fios pre-installation

[rdljpl]

Our house was built in the late 70s and has as plethora of cables. 300 ohm wire was installed into each room but was never used. Phone wire was installed into each room and each room has two line capability. Coax was installed for cable TV by drilling through the walls and pulling it through a plastic bushing in each location. (These will be removed and plugged.)

I installed coax through the attic to the computer room for a cable internet service and also for Dish network. they come to one box.

I have since abandoned the cable internet because of poor service and customer relations.

I built a new building for a workshop and the utilities are now underground to the new building and again to my origional electrical and phone panels.

Fios is comming to our neighbor hood and I am considering combined TV, Phone and Internet.

What pre-installation work would provide me with the best experience with fios.

 

[enthuzist]

Try this...

I am in the same boat. Below is some very valuable information I received in another thread. I have been reading up on the link to the forums and have learned a lot. I suggest you do the same. There is a lot of great information for an install that will last and meet all of your needs and desires.

I too did all my interior cabling at my Virginia home as well as running two OTA antennas. All the VOOM and subsequently Dish Network installer had to do was mount/aim the dish and run exterior RG-6 to the wiring closer in the basement. Piece of cake.

As for my FiOS install in Texas...well, that was even easier because I had the builder hire an installation company to wire the house with the Home Theater package. A central wiring closet (panel box) was installed in our master bedroom closet. Besides the interior wiring, they also ran four RG-6 and ground from the wiring closer to the attic, and two RG-6 and Cat6 were run to a side garage. Although there is no way I would ever mount my satellite dishes atop a 35' roof, that's what they do in that area. In my subdivision, all the ONTs were installed inside the garage - ours was placed inside of a side garage and was plugged into a conveniently located outlet next to sprinker system control box. Other than putting the ActionTec router in the bedroom closet, Verizon techs were in-and-out pretty quickly. It almost took longer to authorized three cablecards than it did to get the ONT and network up and running.

To be honest, the placement of your ONT and router are up to you and Verizon...and a lot of it depends on your home (old/new, frame/brick) and where Verizon installs the ONT in your area: they install them on the exterior (at least they did) in my neighborhood in VA, but they install them indoors (prefer garage) in the Dallas area. Personally, I would run all your cables to an interior junction that is centrally located (as much as possible). If this isn't centrally located and you cannot get adequate wireless coverage from your ActionTec router, you can always turn off the ActionTec's wireless capabilities and connect it to a Linksys router using one of your RG-6 runs. If I were you, I would call your local Verizon...ask your neighbors...or take a look at the DSLReports FiOS Forums:

Verizon Fiber Optics forum - dslreports.com broadband community
Verizon FIOS TV forum - dslreports.com broadband community

P.S. I turned off my ActionTec wireless functions and connected a Linksys wireless router in my living room for a few reasons:

1. Although the bedroom/wiring was in a convenient cable location, it wasn't centrally located and could not wirelessly cover the entire house (4200sq. ft of brick)
2. I like the Linksys router better (function, UI, and gaming)
3. Could plug TivoHD directly into router and not purchase wireless adapter

 

[rdljpl]

Thanks Enthuzist,

In my case it looks like the best bet is to run RG6 to an installation point and then let the installers pick what needs to be used. At this point I have only to replace the two RG6 cables that were installed through the exterior walls and use the 300 ohm cable to pull in the RG 6 to the interior boxes that are now un-used, plus a couple more. The location of the ONT box will be up to them as there will be two available locations, both with power, and one inside the garage and the other on the outside wall by the phone box and electrical box. I have enough RG6 to do everythiing, including the barn and patio.

rdljpl

 

[enthuzist]

I'm doing RG6Quad runs to my garage to an 8-way RF Splitter Module. Then I going to do CAT6 runs to my entertainment center which houses my Cisco switch and soon to be Verizon WiFi router. My telco runs will be to the module in the garage. The power meter is right outside the wall and already has a spare ground rod there. I also have a dual AC outlet nearby for the battery backup. I'm not sure if I will need to add a shelf or it can be screwed to the wall.

As for the placement of the ONT, they may have to come from the opposite side of my house and around the back to the meter. the shorter route has a concrete patio on the side of the garage approximately 25ft.

 

[JPL]

I'm doing RG6Quad runs to my garage to an 8-way RF Splitter Module. Then I going to do CAT6 runs to my entertainment center which houses my Cisco switch and soon to be Verizon WiFi router. My telco runs will be to the module in the garage. The power meter is right outside the wall and already has a spare ground rod there. I also have a dual AC outlet nearby for the battery backup. I'm not sure if I will need to add a shelf or it can be screwed to the wall.

As for the placement of the ONT, they may have to come from the opposite side of my house and around the back to the meter. the shorter route has a concrete patio on the side of the garage approximately 25ft.

