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Verizon: FiOS Access For Other ISPs in the Works 132

Posted by timothy from the fiber-to-the-premises-win-the-argument dept.
Ant writes "According to Broadband Reports' story, 'Verizon has confirmed the claim made by a DSLExtreme representative here last week that the company has plans to offer other ISPs access to its new fiber-to-the-premises network.' A Verizon spokeswoman is quoted as saying, 'A couple of deals have already been signed and more are in the works.'"
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Verizon: FiOS Access For Other ISPs in the Works More

Verizon: FiOS Access For Other ISPs in the Works

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  • The two ISPs (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    AOL and MSN.

    • Re:The two ISPs (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Not so...I work for a local ISP here in Tampa and we're already advertising and selling the service to customers in the areas that qualify.

  • Hmmm... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by elid ( 672471 ) <eli.ipod@g m a il.com> on Sunday March 13, 2005 @08:00PM (#11929106)
    But how long will it be until widespread access becomes available?
    • Yes how long? I live in the NYC area with a verizon building less then a mile away and still I cannt get fiber. Anyone have any idea how long till fiber hits the NYC area?

      • Re:Hmmm... (Score:1, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Anyone have any idea how long till fiber hits the NYC area?

        Hmm, I would say it won't happen until they are unable to squeeze money out of their customers using the existing infrastructure (copper).

  • competition is good (Score:3, Informative)

    by gcnaddict ( 841664 ) on Sunday March 13, 2005 @08:01PM (#11929108)
    this will help other ISPs, and it will keep costs down thanks to competition. thank god

    • This is not competition! (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 13, 2005 @08:17PM (#11929183)
      This, like DSL shared access, is not competition. For example, we sale DSL in Hell$outh and Verizon territories, and they charge us more for just the raw line than they charge customers for the line plus Internet access. We have to charge our customers twice as much as Verizon does just to break even. If it wasn't for our much better customer support, we would have been out of business a long time ago.

      To explain this a different way. For DSL, BellSouth charges end-users $25 for a slow connection. BellSouth charges us $30 for the same speed connection plus we pay about $20,000 per month in overhead for our ATM connection to those customers plus we pay about $15k per month for Internet bandwidth to Sprint. As you can see, BellSouth is abusing their monopoly position. They aren't selling to us just to be nice, and there is no competition.

      • Mod Parent Up! (Re:This is not competition!) (Score:2, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Parent poster is absolutely correct. I worked at another national ISP that no longer offers broadband services because we got burned in the same way. The carriers charged us more per customer than they did their own broadband division, so there was no practical way to compete. It's just a sham.

      • For DSL, BellSouth charges end-users $25 for a slow connection. BellSouth charges us $30 for the same speed connection

        Here's the B.S. in your argument.

        I checked-out their price scheme, because that price sounded rather low. Well, their cheapest connection is $35/mo, not $25. That $25/mo price only happens when you are willing to lock yourself into BellSouth phone service, et al., where they hope to recoup the cost.

        You could do the exact same thing for your users. When your customers sign up for some e

      • Why should Verizon or any other company invest in their product and then sell it to you for less than it cost's to maintain it. Why don't you invest the money for the new product's? Verizon is bringing us a faster more reliable product that they don't choke down like most ISP's.

    • Re:competition is good (Score:5, Informative)

      by jjeffries ( 17675 ) on Sunday March 13, 2005 @09:24PM (#11929483)
      Maybe. Not if it's anything like their wholesale DSL plan, where they sell you, a wholesaling ISP, a port for $30--while they are retailing it for $35! This does not include any backhaul from the Verizon CO, and don't forget about Internet bandwidth charges on top of that--and you'll get to pay Verizon again for carring it back out to your upstream carrier...

      I'm not sure that too many/any other ISPs will be able to make this a workable business model.
    • Others have commented to the point that their pricing makes it hard to compete, but I know nothing of Verizon pricing.

      I do however know that the four big telcoms testified in front of Congress recently [bizjournals.com] and their testimony [house.gov] might be of interest in this discussion. I watched it on C-SPAN and liked what I heard for the most part.

      Their testimony basically told us that their mergers aren't going to harm competition. I'm sure a lot is bull, but please listen to the testimony first. It's interesting if you have a

  • Chock one up (Score:1, Flamebait)

    by yuriismaster ( 776296 )
    for economic cooperation. Verizon provides, MSN/AOL provides the 'services', Google provides the searching, etc.

    This is the right way to do things. Verizon would suck as an ISP, as would AOL a network provider. You get all the strong players together, resulting in a solid, enjoyable experience for a modest cost!

