Broadband Connections

I may be one of the few people that are still using Dial-Up modems but in a few weeks, I'm going to get Verizon's 14.99/month 768K DSL. I don't download too much and I'm used to slow connections but a faster connection would be helpful for Windows Update and it would help free up the phone line so I don't have to log off when ever a call has to be made. (That's the main reason I'm getting it)

My neighborhood is located in a rual part of my town so we haven't had dsl avaliable in the area until just recently. The other option is Adelphia Cable which some of my friends further up the street have where the DSL signal won't reach. Adelphia has been here for a long time although some have complaints about their service.

Chino Hills is also one of the few towns that are having Verizon's Fiber Optic Service installed. I don't have it where I live yet but it is already avaliable in the southeastern parts of the town. I've read about it on DSL/Broadband Reports.com and found out that it also replaces your copper phone line.

Anyone here have FiOS? I'd like to hear some experiences as wells as Pros and Cons

I've had Adelphia cable (in Fullerton) for some years now. Bandwidth varies but usually stays around 700 K (hit 10 Mbps one night when it was Comcast, rarely breaks 2 Mbps now, but that's enough). It's been pretty much trouble free, so I can't complain any.

you will like anything faster than dial up. i have roadrunner and it is great. if your operating system is win98 or win98se, it is configured for dialup. on broadreports.com, you can test your receive "window". if you need a "tweak", look under "tools" for drtcp. after download, this utility allows you to easily change your "window". follow up with a visit to pcpitstop.com and do a full test. this can be anonymous. very helpful.

Anyone here have FiOS? I'd like to hear some experiences as wells as Pros and Cons

Click to expand...

I have not experienced the Verizon version, but I read a lot about the Pac Bell fiber to the curb trials.

The biggest problem with Fiber is that it requires a large box of electrical equipment in your neghborhood. This box needs power and ventilation. Lots of power, lots of cooling. When there is a power outage the box runs on batteries as long as it can. When the batteries die, so does your phone service. This was a concern in the San jose trials.

My DSL provider (Pac Bell) had to put in remotes to extend the range to reach my neighborhood. Even though my equipment is on UPS, I lose the DSL every time there is a power outage, even a very short one. They did not provide battery backup for the DSL range extenders.

If you have cell phones, the loss of your regular phone in a power outage is not as big a deal. 30 years ago your phone used to be considered an emergency access device. Now it's just a phone.

If you have good phone service, I would not hesitate to go with the fiber. If they have a bad rep for reliability, I'd stay away from it.

Thanks. I've read a little more about Verizon's FiOS and found that the fiber optic lines actually extend into you home.

A few pictures show the equipment for Fiber Optic installed in someone's basement (or in my city; the garage) The regular phone line comming into you house is no longer used as well, all the phone jacks are connected to some peice of equipment that converts the signals to fiber optic. I also heard Verizon wants to send TV signals over FiOS as well so they can compete with the cable companies.

The main drawback I've been told; all that equipment needs electricity to run. If you have a power outtage, the phone service goes down. You can also loose your phone service if the fiber optic signal goes out as well

I believe the Verison FTTP project is a Passive Optical Network (PON). By that I mean that there isn't a lot of mux'ing out at the pole; your house-powered premise equipment shares fiber strands with others but only transmits during it's assigned timeslots.

Well, it took Verizon a little while but the install kit is comming in the next few weeks

It's a shame that our choices for internet access are the 2 companies well known to have the best customer service of any customer servicing company we have to choose between the phone company and the cable company! LOL

Both DSL and cable are very workable technologies. Which one you want depends more on how happy you are with your local cable company or phone company than any difference between the 2 technologies. Cable CAN have faster upstream speeds, but like DSL it depends on the quality of your cable plant and the connections between you and the box down the block. It's also pretty standard now that they cap your up and download speeds at something quite a bit less than the top speed that the device and the plant are capable of. DSL gets slower the further you are from the CO box. Again, cable can theoritically be faster, but the speed is less predictable due to the usage levels of your neighbors with whom you share a connection point. It's only your immediate neighbors that all share the same cable that you share bandwidth with. And it's capped for each of them so that no one person running a gnutella client can use up ALL the bandwidth. But there will still be times when it's really nice, or times when they are all running windows update at the same time and yours will go slow too

I'm very interested in the fiber stuff. I have no problem providing UPS backup for the boxes inside my house, but if they can't keep the boxes down the street up, then thats a problem... I know that the cable companies are spending mega bucks putting in UPS's and even gas powered generator backup for their boxes. It's still the law that if you provide phone service, your service has to stay up.

