FiOS: pros and cons?

[DREDIOCK]

Dont have Fios in my area..yet. but more and more areas near to me are getting it.
If I make the change it will be as much for economics as anything.
Currently paying over $110 per month for internet access and TV alone.
then there is the phone bills which between the cells and the land lines is over another 100.

Needless to say If I can whittle that down some. It would be nice LOL

[38ruk]

Originally posted by Roscoroo
heres what i got off that site Dred listed .

Comcast cable Wa.

Speed Test Results
Your Connection Loaded 322,649 bytes in 1.172 seconds.

Your throughput is 2202 Kbps.


just for your comparison /survey .

Heres what i get from this one ... I chose the farthest server from me for the test ...
Speakeasy speed test

Last Result:
Download Speed: 4836 kbps (604.5 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 360 kbps (45 KB/sec transfer rate)

Close ,NY , NY
Last Result:
Download Speed: 6991 kbps (873.9 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 889 kbps (111.1 KB/sec transfer rate
 
Far, Seattle WA
Last Result:
Download Speed: 5437 kbps (679.6 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 878 kbps (109.8 KB/sec transfer rate

Dallas TX
Last Result:
Download Speed: 6994 kbps (874.3 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 885 kbps (110.6 KB/sec transfer rate

[Roscoroo]

Not much diff in DL in 8 MB vs 4 MB connections
Rukie has Double the upload speed though  .

I had a faster up w'/ my dsl over the cable ... but cable is 2+ times faster down

[Eagler]

and we old cable dogs are very worried about Verizons very deep pockets and the technological edge fiber to the house gives them.

Right now the main difference between a top of the line cable system like ours and FIOS is that we run fiber optic to hubs which then convert the light to coaxial media qhich then goes to the house. We also run the first 80 channels as analog so that a "basic" cable sub can hook up cable directly to his cable ready tv and get cable tv without a box of any kind. Once the bugs are worked out of the FIOS system, it has endless possibilites due to its huge bandwidth advantage.

What some of you may not know is that the phone co's are in the process of getting statewide franchises for their systems. They do not want to have to deal with the local city/county governments as the cable cos have done historically. A state wide franchise will allow them to cherry pick the more affluent neighborhoods for their product whereas the cable cos have to build out any neighborhood who has the homes per mile ratio agreed to in the local franchise.

In the end, I hope FIOS is a better product as I feel they we devour the competion and their choice with 12 months and longer contracts will be the only game in town with no real recourse for poor service if there is any as control over its service at the local level will not be there.
Phone, data, video ... one ring to rule them all ...

speakeasy test:
Atlanta = down 6854 up 492
Seattle = down 65405 up 490

[Skuzzy]

Originally posted by 38ruk
HeHE skuzzy , my 8 mbit capped connection pulled in a blazing 27459kbps. This is at the bottom of the site

I was being facetious.  I klnow there is not a cable connection on the planet running at 1GHz.  Speed tests over the Internet have always been a bit of a joke.

Once processors get fast enough, Verizon will be able to offer raw HD feeds to thier customers.  That will never happen over a wired media.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

Originally posted by Skuzzy
Well, seems you already have a 1Gb/s connection, according to the speed test.  No need in wasting your time with FiOS as FiOS currently maxes out at about 3MB/sec.

I'll have to revise my numbers as I had no idea cable had gotten so fast.  I wonder how they did it and still provide any bandwidht for TV?

Verizon has a pretty comprehensive lineup of HD programming.

That or his connection is proxied and he saw the cache load time

Actually upon initial testing I got 655kb/s rating which matches my 8Mbit dsl. Second run opened the image from cache:

Speed Test Results
Your Connection Loaded 322,649 bytes in 0.281 seconds.

Your throughput is 9186 Kbps.

[DREDIOCK]

Originally posted by Eagler
and we old cable dogs are very worried about Verizons very deep pockets and the technological edge fiber to the house gives them.

Right now the main difference between a top of the line cable system like ours and FIOS is that we run fiber optic to hubs which then convert the light to coaxial media qhich then goes to the house. We also run the first 80 channels as analog so that a "basic" cable sub can hook up cable directly to his cable ready tv and get cable tv without a box of any kind. Once the bugs are worked out of the FIOS system, it has endless possibilites due to its huge bandwidth advantage.

What some of you may not know is that the phone co's are in the process of getting statewide franchises for their systems. They do not want to have to deal with the local city/county governments as the cable cos have done historically. A state wide franchise will allow them to cherry pick the more affluent neighborhoods for their product whereas the cable cos have to build out any neighborhood who has the homes per mile ratio agreed to in the local franchise.

In the end, I hope FIOS is a better product as I feel they we devour the competion and their choice with 12 months and longer contracts will be the only game in town with no real recourse for poor service if there is any as control over its service at the local level will not be there.
Phone, data, video ... one ring to rule them all ...

speakeasy test:
Atlanta = down 6854 up 492
Seattle = down 65405 up 490

I'd be happy even if they were just an equal product. to provide competition. The cost is just getting to be rediculous and has at times been a serious source of contention in this house.
And its not so much the internet but the TV.
My net connection Im getting for something like $39 per month. which to me having 3+ computers & a game sytem hooked up to it is a bargan

The TV comes out to be another $70!
Thats $70 per month. just for TV!
 1 digital box and one premium channel (HBO)

Its rediculous already.

