Verizon killing copper service and dsl?

[JHZR2]

$20 for Internet isn't too much - I pay it.

But $50+ for Internet, plus $50+ for TV and then $20+ for home phone, then likely another $100+ family phone plan is EXACTLY why people can't get ahead, must buy cars they can't afford on debt, never pay their mortgages off and then wonder why they can't afford to retire.

Phone on fios only works as long as your backup battery works. It's just a little thing. No idea how long it will. Gone are the days where you can at least make calls (and 911) when the power goes out.

Our friends were forced into fios because the change is irreversible. They too used low end dsl. They got a real estate concession due to substantially higher connectivity costs from this stuff.

People can select fios if they want, but the cost of that and the cable services from Comcast are excessive, IMO. I still think it is a scare tactic because I bet the fios sales people get commissions.

 

[BearZDefect]

Originally Posted By: Nick R
... because it cost them $5,000 to upgrade the house to be FiOS serviceable...

Really?

Will my house appreciate with that upgrade?

 

[sxg6]

Originally Posted By: JHZR2

Phone on fios only works as long as your backup battery works. It's just a little thing. No idea how long it will. Gone are the days where you can at least make calls (and 911) when the power goes out.


My comcast phone service is that way too. We recently got a new docsis 3 modem from comcast that appears to have a larger battery backup than our older docsis 2 modem (4xAA vs 2xAA). Arris claims the battery backup in our new modem can provide up to 8hrs of backup. I still have the modem hooked up to one of my old, fairly large battery backups anyways. I'm not terribly worried about the home phone in a power outage, since I had very good luck with my verizon cell phone in last years lengthy power outages.

 

[Nick R]

Originally Posted By: BearZDefect
Originally Posted By: Nick R
... because it cost them $5,000 to upgrade the house to be FiOS serviceable...

Really?

Will my house appreciate with that upgrade?


Dunno, but that's what the Verizon rep I talked to told me anyway.

 

[JHZR2]

Originally Posted By: BearZDefect
Originally Posted By: Nick R
... because it cost them $5,000 to upgrade the house to be FiOS serviceable...

Really?

Will my house appreciate with that upgrade?


Originally Posted By: JHZR2


Our friends were forced into fios because the change is irreversible. They too used low end dsl. They got a real estate concession due to substantially higher connectivity costs from this stuff.



To clarify, they had bought a home where the previous owner had done the irreversible switch to FIOS. They had used DSL over POTS for years like we do.

 

[JHZR2]

Originally Posted By: sxg6
Originally Posted By: JHZR2

Phone on fios only works as long as your backup battery works. It's just a little thing. No idea how long it will. Gone are the days where you can at least make calls (and 911) when the power goes out.


My comcast phone service is that way too. We recently got a new docsis 3 modem from comcast that appears to have a larger battery backup than our older docsis 2 modem (4xAA vs 2xAA). Arris claims the battery backup in our new modem can provide up to 8hrs of backup. I still have the modem hooked up to one of my old, fairly large battery backups anyways. I'm not terribly worried about the home phone in a power outage, since I had very good luck with my verizon cell phone in last years lengthy power outages.


The FIOS one that our friends have is a sizeabkle chunk of sealed lead acid battery. I cant imagine how long 4xAA batteries will truly last under use. Ever run a wireless home phone that has a 3-AA battery inside? It will sit idle forever, but under use, it is not much more than an hour.

 

[rjundi]

Originally Posted By: sxg6
Originally Posted By: JHZR2

Phone on fios only works as long as your backup battery works. It's just a little thing. No idea how long it will. Gone are the days where you can at least make calls (and 911) when the power goes out.


My comcast phone service is that way too. We recently got a new docsis 3 modem from comcast that appears to have a larger battery backup than our older docsis 2 modem (4xAA vs 2xAA). Arris claims the battery backup in our new modem can provide up to 8hrs of backup. I still have the modem hooked up to one of my old, fairly large battery backups anyways. I'm not terribly worried about the home phone in a power outage, since I had very good luck with my verizon cell phone in last years lengthy power outages.


It is annoying to lose phone. I ended up buying a $120 UPS to power/backup my Comcast phone/internet router and Cisco Wireless Router so I can work(100% telecommuter) without firing my guzzling 6800watt generator up.

I use 3 dumb phones with fully charged battery's as backup for 911. Amazingly I started one fully charged two years ago and it fire up with near fully batttery. 911 works on any cell with plan or not.

That being said I did lose Verizon for 3 weeks once including DSL. The local switching flooded out. Even voice mail failed to work. The worst was Verizon cell service than failed too because tower was overwhelmed. They finally added a 2nd temp one in.

 

[DBMaster]

My Fios box in the garage has one of those 12V lead/acid batteries, similar to the one in my alarm system. The one in the alarm is going on 16 years old and still tests as good. The one in the Fios box is approaching 7 years. I ditched the land line three years ago, though. The battery indicator on the Fios box still shows the battery to be "good."

 

[JHZR2]

Have you determined the ampere-hour capacity by doing a full load tes with them?

Sealed lead batteries in cool environments should last nearly two decades. Still, you're dependent upon that little thing, which you get to pay to replace.

 

[sxg6]

Originally Posted By: rjundi
911 works on any cell with plan or not.


Very interesting, I didn't know this. Thanks for the info

 

[JustinH]

Rural America is still using dsl.

I have family in rural areas of columbus ohio, and there is no cable or fios available.

Just DSL and Satellite for TV.

My aunt just told me that verizon sold off their service to a company called Pioneer.

 

[JHZR2]

And that may be the case for a while. But in non-rural America, where VZ and others put out the capital cost to install fiber, the story may be different.

A company like VZ, with such widespread network in these areas likely doesnt want to pay for two infrastructures, and has a ton of value stored up in those copper lines.

From that aspect, I can see a justification to do it.

But their prices on fios type services are just too high, especially when compared to DSL over POTS.

 

[DBMaster]

Originally Posted By: JHZR2
Have you determined the ampere-hour capacity by doing a full load tes with them?


Very good point! The Fios box does not really matter since I do not have landline service. The one in my alarm system might. I should figure out how to do a load test on it.

 

[JHZR2]

Yeah you want to know time at load. If you can get a good, big resistor (car bulb or something may be better), you can time it and calculate close enough based upon time to, say, 10.02V.

 

[eljefino]

I heard some people in the National Guard/ Reserves who have to have an old school land line phone so they could get called up. Any truth to this? Are copper phone lines part of our defense infrastructure? Will the gov't let the Baby Bells cut those wires?

Satellite is a good one-to-many distribution channel, eg video services, but as a two-way, it seems fairly wasteful (and laggy) to me. Fiber and femtocells (tiny cell towers) IMO are the future. Yes, hilltops and 100-foot towers have their place now but splitting/stretching bandwidth will call for smaller, weaker cells in the future when the tech allows a device to handshake a new "tower" faster than they can now.