It's certainly interesting to see where all this is heading, but until then, any of it will work as well as any other once you subtract the incompetence of your local phone or cable company to get it working and keep it working

[EDIT]

Oh, and what Spock was talking about. The "window" that he's talking about I believe is normally called the MTU or Maximum Transfer Unit, or Max Packet Size or something like that.

There are many cable modems and DSL modems that for some reason wont route the standard sized packet which should be 1500 bytes. So if you have trouble with some dropped packets or connections that just time out you need to knock this down to 1490 or so. I've had to do that with my Macs here with this DSL modem. It works fine as long as I keep the MTU below the standard for every other ethernet connecting device in the world. But then, nobody asked me about the design of their crappy dsl modems! On the Mac you can find this setting in the network control panel under the "ethernet" tab. I can't remember now where it is under windows, but I'm sure there is tons written about it on the internet and how to change it.

Theoretically, it can make things slower to make this smaller. (and if you make it too small it really does) But I dont see any impact on just making it 10 bytes less, and indeed since it doesn't work at all with it any bigger it's actually a big improvement in performance

I have fiber optic into my office and cable at home.

In real use, I see minimal difference in use, though the fiber optic is perhaps a tiny bit faster.

Bill

I have DSL here at home, and we have cable at work. I barely EVER have time to get on the work 'puter, but the report is that the cable is pretty good.

My DSL has spurts of speed, and lots of slowness. Tonight so far cold molassis seems faster!

I support FiOS. If you have any specific questions you'd like answered, I can try to answer them.

My access to CPF is going to be sporadic the next few days. Feel free to email me.

Verizon's FiOS uses a PON (Passive Optical Network), as someone else mentioned. The only powered components in the system are at either end - the ONT (Optical Network Terminal) at your home and the OLT (Optical Line Terminal) at the CO (Central Office). All that the hubs contain are passive splitters.

Each ONT is equipped with a UPS that can operate it for approximately 8 hours in the event that AC power fails. The UPS is always located indoors, so concerns about temperatures effecting the battery & power supply is not an issue. The user can always power the ONT's UPS with their own UPS for additional power redundancy. The power draw is not very great - it peaks at less than 50W.

The ONTs themselves are typically installed outdoors and housed in rugged, weathertight housings. ONTs are not sensitive to temperature extremes.

The ONT is essentially a smart multiplexer - it handles the conversion of POTS, data, and video from their respective mediums of twisted pair, cat5/ethernet, and coax to/from fiber.

FiOS phone service is just like regular phone service, except about 99% of the copper in your loop has been cut out, eliminating most of the common noise issues on copper voice lines. Any calling feature that you can get on a regular copper line is avaialble on FiOS.

FiOS data service works kind of like DSL or cable - plug your PC or router into the ethernet jack and you're good to go after some minimal setup. There are 3 residential packages - (down megabits per second/up megabits per second) 5/2, 15/2, & 30/5. We also offer business packages - 15/2, 5/5, & 30/5. Pricing typically starts at $39.95 per month.

FiOS video (not available in all markets) is like what your local cable company would provide. It uses the same RG59/RG6/etc cabling in your house that the cable company would use. Verizon offers standard channels, premium movie channels, pay-per-view, and video on demand.

I'm not going to get into any in-depth technical details of how the network operates - you can google those on your own easily enough.

Funny... Tonight before about 9:34PM Local seemed to make last night seem fast!

Right now it's click and something happens NOW.

DSL ain't perfect but doesn't always hoover!

Someone here mentioned www.pcpitstop.com...

I just recently got Cablenet here at my new home, and so far I am unimpressed. I am paying for 3mbps download and 320 upload. If I test anywhere but pcpitstop.com, I am told I am getting around 1-1.5 Download and frequently less. BUT, if I go to pcpitstop.com and use their test, I get my full 3mbps. What makes we wonder, is that whenever I call or question my cablenet providor, they tell me that pcpitstop.com is where you should test...

Anyone know if their (pcpitstop.com) tests are very very inaccurate? I have my providor coming out Monday to fix that and give me a new modem as only the USB connection works, and I need the ethernet port to work. Each time I tell them to fix this, they say that everything is alright. If I do the same test at dslreports.com (which I find to be much more accurate as it does multiple download tests in a single test) at a neighbors house, who is on the same plot of land and on the same main cable line as me AND the same service, they do the 2.9-3mbps while I do 1-1.5mbps.

The first stretch of line coming into my section of the "yard" on our land is old line. I think its the thinner of the two cable lines thus I get crappy service. I tell them that and they dont respond. I cant imagine me having to use the USB connection causing this speed issue. Any help before they come next Monday that I can use against them to get them to fix this? Thanks,

Cameron

And I did not mean to hijack this thread. I felt it was useless to start another for such a identical idea....