The only reason I have HBO is to watch ROME and as soon as this season is over Im dumping that.

Now you cant say they cant do it for less. Cause all you really have to do is threaton to cancel all service and they all of a sudden come up with a promotion to get you into that makes it ALOT cheaper.
Thing is I shouldnt have to threaton to dump them just to keep their service at a reasonable rate






Now add to that a lane line phone bill and a Cellular phone bill and it comes out to be quite a bit.

I'll never get rid of my land line because there are times when for whatever reason cells, mine or other peoples just dont always get a perfect connection no matter what the "Can you hear me now" man says LOL

[Eagler]

there will be competetion (better pricing) for a while, until they force the rest of us out of business .. then wait until the old MA bells are the only game in town for your phone, data and video services, you thought the cable cos were bad ..

[38ruk]

Originally posted by Skuzzy
I was being facetious.  I klnow there is not a cable connection on the planet running at 1GHz.  Speed tests over the Internet have always been a bit of a joke.

Once processors get fast enough, Verizon will be able to offer raw HD feeds to thier customers.  That will never happen over a wired media.

lol skuzzy i know , i remember when you were a service provider .  That stuff at the bottom of the site wasn't intended for you .  38

[airspro]

The TV comes out to be another $70!

I have Dish Network and it works pretty good IMO . They just installed the
"Dish 500" dish for free for me cause they uped the channel again and I couldn't get them on my old outside dish . They said I had had their service for 9 years , 3 months so far . NO CABLE to be had were I live . In the middle of a corn field some say , lmao . I also have to have wireless broadband as I live to far out to get DSL also . But it works ok so far , 3 years now .

42.99 a month for 200 channels , course you don't want to watch alot of that trash .

[MrRiplEy[H]]

Originally posted by airspro
I have Dish Network and it works pretty good IMO . They just installed the
"Dish 500" dish for free for me cause they uped the channel again and I couldn't get them on my old outside dish . They said I had had their service for 9 years , 3 months so far . NO CABLE to be had were I live . In the middle of a corn field some say , lmao . I also have to have wireless broadband as I live to far out to get DSL also . But it works ok so far , 3 years now .

42.99 a month for 200 channels , course you don't want to watch alot of that trash .

You can get cable, although it may become a little expensive.

The problem with paying for 200 channels is that you never get to use 90% of the channels. I have about 20 or so paid channels and 2000 free channels and I can't even go through them all in one evening to see if something good is on somewhere. So I stick with the 4-5 channels which are usually the best and cycle through them. Unless I'm really bored and prepared to spend 2 hours just switching channels.

[Reschke]

Here is my connection to the site referenced above. According to them my download is over the speed of a full T1 connection at home. http://www.cable-modem.net/perf.html Crazy huh!?!?!

Speed Test Results
Your Connection Loaded 322,649 bytes in 1.282 seconds.

Your throughput is 2013 Kbps.
About the Results

The results are reported in kilobits per second (Kbps). As a point of comparison, a 56K dial-up modem offers a maximum download speed of 53 Kbps.
Because this test measured the download speed of a single file from the CABLE-MODEM.NET server to your computer, it may not be indicative of the actual bandwidth available through your modem or its access speeds to other Web sites. Remember, you must clear your browser cache before running this test again.

Now tested both upload and download at speakeasy.net

They show me with a 4839kbps download/469kbps upload off the Seattle, WA server. They show my speed on the San Francisco, CA server as 4757kbps download/464kbps upload.

Still according to everything I know that puts me way over a dedicated T1 connection.

[Puck]

Originally posted by Skuzzy
Oh, the only downside I see in FiOS is the Internet connection is PPPoE only.  And for that reason, I am still on DSL.  Even though I have all the FiOS equipment attached to my house, and even got the Ethernet cable installed in the wall in my home office.

Ohhh...that's a pity.  Why?

[airspro]

my speed with my wireless connetion

Your Connection Loaded 322,649 bytes in 4.907 seconds.
Your throughput is 526 Kbps.

The problem with paying for 200 channels is that you never get to use 90% of the channels.

Got to get 200 to get the good ones that I do want to watch

About 15 or so of those are good for me . Wife likes differant , go figure , so add another 5 or so , I guess we look at 20 tops of that bunch .

[Reschke]

Originally posted by Skuzzy
Oh, the only downside I see in FiOS is the Internet connection is PPPoE only.  And for that reason, I am still on DSL.  Even though I have all the FiOS equipment attached to my house, and even got the Ethernet cable installed in the wall in my home office.

DSL service here through Bellsouth (now AT&T) is only available as PPPoE. In my opinion that is one reason my service when I have had DSL always sucked monkey nuts.