FIOS in Hampton Roads, VA

**riffjim4069** · 07-09-2009 05:45 PM

Originally Posted by vurbano

Pm me after the 8th

Hey, how did your FiOS installation go?

**vurbano** · 07-09-2009 06:40 PM

Sorry I took so long, I am pretty tired. Had a storage room on the exterior of the house that I needed to clean up, fix a light fixture and add some boards for FIOS to be installed on. For all of that to happen a shed outside had to be cleaned out and another room in the house cleaned out.

Well the tech window yesterday was 8-12am. She, yes SHE (thats a first for me) showed up at 11am. She called an hour earlier and asked if I had Tivo and if that was why I needed cable cards. I told her yes she only showed up with 1 m card. I had specifically replaced the order a day after the initial order to specify TWO M cards, one for each TivoHD. So she stopped the install at 1pm and picked up another M card from a nearby Tech. A lot of the time, my time was spent pulling out the D* multiswitch and cabling. I told her to leave the 6 way sliptter just hanging and I would supply a box which I did today, as I do not want any exposed connections. Unluckily for me the 6 -way splitter has the input lead in a different plane than all of the other outputs so I either had to supply my own splitter(s) or remount a huge box I had for the multiswitch. The box wouldnt fit anyway and I would have ended up with a bunch of jumpers in a small box and the splitter in the huge box so I went out and bought a couple of my own splitters from home depot today.

You can see in the picture a lone box on a wall that contains the old cox communications drop and on the other wall the Verizon ONT box, the gray drop box I installed rotated beneath for my diplexers and the old POTS terminal for verizon next to the ONT

The other picture shows the install in the small storage room of the power supply and the battery backup that provides 8 hours of phone service in an outage. I thought they could plug into a GFI receptacle I had in there but the TEch said thats a no no. I was lucky and had changed out a light fixture a day before in that room with one that has an always on receptacle that she wired too.

Well the tech knew nothing about TivoHD or tivos but we managed to get the cards in and write down all of the numbers on the card info screen and get them activated.

The tech was pretty clueless about all of the switches I have in the house but she loaded the software on my desktop PC and I installed the wireless router where I wanted it. Everything seemed to work ok. My TivoHD units saw each other and the computers see them.( This was done while she went to get the 2nd M card at 1pm).

Needless to say she was clueless about the signal level issue that Tivo has with FIOS and didnt leave any attenuators. But Tivo has fixed that problem with 11.0d firmware which I hadnt recieved yet. I really havent seen a problem though except on channel 50 for some reason but hey thats SD channel and I have its HD counterpart thats perfect.

One annoyance is Verizon broadband essentials and virus software which I promptly cancelled. They want 5.99 a month for the the internet protection software. I do not remember signing up for that.

Another annoyance is that I do not have the router password incase I want to turn off its wireless functions and use my old wireless router as an access point without DHCP server running. I also havent figured out file transfer between computers and seeing all of the computers on the LAN/Wan. That may be more of my ignorance of Windows than theirs. LOL

ANyway she was in a pretty big hurry to get the heck out of here since it was 4pm already and left saying she had done everything she knows how to do. After she left I realized that the TivoHD units had to go through guided setup again. Once that happened I had all channels and all premium channels withthe old $139.99 deal.

Vonage sent me an email and their service had ended, Tivos work fine, my sons SD reciver works fine (he's 20 and in comm college and said "its really neat"). Called Cox today and cancelled them too. I went to speedtest website and I am getting 20+/4.6 or so which is pretty close to the promised 20/5 internet speed. Scheduled cancellation for D* is tomorrow.

Pretty pleased with FIOS so far. Great picture, and fast channel changing with the Tivo. I was about to through my D* remotes through the wall waiting for a channel change or a guide scroll!! I just couldnt take it anymore. I'm going to love watching TV in the rain. I can see myself going outside and pointing at the dishes and just laughing at my neighbors.

All the channels seem to be in the clear so far as I downloaded a movie from HDNET to my PC last night. YEAH BABY!!!!!!!!