  • Nice (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 13, 2005 @08:06PM (#11929127)
    It's always nice to see open networks. They do come at a price, but it's pretty fair to build a business around. I have seen those Verizon Guys in front of my house hooking up the fiber. They told me it will be a couple of months until I can get the net with the fiber, but it's coming. I just hope I can use the upstream to host my web sites. I hate paying for hosts and all that just to have a presence on the web. Unfortunately the residential service my current Cable Modem provider offers doesn't allow any servers being exposed to the public. I mean it's great having an intranet at home, but with all the money I spend they could have at least let me setup a web server and open that up. It's only a personal site so I don't know what the big deal is really. I can see if it was commercial, but man they are rough.

    So when they transfer everyone to digital (10 years or so) then maybe their bandwith will free up. For the future the Verizon solution looks like a good deal they already offer 30mbps down and 5mbps up for a reasonable price.

    • Re:Nice (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Saeed al-Sahaf ( 665390 ) on Sunday March 13, 2005 @08:19PM (#11929198) Homepage
      It's always nice to see open networks.

      What makes you think Verizon is building an "open" network? They have made business deals with a few other ISPs, and mabe more in the future. It's a business deal with the purpose of generating income for Verizon, and it is at Verizon's whim (as it should be) as to who they make these business deals with.

      It is not an open network>

      • Re:Nice (Score:3, Insightful)

        by That's Unpossible! ( 722232 ) *
        It is not an open network

        It is not open or closed. It is a network that Verizon is building, and in the sense that they are letting other businesses provide service over it for a fee, it is open, and in the sense that they aren't letting businesses provide service over it for free, it is closed.

        But I think everyone knew what he meant by "open."

    • Re:Nice (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Unfortunately the residential service my current Cable Modem provider offers doesn't allow any servers being exposed to the public.

      The can't block every port. Run your web server on a port other than 80, then get a free no-ip address to redirect. Thats what I do :)
      • They can't block every port, but they CAN terminate your service for violating the TOS. Most small web/mail/etc servers are under the radar, but if you start generating a lot of traffic, I wouldn't be surprised to see them shut down the connection.

    • Re:Nice (Score:1, Insightful)

      by wdd1040 ( 640641 )
      dude...

      I pay $10 a YEAR for webhosting on a 100meg connection.

      2.4gig space with 120 GIG a month bandwidth.

      You just need to look around. There is no reason to run the sites out of your house anymore.

      • Re:Nice (Score:3, Interesting)

        by rekenner ( 849871 )
        But the point is, why pay that $120 a month when you can have as much space as you want and many many times that in bandwidth (If you were running at the theoretical max of 2 MBps per second (250 KBps max theoretical, probably ending up at around 200 KBps), I get ~5184 Gb a month, or 648 GB a month (Note, please don't be vague on bit or byte))?

        How often do you think that 100 meg (bit, probably) connection is going to be maxed out? Likely never.

        With the sort of connection mentioned in grandparent, the

        • Re:Nice (Score:5, Interesting)

          by CyberDave ( 79582 ) <(moc.oohay) (ta) (redrocevad)> on Sunday March 13, 2005 @11:29PM (#11930035)

          How often do you think that 100 meg (bit, probably) connection is going to be maxed out? Likely never.

          Hahahaha. Verizon isn't planning on just serving up high-speed Internet with their Fiber-to-the-whatever rollouts.

          They're also planning on things like television and video-on-demand. At 4-6 Mbps (IIRC) per channel, you'll use up that network capacity very quickly. (I won't go into the details of how you multicast that much data to the set-top boxes.)

          I saw a presentation recently on passive optical networks, which IIRC is what Verizon is using for their rollout (or it might be another RBOC, I can't quite remember at the moment, and my notes from the presentatio aren't handy). For a gigabit PON, you've got one gigabit per second available, total, for all subscribers connected to that passive network (anywhere from 2 to 64, depending on the number of optical splitters installed). In addition, you have very limited upstream bandwidth.

          I'd much rather see Verizon and the other RBOCs deliver Gig-E straight to my home using active optical networks--Fiber to the home, not fiber to the premises or fiber to the curb. Something like what Provo, UT, is doing with their iProvo project http://www.iprovo.net/ [iprovo.net]. I saw a presentation from World Wide Packets (the equipment vendor) on that a couple weeks ago, and it's very impressive. Almost makes me want to move to Provo.

          • Wrong 100 meg reference.
            I was refering to his web host.
            So, while all that you posted might be right, it doesn't really affect what I was going off of.
            • Damnit.
              His, as in the person who posted about his web host.
              Not his, as in the guy who wants to run a server off of FttP.
  • If they don't, then people will just implement other technologies that allow them to make an end run around verizon. That may yet happen, especially if verizon is as helpful to the ISPs who buy into this as SBC is to the other companies selling DSL on SBC copper, or for that matter to the ISPs selling dialup lines using SBC's modems.

