FIOS in apartments for Pinellas County:

LonghornXP

Supporting Founder
Original poster
Supporting Founder
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.
 
Care to say who your source is? This is the first recent hint that MDU installations like this would be happening. Nothing had been posted recently that I could find over at DSLR so it is a bit of new news if indeed it happens. It also goes against some of the reports from earlier this year that said MDU applications wouldn't be VDSL based for data.

And I wouldn't expect apartments to be a pushover for installations. Management companies know that they are sitting on a densely populated potential revenue stream and that they have some additional powers as to what gets hooked up to their buildings unlike what a homeowner might have. Expect apartment complex management to negotiate a cut of the FIOS pie in order for Verizon to get permission for installation.
 
cdru said:
Care to say who your source is? This is the first recent hint that MDU installations like this would be happening. Nothing had been posted recently that I could find over at DSLR so it is a bit of new news if indeed it happens. It also goes against some of the reports from earlier this year that said MDU applications wouldn't be VDSL based for data.

And I wouldn't expect apartments to be a pushover for installations. Management companies know that they are sitting on a densely populated potential revenue stream and that they have some additional powers as to what gets hooked up to their buildings unlike what a homeowner might have. Expect apartment complex management to negotiate a cut of the FIOS pie in order for Verizon to get permission for installation.

You should know I can't tell you my source. Also you wouldn't hear about it yet because they haven't said what the plans are. They still have a little more testing they need to complete so that is a big reason why they haven't made this public yet. They will be using VDSL because they have finally understood that installing an ethernet jack in apartments will be very hard. Now using VDSL over an MDU ONT would give every customer in the building access to just one internet account which is why you will see a customer needing to use PPPoE which will require both a user name and password to sign onto the internet. Now because they give out routers to current FIOS customers they will have no problems entering in the password into the customers router so that the computers connected to it will be always on.

You also must understand that Verizon has never said they wouldn't use VDSL. What they did say was that they weren't going to offer FTTC/VDSL like SBC is doing for example. So that is what Verizon has said.

Verizon has also said that they don't have an ONT for apartments (which is correct at that time and even today) but they also never said that they would never get one nor that they weren't working to get one. Both Motorola and another company I can't think off right now have working MDU ONT models with most severe bugs worked out and I've been lucky to see them in action at a test site so yes they do exist and they do work. They still have a little work left but they will be ready by years end but getting production and shipments will take another few months. Because this is so new Verizon will be testing this hardware in the real world in real apartments that they will be selection. If everything works as expected and I think it will Verizon will report this to the maker of the ONT so they can start massive production. If we do have a few major bugs they can be fixed before mass production.

I expect delays and most apartment customers won't actually start getting installed on a mass national level until late 2006 to early 2007 but its coming and it will be Verizons main focus for the short term that is for sure.

Both apartment owners and Verizon have quite a bit of money to make and quite a bit of customers to take from the local cable companies.
 
I wasn't saying that they weren't doing it, just that I hadn't seen anything about it. It was news to me at the least.

And I think the other company's name you were looking for is AFC: MDU PDF
 
cdru said:
I wasn't saying that they weren't doing it, just that I hadn't seen anything about it. It was news to me at the least.

And I think the other company's name you were looking for is AFC: MDU PDF

They aren't looking at AFC products. They are looking at Motorola as I said before. The other company that I couldn't remember is called TeLLabs.

I just for the heck of it did a google search for Verizon tellweb MDU and I got very lucky and found a press release that states everything I just said expect the specific Pinellas County rollout information.

http://telephonyonline.com/mag/telecom_verizons_fttp_movin/
 
AFC was aquired by Tellabs. So now they are one in the same
 

IPro/Metron Are they shutting their doors???

PrairieWave Communications cable customers

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Total: 0, Members: 0, Guests: 0)

Who Read This Thread (Total Members: 1)