**enthuzist** · 07-09-2009 06:42 PM

hometownblues:
Per Verizon, it takes 2-3 weeks to test the lines after they have finished the cabling. Then you will be able to place orders.

**enthuzist** · 07-09-2009 07:27 PM

Vurbano, I'm glad things worked out and you are happy.

Did they go from the pole to your ONT or intrench it?

I too have some cleaning of the garage to make room for the ONT and my distribution box. But it is all worth it for FiOS.

It is funny that I too tend to "help out" with router and STB installs in my house. Being a Network and AV engineer, I tend to prefer things my way. You mentioned that you have multiple switches. I have (2) Cisco Catalyst 2960G, (1) Linksys WAP54G, (1) Linksys WRT54G, (1) D-Link DI-604, and (1) Linksys EZXS88W. I have 5 desktops, 3 laptops, 1 server, 1 PS3, 1 Wii, 1 internet ready TV (I can surf the web on it with the accompanied wireless keyboard), and hope to add some kithen appliances the require internet access. Yes I'm a geek. So what issues should I expect from my installer?

DW keeps telling me to go ahead and order it since I want it so bad. I tell her I would if I could, but I just have to wait it out for them to finish everything. Looking at those orange rolls everyday waiting on the men and trucks to come is torture.

**vurbano** · 07-09-2009 07:53 PM

Originally Posted by enthuzist

Vurbano, I'm glad things worked out and you are happy.

Did they go from the pole to your ONT or intrench it?

I too have some cleaning of the garage to make room for the ONT and my distribution box. But it is all worth it for FiOS.

It is funny that I too tend to "help out" with router and STB installs in my house. Being a Network and AV engineer, I tend to prefer things my way. You mentioned that you have multiple switches. I have (2) Cisco Catalyst 2960G, (1) Linksys WAP54G, (1) Linksys WRT54G, (1) D-Link DI-604, and (1) Linksys EZXS88W. I have 5 desktops, 3 laptops, 1 server, 1 PS3, 1 Wii, 1 internet ready TV (I can surf the web on it with the accompanied wireless keyboard), and hope to add some kithen appliances the require internet access. Yes I'm a geek. So what issues should I expect from my installer?

DW keeps telling me to go ahead and order it since I want it so bad. I tell her I would if I could, but I just have to wait it out for them to finish everything. Looking at those orange rolls everyday waiting on the men and trucks to come is torture.

You are going to have to take care of the arrangement of wiring etc yourself with all of those items and the Tech is only going to want to setup one machine with Verizon software. I think some of the techs are more network savy than others. You will need to copy the setups of the email accounts yourself to each machine unless you just want to get your email through the verizon website. I also discovered that the router controls everything and if you lose power to it you are going to lose TV and internet (I think thats what she said)

**enthuzist** · 07-09-2009 08:01 PM

How about the cabling to the ONT? Air or underground?

I'm okay with finishing the setup myself. I did that for Cox and back when I had Verizon DSL (what a joke that was - I had to walk a Verizon tech through over the phone how to configure the newly installed 3COM switches in order to get my neighborhood back up on DSL). I will let them setup on my laptop and then setup everything else myself.

**riffjim4069** · 07-09-2009 08:12 PM

Vurbano, glad to hear your're enjoying FiOS TV and the TivoHDs! I believe default userid is admin and password blank, password or password1. We have a hardwired PC connected to the Actiontec router, but I turned off its wireless capabilities since my Linksys router is centrally located and covers the entire house.

**vurbano** · 07-09-2009 08:37 PM

Originally Posted by enthuzist

How about the cabling to the ONT? Air or underground?

I'm okay with finishing the setup myself. I did that for Cox and back when I had Verizon DSL (what a joke that was - I had to walk a Verizon tech through over the phone how to configure the newly installed 3COM switches in order to get my neighborhood back up on DSL). I will let them setup on my laptop and then setup everything else myself.

Underground drop to the house.