Let me get this straight. If one has FIOS, optical fiber, he has to have a battery backup for when there are power failures. But Verizon says not to turn it on until the power failure starts.
So this means if I'm on the phone and there's a power failure, my phone call will be disconnected? Is that right?
Even for a momentary power failure?
Because to turn it on I have to go to the basement. I presume it will be in the basement or outside.
Even though with copper wire phone calls, I could talk and talk and talk during power failures, especially since there's not too much to do then.
Plus I have to buy the thing for $40 plus 12 alkaline D-batteries. They last 24 hours when you are using them.
If you just want a phone, there is nothing better than the good old POTS. It is 100 year old technology but it is still around, so it must be pretty good. I don't know anyone who thinks FiOS is better than copper when it comes to reliability.
You can extend that last statement to VOIP in general. Of course what Micky just outlined, I'd be fine with. I think many systems don't guarantee anything when the power goes out, maybe not even Fios if it's their eqpt power along the way, as opposed to a localized power failure, eg in your house, your block, etc.
Well then, let me introduce myself. FiOS call quality is far superior to copper and FiOS is immune to lightning surges as well. That's enough for me. Since I have automatic backup power, the battery in the ONT is not really an issue.
A few years ago, Verizon replaced the copper to my house with FIOS. I had 2 phones on it, both paying like land lines but switched one to VoIP with Comcast cable. I keep the other for business and bill to a client but will shut it down if I stop consulting for them. They are a PITA as they bill like a land line and charge extra for long distance.
Copper had been going bad for years. Lines full of static and I even had 2 service calls in on the same week when I had 2 separate lines. They have a battery backup on FIOS so if power goes down phone still works. With Comcast VoIP, no power, no phone.
Mostly the same here. I had one bizarre episode though. One morning the phone was dead, few hours later it was OK again. Later that day I had the police show up for a 911 call where 911 was called from my number but no one said anything. I told them that I had that brief outage, but IDK what's going on. Later I went out and when I returned, the cops were there again. Same thing had happened. Cops said that they've seen it before, when a line goes intermittent, somehow it manages to pulse out 911. I called the phone company and they had it fixed that day.
I'm kind of amazed that VOIP works as well as it does. Not many people realize the big difference between the old copper and VOIP. With copper when you made a call, the call was set up, end to end and you had a timeslot reserved for your call every 128 usecs. It was guaranteed there, the routing for that call never changed. They sampled the voice at 8khz rate, that gives you a voice sample every 128 usecs and out it went.
With VOIP, it's all probabilistic. There is no end to end guarantee on timing. And one packet could go via Chicago with one delay, the other via Kansas and Florida, with a different delay. In the early days that was a problem with the quality. They instituted some new rules, prioritization, etc to help eliminate it, but it's still a probability based system. I'm amazed that it works as well as it does. It's also probably more open to cyber attack than the old copper system ever was. Funny that no one has tried that yet.
The battery backup from Verizon is OPTIONAL. If you don't like their 12 D cell option (and many don't) install your own UPS.
Most people, (like for example, me), just use a cell phone when the power is out.
All things considered, I think FIOS is great. If I thought I needed to have power during the very infrequent power outages, I'd buy a generator or UPS system.
I switched to the Spectrum internet phone a few weeks ago. They give lots of free things like caller id and robot blocking that the wire phone company charges extra for. Hard to say how much longer the wire lines will be in service with all the extra charges.
My cable modem/phone thing has a provision for a battery they want $ 40 for. I could get a ups for not much more. I bet most people have phones that require the AC power for also. I do have one old phone that does not need the AC power from the wall. If power goes out, I bet the cable service goes out too as it has many amplifiers down the line that require power. Not sure about the FIOS.
My previous phone company is still using old converted telegraph lines...lots of static, occasional buzzing and sometimes I could hear other faint conversations after it rains. It was total crap.
I have Comcast Digital Voice now which is awesome.
I thought LD was included. I use dollarphonepinless and it's cheap and only slightly inconvenient, but I was looking forward to its being simpler.
I had had static and finally the phone stopped working while the DSL worked fine. I went online to find a way to email them or to 'chat', just to get a line check, but I could find no way to reach them except by phone. Including using the Troubleshooter, which ended up telling me to call them on the phone. Isn't that ridiculous. My cell is broken so I'm using its predecessor that was pretty poor, but he kept saying that if they came out, the only thing they would do is connect the FIOS. I hadn't asked them to come out but when I interrupted he, started up with his script again. I was pretty annoyed by this time, Then either he hung up on me or the call was interrupted some other way, and he thinks I hung up on him.
He never did offer to test my line, though days later, I found a webpage that said it would cause that to happen. No keywords that would be easy to google for, and why the Troubleshooter didn't refer me to that page I don't know.
Anyhow, I looked at the NID again, and strangely there were two of my wires in it. My house wiring has a problem so for years I'd had a wire going up the side of the house into the window and from that bedroom to the next one. But I got sick of that and I drilled a hole in the floor to the overhang so the wire looked nice. Lasted 3 weeks, then failed. So I ran the temp wire again, but left the other one for testing, then totally forgot I'd done that. That was a year or two ago and all of sudden somehow the the wire I left was messing up the phone but nnot the DSL. I removed that and things are fine, maybe even no static (it was intermittent.)
Ugh. I guess that makes fios look good.
As to underground, our last 600 feet are underground, and just yesterday as I was going shopping, I saw that they are putting in another underground red 3" cable. I looked at the ends to try to figure out what it was, but the ends were just covered in mud. I diddn't see writing on the cable, but I'll look more closely.
IDK how they price phone into Fios, but you can get Ooma which is very good VOIP service for $5 a month and it uses your internet connection, which would be the Fios. The Ooma box costs about $100, you can probably get a used one on Ebay for half that.
That's one advantage all VOIP have over copper, they are less money and you have many choices. I went from $50 a month with Verizon to $5 a month with Ooma.
When you switched to Ooma were you able to keep your old phone telephone number ?
When I switched from the wire line to internet phone with the same company I get cable from I had the number switched. Just too much tied into the phone number to switch numbers. It wouuld take me all day to find all that is tied to the phone number.
Not any more. Verizon recently replaced the power supply on ours with their newer type that does not have a battery backup. I understand this is alwo being used for all new installations. So unless you have their old setup you have to supply your own backup power if you want it.
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