Couple points. First, make sure your cable splitter is rated up to 1 GHz. Most off the shelf splitters can't handle the appropriate frequency for many of Verizon's channels. Second - yes, they can (and usually do) screw the power supply and BBU into the wall. The power/BBU units tend to be combined units these days (at least that's what I've seen on more recent installs) - which is nicer.

As for the placement of the ONT - the installer should be able to pick a good spot for it. They generally place them where all the utilities come into the house (chances are pretty good that they'll put the ONT where your current NID - phone box - is). They can run the power cables for those suckers for a good distance. My ONT is probably 25 - 30' from the power outlet that it's plugged into (ONT on the back of the house, power cable snaked through the outside wall into my crawl space - across almost the entire crawl space to the front of the house, out my crawl space into my laundry room, to an outlet on the front inside wall of the house). I think the ONT has to be withing 100' of the outlet, and the BBU has to be within 50' of the ONT - or something like that.

 

[enthuzist]

Well that makes me feel better with the possible install. Either place will definitely be within 50ft of power. I wish they would trench it around the side of the house and across my back yard. That way it is near the meter and Heat Pump and will be a cleaner install.

 

[rdljpl]

My probable best location for the ONT is inside my barn\workshop. When I built it I put all of my utilities underground to the front of the barn and installed a dual 400\200\200 amp box with undreground runs to the location of the old main on the house where the phone box is also located, one conduit for power and the other for communications. I will still have copper phone lines to the phone box and phone distribution center in the attic and two runs of RG 6 to the house, one to the satellite splitter and the other to the computer where the cable modem used to be .

 

[enthuzist]

Are you saying you moved your power meter to the workshop or added another one to it? I guess the installer will do it if it is easier. I have underground conduit ran to my barn, but I have yet to use it.

 

[rdljpl]

I moved my power main to a 200/200a service at the barn\workshop and then a 200a underground circuit from the barn to the existing box at the house and a communication conduit to the phone box which is located just below the power panel.

I pulled a new underground phone cable from the pole to the house and a RG6 to the barn and two from the barn to the house. The RG6 is grounded at the conduit entrance in the barn and is disconnected at the top if the riser at the pole. The second RG6 connects to the satellite splitter at the house.

By my way of thinking the coax from the pole can be split at the ground point and it goes directly to the upstairs office where the cable modem was located. the second coax between the house and barn is connected to the satelite splitter. I have attic access to run coax to every room in the house and to the garage except to one corner of the family room and that can be worked around when I repair some drywall and paint the room since that room will get the surround sound speakers also.

The phones are copper and will be OK as far as I can tell.

 

[rdljpl]

Monday I finally had Fios Internet and phone installed, TV is not yet available in my neighborhood.

The crew came out and installed the fiber cable to my barn, they used the old RG6 coax that was the Cable internet feed to pull the cable through to the Barn. They disconnected it at the ground junction inside the barn and pulled it toward the street. It was an easy installation for them.

After they left I installed a 18" long setcion of 4 X 12" channel that was used for supports in the barn, for a mounting plate for the ONT. When the Installer came out he was concerned about the amount of extra fiber cable that they pulled ( about 100') and also mounting the ONT directly to the steel. While he was going back to the Verizon Yard to get an indoor ONT unit, I mounted a plywood panel to the metal channel to make it easier to mount the ONT.

When he returned we cut the Phone cable that came in from the pole in a conduit next to the fiber cable conduit and I installed a box and a conduit up to the mounting plate and he pulled the coax and the phone wires that go to the house in and made up the connections in the box and the ONT. Then he powered up the ONT and installed the Battery. The Excess Cable was wound in two coils and slipped down into the back of the mounting channel.

We tested the phone and when that worked, he came upstairs to the office and connected the Coax to the wall and installed the router while I removed the DSL box and the Linksys router.

When all was ready he pluged his stick into my computer running windows7 64 and it would not load. He moved to my wife's computer running Vista 32 bit and it loaded fine.

We were up and running in less than two hours and he said that it was the best pre installation he had ever seen, including new construction.

I removed all of the DSL gear and then the phones quit working. I called Verizon and they ran a test and told me my house wiring was bad. When I looked at the ONT the POT light was ON and so I removed the phone connection at the ONT and the light still did not go out.

When the installer came back he disconnected all house copper at the original phone box and tested it. then he went to the ONT and disconnected there and found that the ONT was bad. In ten minutes he had replaced the ONT, reconnected all wires and had it working again.

While my speeds seem to be great, I cannot test it on the windows 7 64 bit OS but the Vista 32 bit OS is much improved.

I am waiting for the FiOS TV to come to the neighborhood, but before it gets here I will pull in new Coax and get the panel installed for the splitter.

 

[Claude Greiner]

Best thing you can run for the internet is cat5 or cat6 and then put the modem in a central location.