Verizon FIOS The fastest most reliable internet. PDF generated using the open source mwlib toolkit. See http://code.pediapress.com/ for more information. PDF generated at: Wed, 15 Jan 2014 19:18:38 UTC Verizon FiOS 1 Verizon FiOS Verizon FiOS is a bundled Internet access, telephone, and television service which operates over a fiber-optic communications network. It is offered in some areas of Verizon FiOS logo the United States by Verizon Communications and Frontier Communications. Verizon was one of the first major U.S. carriers to offer fiber to the home, and received positive ratings from Consumer Reports among cable television and Internet service providers. Other service providers often use fiber optics in the network backbone and existing copper or infrastructure for residential users. Service began in 2005, and networked areas expanded through 2010, although some areas do not have service or cannot receive TV and phone service because of franchise agreements. History Verizon Communications, formed in 2000, announced a television service called FiOS in September 2005 to compete with other television providers. The service first became available for 9,000 customers in Keller, Texas. Verizon aimed to replace copper wires with optical fibers, which would allow greater speed and quality of communication. In 2006, Verizon and Motorola partnered to bring its customers home DVR access, which allowed viewers to record and watch television programs simultaneously.[1] In 2006, The Wall Street Journal speculated: FiOS ONT with (left to right) optical fiber, power, Ethernet, telephone, and television cables Verizon Communications Inc. is fielding offers for [sale] ... of traditional telephone lines ... part of the New York-based phone giant's strategy to delve deeper into the wireless and broadband arenas, while getting out of the traditional phone business in U.S. areas that aren't slated for fiber upgrades ... Verizon also has been shopping a package dubbed "GTE North" that comprises about 3.4 million access lines in former GTE Corp. territories in Indiana, Illinois, Ohio and Michigan. In July 2007 Verizon released FiOS 2.0, which enabled customers to use widgets,Wikipedia:Please clarify allowing for more interactivity of the service. Verizon announced in January 2008 that one million people subscribed to the service. That same year, Verizon FiOS expanded its HD channel selection to over 150 HD channels.[2] Price increases were announced in April 2008, when FiOS was available to (not necessarily subscribed by) 6.5 million households. Verizon FiOS 2 In January 2009, FiOS was available to 12.7 million homes, with about 2.5 million subscribing to the Internet service. As of June 2009[3], FiOS Internet had 3.1 million customers. Estimates on December 31, 2009, were 3.4 million Internet customers and 2.86 million for FiOS TV, with availability down to 12.2 million premises. Verizon announced in March 2010 they were winding down their FiOS expansion, concentrating on completing their network in areas that already had FiOS franchises but were not deploying to new areas, which included the cities of Baltimore and Boston, who had not yet secured Availability in 2008 municipal franchise agreements. This may violate Verizon's agreements with some municipalities and states, since Verizon has collected revenue to deploy infrastructure upgrades that never occurred. In April 2010, Verizon announced that three million people were subscribed to Verizon FiOS. In July 2010, estimates were 3.8 million FiOS Internet subscribers and 3.2 million TV subscribers, with availability to 15 million homes. In May 2013, Verizon announced they had passed 18 million homes with FiOS and 5 million customers. As of September 2013, Verizon FiOS has availability in 16 states. Many of the areas where Verizon FiOS has service are concentrated in the New England, Mid Atlantic, and Pacific regions, as well as Texas, Indiana, and Florida.[4] Verizon FiOS begins its installation in affluent areas and spreads to lower income areas. Technical details As described in 2007, Verizon FiOS services are delivered over a fiber-to-the-premises network using passive optical network technology. Voice, video, and data travel over three wavelengths in the infrared spectrum. To serve a home, a single-mode optical fiber extends from an optical line terminal at a FiOS central office out to the neighborhoods where a passive optical splitter fans out the same signal on up to 32 fibers, thus serving up to 32 subscribers. At the subscriber's home, an Optical Network Terminal (ONT) transfers data onto the corresponding in-home copper wiring for phone, video and Internet access. Older FiOS installations mount the ONT inside the house and use Category 5 cable for data and coaxial cable for video, while newer markets mount the ONT outside the house and use Multimedia