Verizon Fios

Verizon FiOS, sometimes simply FiOS, is an Internet, telephone, and TV service that is presently offered in some areas of the United States by Verizon. Verizon has cited the fact that "fios" is an Irish word for "knowledge." 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. In their rapidly expanding coverage areas, FiOS provides telephone, Internet and digital video services to the subscriber's premises. Some areas do not have service due to franchise agreements, and some can only receive the internet access, also due to franchising.

As of April 2008, FIOS now has 1.2 million television subscribers (ranked 11th nationally) and 1.8 million broadband internet subscribers.

Features

Internet access

Internet throughput speeds are highly variable depending upon service territory and are affected by such factors as customer location, cost, and the offerings of the competing broadband providers. Offered speeds in various areas have been changed with little notice, generally to raise throughput (but also prices in some cases). End customers usually have three or more choices for Internet bandwidth. The lowest bandwidth tier is typically 5 Mbit/s/2 Mbit/s in most territories, considerably faster than Verizon's fastest DSL plans. Most customers may double or triple their download speed for a small additional fee (in most East coast territories, ten dollars is typical as of late 2007). For example, customers in the new Baltimore service area may upgrade to 15Mbit/s/2 Mbit/s for $10 per month. A third (or higher) service tier, when available for residential service, tends to provide very considerable—nearly commercial—bandwidth, including substantial upload speed, in some territories reaching 30/15 or 50/20 Mbit/s upload and download. Again, depending on market conditions, the third and higher tiers may be offered for either modest per month price increases over the second tier, or for substantially more.

Common bandwidth tiers

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

Other bandwidth tiers

• 10 Mbit/s Downstream / 2 Mbit/s Upstream
• 50 Mbit/s Downstream / 10 Mbit/s Upstream
• 30 Mbit/s Downstream / 15 Mbit/s Upstream
• 20 Mbit/s Downstream / 20 Mbit/s Upstream (Limited availability)
• 50 Mbit/s Downstream / 20 Mbit/s Upstream (Limited availability)
• 50 Mbit/s Downstream / 50 Mbit/s Upstream (Limited availability)

• Higher speeds tend to be available only in the highly-competitive areas, such as the Tri-State Region, Greater Boston, Northern Virginia, and Greater Portland, Oregon (not Portland Metro, not covered by Verizon).

Port blocking

• Although the official Terms of Service (TOS) does not specify any exact blocked ports, the language does suggest that at a minimum incoming port 80 and outgoing port 25 may in fact be blocked. At one time, section 3.7.5 stated that "you may not use the Broadband Service to host any type of server whether personal or commercial in nature"; however, later updates to the AUP removed that language and currently (as of 20080514) merely prohibit resale, abuse or use of the service for "high volume purposes." (What constitutes "high volume" is not defined.) Section 11.2 states that Verizon reserves the right to block "selected ports" to provide for email security.
• Business FiOS service is available in some areas, with higher upload speeds, static IP addresses and no blocked ports (for the static IP option).[1]

Television (FiOS TV)

Service tiers include:

• Basic — includes 15 to 49 channels
• Premier — includes 175 to 270 channels
• La Conexión — Spanish-language package, includes 130 to 150 channels
• Movie Package — 45 movie channels (8 Starz!, 16 Showtime, 13 Encore, 4 TMCs, 2 Flix and Sundance)
• Sports Package — More than a dozen sports channels including Fox College Sports (atlantic, central, and pacific), Outdoor Channel, GOLTV, mavTV, 2 horse racing channels 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)

Only basic tier channels are available in Clear QAM. All other service tiers are DRM encrypted and require renting a digital set-top box or CableCARD, which tune the QAM television signal and decrypt for display on the television set. In some markets, such as Pittsburgh, there is no Clear QAM service offering; all channels require a digital set-top box.

Television is not available on FiOS business installations, though in some circumstances Verizon will install a second optical network terminal to provide television to a location that already has business FiOS.

As of June 2008 FiOS will cease carrying analog television signals in parallel with digital channels. However, since the inception of its television service FiOS has carried analog conversion as standard definition digital (2.0 Mbit/s) on the 451 MHz frequency QAM of all analog cable channels. Reception of these channels after June 2008 will require a QAM tuner.

