Fios. Was: Re: Comcast Alternatives? Was Re: Why must Comcast's DNS suck?

Fred puissante at lrc.puissante.com
Tue Nov 14 14:26:37 EST 2006


On Tuesday 14 November 2006 11:25, kenta uttered thusly:

> I'd love to try Verzion's FiOS but they're not offering it in my part of
> Nashua. :( If anyone here has it, how is it?  I'm also not sure how any
> local DSL providers are stacking up these days.  Feedback is appreciated.
>
> -Kenta
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> gnhlug-discuss mailing list
> gnhlug-discuss at mail.gnhlug.org
> http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/

I've been using Fios for quite some time now, and if you search the archives 
I did a write-up on them shortly after the install. 

Well, it's been quite a few months, and the service has been nice and fast. 
Not one outage that I can recall. Just friggin there, reliable, and 
invisible.

There are a couple of caveats -- as there always are -- with it, though. For 
me, who likes to keep ssh sessions open all the time, Fios tends to drop 
inactive TCP/IP connections after a time (a few minutes). Got around this 
problem with enabling keepalive in ssh.

Another caveat with Fios, if you get their dynamic IP offering, is that 
dynamic means dynamic. Every so often Fios will shift the IP, open 
connections or not. Generally about once or twice a month. If your router 
(there is no "modem") gets turned off, you will always have a different IP 
when it is turned back on. 

The dynamic IP problem was an issue for me since I do development "on the 
road", as it were, but got around this problem by writing a couple of 
scripts to update my name servers with the IP periodically. If you don't 
have your own name servers, you can always use something like DynDNS, I 
suppose. 

But compared to Crumcast, it's reliable, and much cheaper -- something on the 
order of $35 per month for their 2Mbit/5Mbit bandwidth -- their lowest 
offering. For modest increases you can get higher down bandwidth, but they 
are stingy on their up bandwidth, keeping you to 2Mbit for most offerings. 
Also, the bandwidth with Fios stays consistent -- I've not seen slowdowns 
like I have with Comcast. 

Overall, I am happy with Verzion and what they've done. Which is saying a lot 
since I dealt with them back in 2000, where they could barely spell "DSL", 
let alone get it right. Back then, they promised me DSL service, then made 
me wait for months, only to tell me that they "ran out of ports". Sigh. Now, 
they waited on me hand and foot during the installation, including fishing 
wires through walls and the like. And their Customer Service also greatly 
improved, and actually understood my technical questions, which blew me 
away. Usually I have to fight the "is it plugged in" queries, but not this 
time.

Having worked with DSLAMs and the like in the past, when fibre to the last 
mile seemed like a pipe dream, we've come quite a long way. Phew!

-Fred


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