Portland, OR - Frontier

With the announcement of Verizon's FIOS-TV (fiber optic delivered TV) coming to Washington County sometime this year, it seems like a good time to start a thread and watch-list for the service. The information here will be updated as I discover more about the rollout, and links to the relevant articles will be posted at the end.

Coverage areas and progress:


Washington County:

On Feb 8th, The Metro Area Communications Commission voted to approve Verizon's plan to provide TV over their fiber-optic system. They are required to provide the service by the end of 2007 to their customers already wired for fiber-optic service, and complete their build-out to the other areas in four years.

The MACC represents the county and thirteen cities within it. All representatives voted for Verizon's plan except for Gaston and Banks, which Verizon was not planning to serve due to their remote locations. North Plains is also excluded because Verizon does not service that city.

Comcast seemed to take issue with this 'cherry picking' service, claiming that Verizon should not be allowed to only choose affluent communities. Fred Christ of the MACC claimed such practices would not be allowed.

Comcast will now compete head to head with Verizon for cable and internet services in cities such as Tigard, Tualatin, Beaverton and Hillsboro.

Each city must approve the service, however, and those negotiations will occur from now through April.


Multnomah County:

Qwest has announced they plan to provide TV service to their Portland customers beginning sometime in 2008. Verizon has started the regulatory process to provide their Multnomah County customers with TV as well, but there's no word on the timeline (probably 2008).


Other Areas:

Verizon says that service will later be extended to the other areas it serves, including Gresham and Troutdale on the East side, and Lake Oswego, Dundee, and Newberg on the West side.


Cost and Service Information:

Channel plans are considered competitive with Comcast, and generally offerred at lower rates. Here's an excerpt from the linked article below:

"Comcast's "Standard" 73-channel package, its most popular, will cost $50.89 monthly beginning March 1. That's a 7.9 percent increase from last year.

Verizon charges $42.99 a month in other areas, according to the company, for a package with most of the same sports and entertainment networks, but with nearly 100 additional channels."


Do I already have fiber-optic cable in my neighborhood?

To see, go to the Verizon FIOS website (link below) and follow the Get Fios links. To double check to see if fiber has been laid in your neighborhood, you can look around in the front yards of nearby houses for a flat, greenish Verizon lid planted flush with the ground. These boxes may vary, but mine is a rectangle approximately 18 x 12 inches, with the words Verizon and Channel.com on it but no indication of it being a fiber hub. Checking for the box might be a good confirmation, as sometimes the website has trouble keeping up with who has the fiber.

http://www.verizonfios.com/?ref=verizon


Here's the official announcement published in the Oregonian today (Friday, Feb 9th) - link

Here's a link to a longer, but slightly older article about FIOS TV in the Portland area. It was written a few days prior to Washington County's approval of FIOS.

An interesting bit from the article is that Banks and Gaston were going to be excluded anyway since Verizon deemed them too remote. No doubt these cities no votes were connected to that assessment.

Feb 2 Oregonian article

Thanks! I'll keep my eyes open for any news bits that come along.

Yes the fiber is laid right up to your home from a centralizing, flush-to-the-ground box situated (at least in Tigard) every few houses. This fiber installation was free when it first rolled out, but I have heard unsubstantiated reports that some people were charged for the installation later on. I suspect there was something special about their situation.

The fiber takes the place of your copper wiring, so TV, phone and internet will all come over fiber up to your home. One box will be installed on the outside of your house (usually your garage), and another will be exactly opposite it on the inside. Inside the house, internet data will be carried by standard Cat 5, 5e, or 6 ethernet cable (or wireless), while the phone will continue to use the standard phone wiring, and FIOS TV will flow over std coaxial cabling (AFAIK).

This contrasts with Comcast's fiber plan, which will send the fiber to a neighborhood node but rely on coaxial to go the rest of the way.

From what I've heard in other threads, there isn't a limitation on using cable cards or non-Verizon DVR's. I'll check into this though.

To see if you have fiber-optic in the ground, go to the Verizon FIOS website (link below) and follow the Get Fios links. To double check to see if fiber has been laid in your neighborhood, you can look around in the front yards of nearby houses for a flat, greenish Verizon lid planted flush with the ground. These boxes may vary, but mine is a rectangle approximately 18 x 12 inches, with the words Verizon and Channel.com on it but no indication of it being a fiber hub. Checking for the box might be a good confirmation, as sometimes the website has trouble keeping up with who has the fiber.

http://www.verizonfios.com/?ref=verizon

Thanks ZXTT! Good information, especially about that September date.

My own installation was pretty similar to yours. I'd already run ethernet cable from my computer room to the garage location where the inside box would be, so I just hooked that cable to the inside box, and then the other end to the Actiontec router. I then used that router to run my wired ethernet.

Here's a pretty good article (with pictures) that describes one person's installation of FIOS. Note this is the basic fiber and internet installation, and does not deal with TV service. It also is a Massachusetts neighborhood which runs the cable on telephone poles, unlike most neighborhoods out here which run them underground. It also is using an older version of the FIOS ONT, but aside from all that it will give you a rough idea of what to expect.

http://www.bricklin.com/fiosinstall.htm

I have had FIOS Internet since it came online in Tigard this summer, and I've loved every minute of it. Not much else to say about it except that it's rock solid in my experience.

If there are any specific questions, let me know.

Here's a long-running, non-city specific AVS thread that deals with the hardware setup for FIOS TV. I'll try to summarize some of this for the first post later on.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=621323

There shouldn't be any increase in latency. When I first switched to FIOS I insisted on using my old Linksys router, which I thought was up to the task. Instead I kept getting dropped data packets and thus increased latency. When I switched to the Actiontec router Verizon provides the dropped packets disappeared.

Note that speed tests alone may not show a problem. Try the following link to Broadband Forums for a line quality test.

http://www.dslreports.com/linequality

You can also go outside to the ONT box on your garage and open up the customer-accessible portion. There should be a green status light next to the 100mbps listing. If it's not lit, there's a problem.

The speed and the variety of the newsgroups seem fine, but I don't use them enough to be an authority on the matter. Sorry!

Looks like Gaston and Banks are pretty angry about being bypassed, and will continue (with the help of North Plains) to push for fiber extension to their communities. Some interesting facts about the cost of fiber extension.

oregonian article