Social Feed

FIOS coming to apartments in Pinellas County:

I've just got word sometime in the first half of 2006 Verizon will be starting a massive push in central Pinellas County for apartment complexes. I've been told that Verizon has just got done testing and will soon place an order for apartment specific ONT units. The ONTs can be connected to all the existing phone and coax cabling. Because of how hard it would be for each specific apartment to get an ethernet drop they would be offering the high speed internet service using the phone cables and VDSL2. Video TV will be FIOS TV with the same exact features. The ONT boxes can also allow another service provider to continue service for specific customers so that a complex would be more likely to allow Verizon to install the ONTs if the owners don't have to worry about getting ride of the provider in place. If a customer wants TV service with Verizon a Verizon tech can unlug the coax feed that serves that customer and plug it into the ONT.

They will be pushing with the big apartment complexes that have many actually apartments and my contact said that your best bet to get FIOS services in your complex is to inform the management of the benefits of allowing FIOS TV and what is involved in installing FIOS TV in their complex. Verizon will be making a point that they don't need access to each apartment unit because they only need access to what is in place and can be gain entrance from a manager and not a resident. The only wiring will be replacing the fiber underground from the poles on the street to the buildings themselves. Again you must push your complex to call Verizon and tell Verizon you want FIOS service in your complex. Also Verizon will install everything free of charge so the owners won't have to pay anything all they must do is give them access to the grounds.

Also the central areas of Pinellas County will mainly include these cities to start with. St. Petersburg, Clearwater, Pinellas Park, Largo and Seminole. They at some point will move on towards Tarpon Springs and Dunedin as well. Now they will be installing based on Centrol Offices so if your actual house is served by this centrol office you will get fiber along with the apartments that will be installed with fiber. Now the central offices with the most apartments served by it will be done first and they will move from most to least. So if you have tons of apartments around your house your more likely to get FIOS services at the start. Because Verizon must wait until the no compete clause runs out with Knology they will have the MDU ONTs ready by that time so they feel its best to start this way.

I'm also hearing that the cost per ONT for a single house is about 400 bucks. Now the cost for this new MDU ONT will be about 2 grand. So if each of these MDU ONTs can service 16 units they can wire 16 customers for 2 grand or one customer for 400 bucks so sadly I think you can see why their focus will be on apartments. Its cheaper per unit, quicker per customer and apartment customers are more likely to by FIOS services in droves compared to a street of 25 houses. Its all about money but again if you can wire 16 people with an apartment in the same time it takes to wire one person at a house well you can see this as well.