you'd need the drop for is - DSL.
PTA Mom - didn't spring for the wireless router? That's hard to believe that they'd give up the install because they want to CAT 5 your pc. 802.11g routers are cheap, doesn't make sense to me. Just wall mount one next to the ONT and bob's your uncle.
As long as we're getting completely geeked out here:
Wireless routers are the way to go, but with these old houses and all (lots of walls), you may need to get longer antennae for them (mine stick up about 12 inches from the desk) and/or you might need a repeater somewhere else in the house.
Don't despair if it turns out that a wireless router won't do it. My son is a gamer, and the wireless speeds aren't fast enough for him, so we built 100 feet of CAT5 cable (not so hard to do, and not so expensive -- pick up supplies at Home Depost or Radio Shack), then ran it down into the basement and upstairs through the laundry chute.
My guess is that the Verizon FiOS installers are basically phone (copper POTS) guys who got re-trained to pull fiber. They're not necessarily network admins.
Have FIOS internet in our house in USC and in our shop on Washington Rd. Can't wait for the TV. Comcast can go scratch... came home tonight and they'd taken off another six or seven channels from my premium package without any hint of a refund.
Competition is good.
I have an older house. When they came to install FIOS last year they asked where we wanted it. We told them in our living room (which we knew would be tough to do).
The guy ended up working 11 hours to install it without 1 complaint. I guess they would rather pay the upfront costs now and then raise prices later.
One more concern about the FIOS. Typically they bundle the service. Good ol' POTS (plain old telephone service) has power running over the copper. Power goes out, dial line still works. With FIOS, as with any VOIP solution, power goes out, no dial.
Just be sure to have a cell phone handy in a storm.
*CitizenA*
Actually you are wrong about the power. I have Fios and no copper from the pole. The install includes a battery backup. If the power goes out...and you still have a direct conect telephone (not a cordless) it still works fine.
Citizen A and the respondanon: you're both right - the BBU gives you 4-8 hrs of power for the ONT. After that, no phone.
Mike - the wireless speeds weren't enough? Do you have steel walls? :) Granted, there's some reduction, but a decent 802.11g should cover most of a typical Lebo house ok. I get about 6-8 mbps external (of my rated 15) over the wireless everywhere in my house.
I like the laundry chute idea :) Having lived the days of 100 ft CAT 5 lengths strung hither and yon in my former townhouse, I salute your ingenuity.
Matt --
For me, wireless coverage everywhere is fine, including in our backyard. Mr. XBOX Live, however, has a higher mbps threshold. 15 just barely covers it Then again, he's bought and built his own gaming PC, which is sort of the Ferrari and Hummer of the computers in our household, all built into one.
Mike
Am I that old? I was about to spout something to the effect of "In MY day, we played our Doom 2 on 2400 baud modems with 12 fps refresh rates on a good day, and we liked it! You young whippersnappers couldn't frag a newb from a standstill in god mode!"
15 mbps isn't enough. Tsk tsk. Tell him to get a job and cover his share of OC3.
I'm so old ("How old are you?") . . . The first computer game that I played wasn't even a *video* game. We used a Teletype terminal.
I just use my neighbors FIOS. It is really powerful and I never have any issues using it from anywhere in my house.
Yeah...I'm amazed at the amount of unsecured wireless networks that I've seen in the various neighborhoods around this town. Every time that I go to a friend's house to help them set theirs up (securely by the way!), I must find at least 2-3 unsecured networks in proximity to their house.
I'm guessing a lot of people mooch their Internet off of a neighbor!
Just had FIOS installed 2 weeks ago for internet and also just switched from Comcast to Direct TV. Comcast lost my business as a result of the huge headache caused by my move. It took 3 scheduled appointments (2 of which they didn't show up for with blame laid on their contractors) to pick up my old City Comcast box which should have been taken when the install of my Mt.Lebanon box occurred. Understanding of course, that I screwed up according to Comcast because it was my job to tell the Comcast installer to take the old Comcast equipment in the first place. Channel selection here was terrible...no PBS Sprout in a town full of kids???
I say hooray for FIOS TV!! Verizon explained the copper wire situation when I ordered it.