Telephone

Verizon also offers analog service, or POTS, over FiOS. The common model optical network terminals have 2 or 4 analog phone jacks. Verizon claims to 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 (or the Network interface device, necessary for copper-line phone service) at the time that FiOS was installed, effectively removing any "path of retreat" to copper based services. 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. Standard copper phone lines carry a low-voltage electrical charge that sustains telephone service in the event of a power outage. Due to the nature of fiber-optic technology, any voltage available on the phoneline would have to be sourced onsite at the customer's premises. This means that if there is no electricity at the premises, telephone service will be interrupted. 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 provides a rechargeable battery backup unit free with installation of the service. Older units allow for 4 hours of power to the optical network terminal during a power outage, while newer units installed as of 2008 allow for 8 hours. This is an improvement over competing technologies such as VOIP in that service does not include any sort of battery solution for continued communications during a power outage.

Availability

While Verizon says it is expanding its coverage, there is speculation that FIOS may never materialize in some markets. For example, according to a May 10 Wall St. Journal article by Dionne Searcey and Dennis Berman :

Verizon Communications Inc. is fielding offers for [sale of] ... of traditional telephone lines ... part of the New York-based phone giant's strategy to delve deeper into the wireless and broadband arenas, while getting out of the traditional phone business in U.S. areas that aren't slated for fiber upgrades ... Verizon also has been shopping a package dubbed "GTE North" that comprises about 3.4 million access lines in former GTE Corp. territories in Indiana, Illinois, Ohio and Michigan.

Technology

Verizon FiOS products are delivered over the FTTP network using passive optical network (PON) technology. 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.

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 adheres 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

Unlike AT&T's U-verse product, Verizon's video service is not Video over IP (IPTV). Video On Demand (VOD) content and interactive features, such as Widgets and Programing Guide data, are delivered over IP. However, the vast majority of content, including Pay Per View (PPV), is provided over a standard broadcast video signal which carries both analog and digital content up to 870 MHz. This broadcast content originates from a traditional cable head end that combines analog channels with digital QAM channels and travels over a various SONET networks and eventually arrives at a local serving office. The RF signal occupies 870 MHz and is modulated onto the 1550 nm wavelength. The optical Video signal at 1550 nm is then coupled with the IP Data signal at 1490 nm via the use of a Wave Division Multiplexer (WDM) and is sent out to the PON. The WDM also directs the incoming 1310 nm return from the ONT back to the OLT. At the ONT located at the subscriber's home, the RF video is sent over a coax connection most typically to an 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, interactive services such as VOD and Widgets are delivered by IP 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. Verizon utilizes an IP return path from the Set Top Box (STB) so that subscribers may order PPV events, however users may call and order over the phone, then tune to a specified channel (starting at 701) to watch this content. 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.

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. Transfers of shows between DVRs is also not allowed. Transfers to DTCP ("5C") 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 10/100/1000 Mbit/s Ethernet interface for data traffic, and one coaxial connector for CATV services. The Motorola ONT1000V is rarely used. Motorola ONT1000M ONT's, which are MoCA capable, have replaced the Motorola ONT1000V and are used in some areas.

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-604 and DI-624 routers but has since switched to the Actiontec for the added MoCA capabilities. Before the introduction of the Actiontec MI424-WR, Verizon used the Motorola NIM100 for MoCA functionality.

• FiOS ONT installed in Montclair, New Jersey
  FiOS ONT installed in Montclair, New Jersey
• Close-up of FiOS ONT
  Close-up of FiOS ONT
• Underside of FiOS ONT
  Underside of FiOS ONT
• 
  Open Tellabs ONT611
• 
  Close-up of ONT611 panel
• 
  Inside the Tellabs ONT611
• 
  Front of Actiontec MI424WR
• 
  Rear of Actiontec MI424WR

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.
• List of Verizon FiOS channels

External links

Official

• Verizon FiOS Internet (Consumer)
• Verizon FiOS Internet for Business
• Verizon FiOS TV

Unofficial

• 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
• Verizon FiOS High Speed Internet - Guide and Resource to Verizon FiOS TV and High Speed Internet
• Long Live Fiber article in PC Magazine
• FiOS installation
• Verizon to sell assets in NH, ME and VT
• Verizon FiOS Video Verizon FiOS Signs 1 Millionth Customer watch video
• Verizon FiOS Install Dealing with Verizon FiOS dispatch.