Verizon Fios

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It's Magic :cool:.

The electronics box has parts to convert the light signal to what looks like POTS as well as "cable TV' and ethernet (for Internet). I say "looks like POTS" since it required local power. IIRC they have about 2-4 hours of internal battery, then byebye phone service.
 
zbang said:
It's Magic :cool:.

The electronics box has parts to convert the light signal to what looks like POTS as well as "cable TV' and ethernet (for Internet). I say "looks like POTS" since it required local power. IIRC they have about 2-4 hours of internal battery, then byebye phone service.
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Yep, magic. I have clients that were sold the POTS line on fios. Good luck with FACP's on those, won't work half the time and will cause you headaches. And it will be your fault in the eyes of the customer.

(oh did that sound bitter? Stupid fios salesmen)
 
Pots lline

Pots lline

Steviechia2 said:
nhfire77 said:
Yep, magic. I have clients that were sold the POTS line

Okay whats a pots line?
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Plain Old Telephone Service.

The reason that alarm systems, fax machines, modems, etc. don't work well with FIOS is because they are using VOIP as the transport means. IP doesn't carry analog data signals well, if at all. Of course, these service providers never tell this to the customer until they find it out the hard way.
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It may sound like magic, but it is not. At your home or business the Telco will install a fiber modem. In that modem it has basically 3 decoders to decode the 3 services available: POTS, CATV, and Internet.

Depending on the model, the modem will 2 or more jacks for telephone lines in the event you want more than 1 telephone number/line, and output for Ethernet and CATV. I have it at my home, and once you get it you will never go back to copper telephone or conventional coax CATV. I get internet speeds of 30/Mbs which just 10 years ago would have cost you several thousands dollars per month to have.
 
EV607797 said:
You aren't having trouble with modem or fax transmission? I know that not everyone still uses modems or has a fax machine at their home, but that seems to be where the dark side of FiOS appears.
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We have sent faxes, I really don't have any other POTs modems at the house.
 
EV607797 said:
You aren't having trouble with modem or fax transmission? I know that not everyone still uses modems or has a fax machine at their home, but that seems to be where the dark side of FiOS appears.
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Faxes are like 90% success for me on FIOS. Alarm panel communication, thats more like 30% success, we still have pots lines for that.
 
I use Comcast Digital Voice for my business fax line and never have problems.

The days of POTS are numbered. The telcos have less copper running directly from the CO everyday. Even if you don't subscribe to digital services there is a good chance your service will come from a fiber fed remote terminal, VRAD etc. Alarm panels need to move away from the analog phone connections. They need to use hardwired internet connections or cellular connections.
 
stevebea said:
Wikipedia says Verizon offers POTS as well as VoIP over FiOS.
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They offer the functional equivalent of POTS, but it is not nearly the same as a true copper phone line. Functions such as loop supervision, etc. are not provided, not to mention that many central office functions such as line hunting are not offered. For a typical single-line residential application, it will work OK. Other than that, it is hit or miss at best.
 
Alarm Reliability

Alarm Reliability

Verizon offers POTS emulation over FIOS, but says you will get up to 8 hours of operation in the event of a power failure. After that, don't have a fire. We're probably going to be marking customer inspections with "Partially Operational" when we can determine that the fire alarm panel is hooked up to other than a genuine POTS line. Unless there is line supervision and 24 hours of power, we could be left holding the bag if there was a failure to communicate in the event of a fire.
 
EV607797 said:
They offer the functional equivalent of POTS, but it is not nearly the same as a true copper phone line. Functions such as loop supervision, etc. are not provided, not to mention that many central office functions such as line hunting are not offered. For a typical single-line residential application, it will work OK. Other than that, it is hit or miss at best.
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Well not so sure about that. Very few businesses use POTS line anymore, well a small business does, but most now days use a PBX with T1 digital circuits from the CO. They have for several decades now. T1 (aka DS1), DS3 and all digital formats is a marriage made in heaven with fiber. It is how all the USA communication infrastructure is transported on, even your cell phone.

Oh speaking of digital cell phones, even those are antiquated now being replaced by 4G which is a pure 1000/100/mbs IP protocol with VOIP. Verizon and ATT are in a race to build it out. Every radio tower requires either fiber, or Ethernet Microwave radio. It is boom time again. Buy ALU stock as they make all the equipment for the carriers.
 
EV607797 said:
You aren't having trouble with modem or fax transmission?
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I know you did not ask me, but my 2-cents worth are:

I had a conventional FAX when I first got FIOS, and I never had a problem with it working out of my home office. Anyway got rid of that old antique, and replaced it with a scanner/copier/Fax that works over IP directly connected to my router. I can be at my office and print or fax to my home like I was there.
 
Ah, so that's why you can't send a fax over FiOS!

I'd think you'd want a real POTS line (copper) as a backup for your alarm, in any case, for the whiz-bang fiber link. I always recommend my customers have at least one copper line as a backup, if they send their all their voice over data.
 
FiOS voice service (POTS) is not VoIP, (it's a separate optical carrier) neither is cable company telephone. It's packetized digital yes, but only SIP or services like Vonage are VoIP and you will know that because they use the ethernet broadband port just like data.

As to fax not working, I can remember when FiOS was first introduced several years ago Verizon would always keep it on the old copper POTS, not a FiOS line. So they knew that there were problems.

-Hal
 
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