over Coax Alliance (MoCA) protocol for both data and video over a single coaxial cable. Voice service is carried over the existing telephone wires FiOS ONT installed in Montclair, New Jersey, already in the house. with Ethernet (left) and telephone (right) connections One of the three wavelength bands is devoted to carrying television channels using standard QAM cable television technology. The other two wavelengths are devoted to all other data, one for outbound and the other for inbound data. This includes video on demand, telephone and Internet data. This allocation of wavelengths adheres to the ITU-T G.983 standard, also known as an ATM passive optical network (APON). Verizon initially installed slower BPONs but now only installs GPONs specified in the ITU-T G.984 standard. These bands and speeds are: Verizon FiOS 3 • 1310 nm wavelength for upstream data at 155 Mbit/s (1.2 Gbit/s with GPON) • 1490 nm wavelength for downstream data at 622 Mbit/s (2.4 Gbit/s with GPON) • 1550 nm wavelength for QAM cable television with 870 MHz of bandwidth The set top box (STB) receives IR code and channel subscription information through the out-of-band (OOB) channel just as other coax or RF-based STB's do. However, guide data, cover art, widgets and other data are sent via IP over the data channels. All upstream OOB requests (or responses) are sent via IP over the data channels. All non-OOB data transactions to or from STB's are carried over the MoCA channels. The MoCA channel is also used to carry out inter-STB transactions (multi-room DVR, synchronization, etc.). FiOS is also compatible with CableCard technology allowing FiOS TV subscribers to receive encrypted and premium cable channels on CableCard capable devices. Television Verizon's broadcast video service is not IPTV (Internet Protocol television), unlike AT&T's U-verse product and CenturyLink's Prism product. However, video on demand content and interactive features, such as widgets and programming guide data, are delivered using IPTV-based technology. The majority of content is provided over a standard broadcast video signal that carries digital QAM content up to 870 MHz. This broadcast content originates from a Super Head-End, which sends the signal to a Video Hub Office for distribution to FiOS TV customers. From the Optical Network Terminal (ONT) at the subscriber premise, the RF video is delivered with a coaxial connection to typically a FiOS set-top box that handles both RF and IPTV video. Interactive services such as VOD and widgets are delivered by IP and are only accessible through use of a FiOS set-top box and a Verizon-supplied router. The router supports multimedia (MOCA) and provides the set-top boxes with programming guides and all SD channels, but high definition content (beyond local HD channels which are in clear QAM) requires HD equipment like a FiOS HD set-top box/DVR or a CableCARD-supporting device, such as TiVo. In 2008, Verizon ceased carrying analog television signals in parallel with digital channels, meaning televisions without a QAM tuner or a set-top digital adapter received no signal. In early January 2013, Motorola and Verizon teamed up to develop a new Media Server platform named the Motorola Medios+, to help expand the functionality of the conventional set-top box offered by Verizon FiOS. This device is set up to connect to a single TV in one's household for the purpose of recording TV shows or movies. The new FiOS Media Server has the capacity to link to up to four other set-top boxes for the purpose of streaming recorded media to the other boxes. This feature introduces the potential to record a show and watch it on any other TV in one's home. The new FiOS Media server can also record up to six TV shows at the same time. This device also has one terabyte of internal storage which equates to 100 hours of HD content. This device also has the ability to use widgets, including a YouTube widget to help bring internet content to a viewer's TV. FiOS TV service tiers include: Select HD, Prime HD, Extreme HD, Ultimate HD, with La Conexión (a Spanish language-oriented plan) and broadcast and local access channels only. Additional subscription packages are available, including sports packages, pay-per-view channels, and video on demand content. In the summer of 2013, Verizon began 'gating' On Demand content, blocking what was previously 'free' On Demand content to anyone not subscribed to the regular programming. As a result, anyone not signed up for the Extreme HD or Ultimate HD packages lost Free Movies content that was previously accessible.[citation needed] On September 20, 2013 Verizon FiOS TV subscribers gained the ability to watch several channels over the internet on their mobile devices. Previously FiOS only offered an iPad app that streamed 75 channels of television, but only on a user's home wireless network.