Because of changes I made in my home's phone wiring, I have to prepare a little in advance before calling them to install Verizon FIOS (fiber optic cable for phone and internet)
Am I correct that they use a CAT6 cable to connect the box on the outside of the house with some device they rent you (or you can buy, and save money) on the inside?
No problem using a 30-foot cable, right?
Per micky:
Dunno whether it's Cat5E or 6, but yes, they run an Ethernet cable between the indoor box and the outside box - and no, 30 feet is no problem. I think the limit for Ethernet is something like 280 or 300 feet.
One suggestion: figure out a location for the indoor box that is easy for you to get to when the battery needs replacing.
The installers tend to put it where it is convenient for them to put it - which may be a very different thing.
I have mine in the rec room closet where all the rest of my LAN stuff lives.
My FIOS installer wanted to use coax to their router inside. Had to demand that they use CAT6 so I could use MY router. I also asked for the coax so I could have the option for TV at a later date. They refused.
IIRC, 100 meters (about 325 feet).
[snip]Per mike:
Good catch about the coax.... never crossed my mind because we are strictly antenna-TV.
Is this Verizon fios? Is there any other kind?
That'll teach you to demand things.
I don't expect to connect the TV. The antenna has more TV than I can watch anyhow, from 50's and 60's reruns alone. Plus I'd have to figure out how to get the wire from the front of the house to the back.
Fios uses iiuc one of two modems or routers, that are listed on a Verizon page, and I planned to buy one before installation. I hadn't thought about it but you remind me. IIRC one is newer or better.
I don't have much space. There is a board the breaker box and dryer outlet and phone extension connection box is on, and the rest of the laundry room is cinder block covered with fiberglass insulation The previous owner was cold all the time, but now that it's there, I figure it's good to have.
Maybe I should have said this in the first place: I figured he'd put the battery box in the basement, partly because he's probably going to insist on running a wire to my phone line connection box, so he won't have to come out here again after I move some day, and because his boss would insist on it.
But the cat6 that will be in use has to go up next to the front sliding glass door, through the overhang and the floor into the spare bedroom, and from there to the other bedroom/office. I'm going to measure that instead of just estimating but it's no more than 30 feet. I already run wire though that hole for the regular phone line, so I have a hole in the carpet and the floor, and the overhang (caulked where it comes out of the overhang), but it's only big enough for a little clear phone connector. I have to make it a little bigger at both ends for the cat5/6 connector, and run the cat5/6 through the hole, and I plan to have that all done before he gets here, because I know he'll want to test it before he leaves. I want him to test it too.
Do I need to check with somone in advance or will he do it the way I want? The "hub" for both phone and internet is in my bedroom/office now and I want it that way.
If you insist on a cheapskate install, the big red V will put the ONT box where THEY want.
Get your checkbook out and the big red V will put the ONT box wherever YOU want. Get it?
Mine was Frontier FIOS after they bought our town from Verizon. They have guidelines about where the put access. Don't know the details, but they wanted the ONT on the opposite end of the house. Same thing happened to my neighbor. WE INSISTED...put the ONT "here" and the power supply "inside the garage there" and the hole in the wall "here". They grumbled, said it couldn't be done and threatened to leave. I insisted that they call the main office. 10 seconds later, they were doing exactly what we wanted.
The bend radius on the fiber is probably too large to snake up inside a wall without making a big hole. They'll likely insist on the ONT being outside. The power supply isn't weatherproof. They'll likely insist that it be inside. Where they wanted it was impossible from the inside. We ended up with the ont on the outside wall of the garage and the power supply inside right behind it. I thoughtfully provided a power strip right where I wanted it.
They should send out someone to preview the install. Be home and negotiate at that point and get agreement. Get their name and phone number. The installer doesn't have much authority to deviate from standard procedure. When the installer calls home, there'll be a record.
BE THERE when they do the install.
And if you thought it couldn't get more complex, read on.
Depending on your location, they may have different distribution methods. Here, I get fiber to the front door. The fiber goes down adjacent to my sidewalk. I have an access port in my front yard. So, to get to the house, they contract a horizontal driller to drill a hole and pull the fiber thru it from the house to the street. YMMV, they may use a trencher.
Before they drill, they call another contractor to come out and mark the utilities. I watched they guy do it and discussed the process. They mark phone, cable TV, electricity, gas and water. As he was packing up to go, I asked, "hey, there's a sewer pipe crossing the drilling path." "We don't do sewer, you have to hire someone to do that." No amount of pleading or bribery could get him to spend another
30 seconds to mark the sewer.I went down to city hall and looked at the map. Sewer was plainly indicated, but it ran off at a different angle from the house. The guy said that the map was a "suggestion" to the builder. "Sewer is usually accurate to within 100 feet."
Best I could do was look at the elevation specs and predict that the pipe went at one angle down and take a chance.
I told the driller all this and he just drilled the hole. They are very concerned where breaking something might cost THEM money. Your sewer pipe ain't much of a worry, 'cause you own the pipe and you don't have the lawyers that the cable company has. It's been 5 years and the sewer still works...
Around here, if the sewer breaks, it's a toxic spill. I'm told they dig out a huge hole, haul the dirt away and send you the bill, no questions asked. It's good to know where your sewer pipe runs.
Then there are the storm drains. I just dug 'em up to see where they went and told the installer how to miss those.
