A bit of reading at Broadband Reports' in the FiOS forum would give a better picture of life in the real Verizon installation world :-) See
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Verizon technically does say all that's been reported about removing your copper and requiring use of their router, but:
- There are many reports that they will leave the original voice copper if you request it. (I don't know if you can use it for 3rd party DSL, VZN probably won't give the wire to them, especially now with the recent FCC decisions [did that mean they didn't have to, period, or they could charge what they wanted?]; you may be able to retain your VZN voice on it in places where FiOS is optional, and then only have Internet on FiOS)
- There are also many reports that you can have the installers use the supplied 'mandatory' router to test/bring up the connection, shut it down, and then use your old router (any router that can do PPPoE), and be fine. You will want to have their router around to plug in, because it has special diagnostics they can access from their end, but there is no special reason to use it, per se. (This is particularly of note for those that want to use Vonage, etc., adapters, and don't want to cascade routers.)
Also, there have been many discussions at BBR about the battery backup, with people not understanding that some COs also only have 8-
12 hours of battery and being all upset that 'the phone will die in 6 hours' or whatever. Me, when I get FiOS (I have no choice, you may recall), I'm going to put a 1500VA APC UPS in back of the VZN backup to run the thing for 24 hours, I hope.(Yes, I have a non-cordless phone to use with it. :-) )
Lee Sweet Datatel, Inc. Manager of Telephony Services and Information Security How higher education does business.
Voice: 703-968-4661 Cell: 703-932-9425 Fax: 703-968-4625 snipped-for-privacy@datatel.com
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