Marjie -- I'm not trying to defend Comcast here, but they do have PBS Sprout in their OnDemand section. My kids love the shows on there.
Last year we made an appointment to have FIOS installed on a Monday. The Saturday before a Verizon technician called to see if he could come by to do some premiminary work. He showed up around 10am and left around 3pm, having done the entire installation that day. This included installing the wireless modem on the second floor - we had heard that the concrete floors caused problems. There was no discussion about the copper wire; it certainly was not taken out. Looking forward to getting rid of Comcast ASAP.
Good point Joe, we did quickly discover the Sprout offerings in On Demand. Problem was, the turn over rate of the On Demand selection was slow and selection small. For example, the City Comcast would have 5-6 Kippers to choose from while Mt. Leb Comcast had 1-2. Other parts of Sprout were not available like the Birthday Show and the Good Night Show (with Nina and Star). Ok real problem was/is my child is addicted to Kipper!
I could never figure out why even in On Demand Comcast Mt Lebo couldn't offer the same stuff as it did in the City. e.g., the non former Adelphia area Comcast is much different, easier to use and has a broader selection.
The other problem was having the box freeze up. In the city, the box automatically sent your tv back to cable at the end of On Demand watching. Here it froze up requiring numerous calls to have the box "rebooted".
Speaking of the wireless hackers...had to kick a kid off my sidewalk just last week. I have my wireless secured so I figured he was hacking on someone else's and he was. Before I went out, I turned mine off and when I went out there he still had a connection. He had plopped down right there and was instant messaging someone. That takes guts! He didnt live in the neighborhood and didnt speak english well. I mustered what spanish I could remember and told him if he continued that the police would come. I dont know if they actually would come, but I did remember how to say 'police' in spanish and I figured it would work. He left.
What is the ruling on this anyway? I know in some places that people can get arrested for it. I just dont know if it is here or not.
*CitizenA*
CitizenA --
In Pennsylvania, AFAIK, there is no law specifically banning "piggybacking" on an unsecured wireless signal. In other words, it's no more illegal to sit at the curb and surf an unsecured WiFi connection than it is to sit at the curb and read a book illuminated by a bright porchlight.
Of course, lots of people think that piggybacking is "stealing" (though that's pretty controversial) and still more are mighty uncomfortable with strangers sitting at the curb or on "their" sidewalk, day or night, no matter what they're doing. Personally, I suspect that the latter is the real problem in most cases, not the "disappearance" of bandwidth. It's rarely illegal for a stranger to park in front of your house in the evening and just sit there, but it's creepy, and I don't like it either.
If open WiFi is what's enticing the piggybackers to sit in front of your house, the real solution isn't to call the cops. Partly, it's to be bright enough to secure your router. (If your neighbors are unsecure, use a free app -- I use Network Stumbler -- to identify their neighbors, and politely offer to configure their network and teach them how to do it themselves.) Mostly, it's to get Cisco to ship routers that are secured by default.
Mike
After reading the blogs, I had Verizon send out a DIFFERENT installer and he was able to sucessfully install FIOS - apparently the other Verizon guy was an idiot who told me he couldn't wire my house! Love the consistent speed! Can't wait for FIOS TV. Now if anyone can recommend a good computer tech guy that comes to the house so he can clean up my computers and perhaps help me figure out how to strengthen my wireless network (there were mentions of boosters and such on this blog??) I'd be in good shape!
PTA Mom
PTA Mom, I have a 16-year-old uber-geek who would be happy to help, for a reasonable fee (!). Email me if you're interested. Mike
Looking forward to FIOS TV - I heard October - but I like FIOS internet so far.
Just moved here from San Francisco a couple weeks ago and love it. Got a range extender for my home office in a far corner of the house but it gives me some problems, so I may try out a directional antenna.
Next project, setting up dynamic DNS so I can run some local services.
Adelphia was none too interested in retaining my internet service when I told them FiOS was available, and unless they were willing to price competitively, I was switching.
I also mentioned that FIOS TV would be coming in the future and I'll be gladly switching my TV service to them when it does. They didn't even give me so much as a 'meh', but silence as I awaited confirmation of my cancellation. I told her they deserved to be going out of business.
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