Are we having fun yet?
That's fine. That's where the matching townhouses have it. I checked before I went too far.
That's the thing with the battery inside? That's fine. That can be in the basement.
I presume they use the very same hole the phone line uses now, right? Or they enlarge it. It comes out between the floor joists above the basement.
That's a good idea. There is a washing machine receptacle only two feet away, but for a while I was using the 2nd half of that. I probably don't need to do that anymroe.
Oh, good! Although maybe they won't do that here on theory that all these townhouses are alike and they've done 10 or 30 of them.
That would ge the time to make sure they will let me connect to the cat5/6 that will run up the house, in the corner btween the sliding glass door and the door frame.
I have to be, or they can't get into the basement. Also, don't they want to put the modem or something inside and connect it to the computer? Or I can do that before they get there, but aren't they still going to want to use the computer to verify the IP address or something?
I have a little "patio", six feet deep, in front of the house and they've alrady run the cable to the edge of that, 6 feet from the house. There's a "privacy fence" on 2 1/2 sides of the patio and they'll run it along that to within 18" of the current nid.
I thhink they did every house in this block about the same time, even though most had not signed up for FIOS at the time.
As an aside, one of the 3 or 4 weaknesses of this n'hood is that the stoops and adjacent "patios" are all sinking, and a few years ago, when the n'hood was about 30 or 35 years old, the electric company came around and lowered all the electric meters 3 or 4 inches, because the patio had sunk and the wire was being stretched. I didn't call them. One of their guys must have noticed. Or maybe an electrician. They did a good job, or the house's brick is good, because there is no trace of where the meter used to be.
I don't think they did that. THEre was no paint on the grass. But I had done this 30 years ago and the phone and electric** make a straight run from the electric meter and nid, one above the other, under that patio, perpendicular to the front of the house, to a sewer, I think, which holds those lines. EVery townhouse on this strip is probably alike, although it would have been prudent to verify each one, even if t hey didn't put down paint.
**We have no gas and the cable tv is in the back yard. Did I leave anything out? Water! Yeah, the water is right by the phone and electric.I left out sewer too, I think because Miss Utility didn't mark it either. I have no doubt it's along the same path. The main drain line in the house is in the middle of the house, but it's no more than a foot to the side of the electric, phone, and water.
The phone and the cable are the closest to the surface aren't they? I saw them put in the cable with a wiggler, or what is it called? And there was no sign of damage to the yard after they put in the FIOS cable, just a few feet of cable coiled up in the bushes in front of the patio. I assume they used a wiggler again.
ROTFLOL.
I got the blueprints for my house, just to have them, but the initial use was to be to find the bedroom phone jack that the first owner had buried under a new layer of sheet rock (because he was cold). Even though I wasn't the first owner, in 1984, the architect charged me only
10 dollars for a set. But it doesn't show phone wires.
You'r'e sure your not mixing your waste with internet?
Wow. I think these houses are new enough to have plastic pipe. Does that break very often? But of course you can drill a hole in it.
But how come the fios guy is drilling, when for me they just used a vibrator to put it 2 (3?) inches below the surface?
I saw that on a needlepoint sampler once.
Most of my neighbors have gutters and sump pumps that come go into pipes and come out at the edge of the curb, but my house isn't really on the street (which is nice. A lot of people who have lived here for years dont' even know my house is here. They think my next door neighbor is the last one.)
So the downspouts just splash on the ground and the sump pump goes to the side in a 2" plastic pipe, which sticks into a 4" corrugated plastic pipe, which goes underground and pours out the edge of a hill beyond my property line. I've never seen it though, because I"m usually indoors when it's raining, or going to the car.
Maybe it's better to rent. Then we could read alt.apartment.callthelandlord.
mike posted for all of us...
That stinks. I'm glad you are not full of shitte...
Wy do you want to insult me. You don't even know me.
I think you misunderstood. I'm happy with the ONT where they usually put it, and happy with the battery box where they usually put it. In fact I can't think of better places. All I want to make sure is that I can run the cat5/6 from the ONT to my second floor, and I don't expect a problem with that. He probably will run CAT to the basement, again so that they won't have to come out again, but the some of the extension lines connected to the basement don't work and the rest no longer have phones plugged in anymore. Except the one right there by the phone-wire juncition box. If he were to leave it that way, with only the bsement connected, I'd run the cat the way I want it after he left. We're only talking about 5 minutes plus a bit of time to seal around the hole. If he cooperates with me, he'll seal around the hole and I won't have to.
My suggestion, YOU run the cables the way YOU want them before the tech gets there. I ran both coax and cat cable and asked the tech to use the cat cable which they can do If you are not getting TV service. I'd put the ont inside the house. M
good to know. I'm not getting TV.
How come? A high percentage of the neigbors I visit have it outside. Of course if any have it on the inside, I wouldn't know that they have FIOS at all. Does outside cause a problem, that maybe they haven't had yet, or haven't told me about? There is about a 2 foot overhang of the second floor over the first floor, so things next to the house get very little rain and no snow.
Have you tried Platinum's EZ RJ45 male plugs?
One reason to have it outside would be so that if you have a service problem, they can come and check it to the ONT without coming inside, so you don't need to be there. An advantage to inside is that it has electronics in it and electronics does better over the long term in more stable, dry environments.
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