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==Criticism==
==Criticism==
Availability of Verizon's fiber optic service has been very slow to deploy in many areas, despite the success it has found in it's limited range of service. Most of the areas enjoying the fiber optic service are affluent, high-income towns and cities with equally lofty property values. Major cities have been largely overlooked, and Verizon has shown no indication of developing this cutting edge technology for the general public for the forseeable future. Current prices for Fios are very close to what Verizon's city customers pay for their much slower DSL service, essentially punishing those who can not afford to live in affluent communities by withholding the deployment of the latest available technology.
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. Most of the areas enjoying the fiber optic service are affluent, high-income towns and cities with equally lofty property values. Major cities have been largely overlooked, and Verizon has shown no indication of developing this cutting edge technology for the general public in the forseeable future. Current prices for Fios are very close to what Verizon's city customers pay for their much slower DSL service, essentially punishing those who can not afford to live in affluent communities by withholding the deployment of the latest available technology.


==See also==
==See also==

Revision as of 02:58, 9 November 2006

File:IMG 0109 resize.JPG
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". Also, 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 major 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 will continue to expand its reach over the coming months.

Infrastructure Investment

History of Telephone Infrastructure

The current telephone infrastructure consists of copper wires, whose installation began in the 1800s. Through various innovations, such as DSL, the copper wires have been made to carry both voice and data information, but because of the age of the wires and the limits of current technology they are approaching their limits.

Investment is the Exception

Verizon has opted to invest heavily in a fiber infrastructure, betting that its competitors in the Cable and Telco industries will shy away from such expensive upgrades (a typical fiber installation costs Verizon over $1000 dollars per home). The strategy seems to aim for a higher quality, higher capability network, while most other industry players are aiming for more incremental improvements, or waiting for technology to boost speeds over existing copper infrastructure.

see Telephone for more information

Service offering

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.

Speeds

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

  • 5 Downstream / 2 Upstream
  • 10 Downstream / 2 Upstream
  • 15 Downstream / 2 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] In addition to residential offerings, FiOS business service is available in some areas, with static IP addresses and no blocked ports.

Higher speeds tend to be available only in the highly-competitive areas, such as the Tri-State Region.[1]

Television (FiOS TV)

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), and must fight the pressure that local cable companies place on state and local governments to block Verizon's television service. 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, Golf TV, and the NFL Network
  • 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

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. However, while running on the backup battery, the video stream and Internet stream are disabled to conserve power for emergency dial tone use.

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].

Service areas

California

Currently available citywide

Available in some parts of these cities

Connecticut

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.

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 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]

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

Indiana

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

Maine

Maryland

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

Massachusetts

FiOS is Also Currently Being Deployed in:

New Hampshire

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]

  • 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, Westfield

New York

Oregon

Pennsylvania

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

Texas

Dallas/Ft. Worth Metroplex

Virginia

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.

Central Virginia

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

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.

Washington

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 in the near future. Only telephone and data are being readied.

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. Most of the areas enjoying the fiber optic service are affluent, high-income towns and cities with equally lofty property values. Major cities have been largely overlooked, and Verizon has shown no indication of developing this cutting edge technology for the general public in the forseeable future. Current prices for Fios are very close to what Verizon's city customers pay for their much slower DSL service, essentially punishing those who can not afford to live in affluent communities by withholding the deployment of the latest available technology.

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.

Notes

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


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