Versizon FIOS vs. Cable

They dug a big hole in my yard the summer before last and did a half assed job cleaning up, go figure they mucked up the one part of the yard I'd managed to get pretty nice looking. I'd meant to call and complain but I misplaced the number and then after a while it'd been so long.

When I say they cleaned up pretty well, first, they messed up a tiny piece of land that I own, but it's outside my fence, and I've temporarily disowned it, so I don't care that much what it looks like.

I'm in a townhouse and the first guy in the next building seems to find it very important to tend to this tiny piece of land, so even though I plan to fix things as soon as it rains again and the ground is malleable, he'll probably beat me to it.

By most people's standards, there is much to do.

If you are inclined to email me for some reason, remove NOPSAM :-)

Or will FIOS be like satellite, which I gather has to use its own box, since none of the instructions for digital DVD-recorders and televisions refer to connecting the satellite lead directly to the recorder or tv?

But the dvd-recorder manuals do refer to setting the channels for an antenna or cable.

If you are inclined to email me for some reason, remove NOPSAM :-)

I don't have cable and don't plan to get FIOS. I get 23 HDTV channels in my area; that's more than enough.

Al

I realized there was a phone number on this card. I was reluctant to call him because I thought even he would not know the answer as well as you guys, or he'd have a tendency not to give the full story.

(A guy came to my door last summer selling cable and he low-balled the price to me, claiming that I could get basic cable, with Nickelodian etc. for the price that was really poor man's cable, only the broadcast stations and one or two community service channels.)

But I called the FIOS guy. He said, No, with FIOS you have to have a settop box. He said they don't advertise it but if you use TIVO they have cards available that you can plug into that box. I said I didn't want TIVO.

He said there had to be a set-top-box becuase all but 13? of the stations were digital. I said again that I was planning to have a digital DVD reocrder, with a digital tuner, (and a digital tv (eventually) with a digital tuner, but recording was the issue.)

He finally said that there would be a set-top box that records, but it would be a rental and he didn't know the price. And wouldn't know the price until FIOS was available in my n'hood. That sounds like they have more than one price, or FIOS isn't running anywhere yet. Even so, it woudl be strange. They have managed to have a price for phone/net/tv for about 100/month, and for just FIOS tv, 48/month (plus a 25 more for HBO and movies, down to 8 for sports or karaoke), and for just broadcast, community and educational for 13/month. (plus taxes I'm sure for any of them) How long does it take to price the enhanced set top box? After more hunting, I found a page for it on their website, but no price. And they have a multi-room DVR too but no price. (I don't think either will record to a DVD.)

He said he woudl call me back when he knew. I said if it's easier you can just email me. He had my phone number and I gave him an email address after getting him to say he won't give it to anyone. (He probably stores it in his verizon laptop and they probably just suck it out without his doing anything.)

I'm sure the settop box features won't be nearly as good as a retail DVDR, but Verizon should have a chance to say what they have.

So the guy didn't know a lot of things, but he did know that it requires a set-top box, unlike cable which only requires something to be cable-ready.

I don't have cable and don't want to get FIOS. I have 13 channels in my area -- don't know or care if they are HD or not -- and that's not nearly enough. Anymore. It used to be that 3 channels were enough, there was usually two things on that were worth watching any time after 5PM. But now all the shows are gruesome**, irreality, fantasy***, or smutty****.

Didn't plan a rant, but wrote this anyhow:

**CSI, 3 versions a week; NCIS; Criminal Minds; a couple other autopsy shows; sometimes Law & Order. Bad for me, worse for children.

***Numbers, which just rattles off nonsense as if it meant something, Medium, all but the first 1 or 2 seasons of Lost.

****Some shows are downright smutty and wouldn't have been allowed on tv years ago. Both in language and because the characters sleep around, and because they make clear that single people are sleeping with each other. I especially hate when they have one character expressing outrage or annoyance at that stuff, because he's just a pretense. The first few year of MASH had a lot of sexual jokes but a) they were in the context of a funny show, b) not every joke was a sexual one. Current shows are like comedy clug and nightclub routines where -- at least it used to be -- all the comic had to do was say a dirty word and everyone laughed.

It's not like I haven't heard all these words, and don't know about all these things. I've even done some of them. And I've attended an autopsy, too, although I decided one was enough and on another occasion years later, left before it started.

BTW, the King of Queens is an excellent show, and though there might be a bit more sex sometimes than in MASH, it's in the context of a funny show.

Well, if anyone is still reading, thanks for letting me get this off my chest.

If you are inclined to email me for some reason, remove NOPSAM :-)

What I have been told by people who work with the technology, is that FIOS carries the television signals by modulating a wideband RF signal onto an infrared optical carrier. The wideband RF signal is (to a very close approximation) just a multi-channel cable-TV signal - it carries multiple channels of analog and digital television with the same frequencies and modulation schemes that you would see on a typical cable-TV coax.

At the home, the IR signal on the fiber is simply demodulated down to RF, and can be distributed throughout the home on standard 75-ohm coax.

Hence, standard televisions, VCRs, DVRs, and other set-top boxes can be used. At the head end, standard cable-TV-plant modulators and combiners can be used - it's all off-the-shelf cable stuff up to the point where the RF signal is modulated onto an optical carrier.

The Wikipedia article at

seems to concur with what I've been told by cable-aware engineers.

--
Dave Platt                                    AE6EO
Friends of Jade Warrior home page:  http://www.radagast.org/jade-warrior
  I do _not_ wish to receive unsolicited commercial email, and I will
     boycott any company which has the gall to send me such ads!