  • FiOS (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 13, 2005 @08:07PM (#11929136)
    FiOS is available in my area, for a cheap $44.95 (15mbps down/2mbps up) with an "approved" calling plan (49.95 otherwise)... I currently have 4mbps down/512kbps up with my cable co (cox). I was wondering if anyone in the Washington DC area has tried out this service. I would much prefer the FiOS if the installation is rather painless. The phone wiring _sucks_ in my house, the current phone wires are shorted out, and I have to connect my phone through a window. Do they do a full internal installation, or do they only go directly to the house, and we have to take care of the internals?

    Also, is it possible to retain my email address with my former ISP (cox) for a small fee? I can't seem to find any info on cox's webpages about such a thing (which is to be expected; they don't want us to switch!)

    But the promise of 15mbps, which is nearly 4x what I get now; and the major thing, 2mbps up, is really, really enticing. AND it would end up costing _less_ than what I pay for cable right now!

    • Re:FiOS (Score:5, Funny)

      by LokieLizzy ( 858962 ) on Sunday March 13, 2005 @08:19PM (#11929197)
      But the promise of 15mbps, which is nearly 4x what I get now; and the major thing, 2mbps up, is really, really enticing.

      Why would you need 2mbps up, and 15mbps down? You wouldn't be sharing copywrighted music, would you?

      Signed,

      Your friendly neighborhood

      RIAA Agent.

      • Re:FiOS (Score:1, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Why would you need 2mbps up, and 15mbps down?

        Silly friendly neighbourhood RIAA Agent, I need 15mpbs down for porn!

      • Yeah, My iroffer bot is seriously limited by cable's wack upstream. um for sharing linux ISOs. and stuff.

    • Re:FiOS (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 13, 2005 @08:25PM (#11929224)
      I am an engineer for Verizon designing part of this large fiber network. They are putting it up in places people can afford it and places where population density permits. It costs a whole lot of money to put this stuff up. It also goes very slow as the splicing of fiber optic cables is very time consuming and has to be perfect or the loss in the cable will render the cable useless. You will be able to get HDTV, phone, and a retardedly fast internet connection all on one bill. Fairly cheap I think. You can actually get a faster upload then 2mbps I think, but I am not totally sure. Either way you get a T-1 for way less than the business cost.

      • Re:FiOS (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Skapare ( 16644 )

        Then maybe you can answer the question I have beeing trying to get answered (and no one knows). Will getting FiOS via another ISP mean the other ISP is just re-selling Verizon IP layer service (e.g. I get a Verizon IP address) or will this literally go through the other ISP network and I get the other ISP's IP address (or multiple addresses as the case may be)?

          1. Then maybe you can answer the question I have beeing trying to get answered (and no one knows). Will getting FiOS via another ISP mean the other ISP is just re-selling Verizon IP layer service (e.g. I get a Verizon IP address) or will this literally go through the other ISP network and I get the other ISP's IP address (or multiple addresses as the case may be)?

          If it's like DSL, you'd get an IP from the ISP not Verizon. As the ISP likely rents the line and has colocated equipment at a CO, I don't see th

        1. I am an engineer for Verizon designing part of this large fiber network.

        I don't believe it. The numbers you quote don't pass the sniff test.

      • WTF is 'a retardedly fast internet connection'. I mean, I sure don't want what it SOUNDS like (damn fast, but unusably flawed).

        I can't tell if this is an unintentional oxymoron or of there's some cool/hot bad/good jargon in use.

    • Re:FiOS (Score:5, Informative)

      by jrmann1999 ( 217632 ) <jrmann1999&gmail,com> on Sunday March 13, 2005 @08:42PM (#11929302)
      The install is basically an external box that separates the fiber, they drill a hole to the nearest power outlet for the battery backup, and run Cat5 + Cat3 to a single drop anywhere in the house. Then they give you the crappiest D-Link wired router possible.
    • Hey Also in the DC Area, just wondering where you're at and how you found out availability. Their site has been saying coming soon for me since forever :(. Also to the other people out here that have it... do they block port 80/25?

    • You wouldn't have to worry about retaining your email address if you had your own domain name or used a freemail service. With a domain, you are in control over where it is hosted. If you're using someone else's domain, they are in control.

    • See this forum [broadbandreports.com] to learn about installation and posting questions like this.
    • Dude, you're surrounded by geeks so start acting like one. If your wiring sucks, and it's just phone wiring, REWIRE IT. It's not that hard and phones are nearly the simplest thing you can do (next to CATV). I can explain to anyone with a drill and some cabling how to wire a place up in a few short lessons.

      I ran cable for Comcast/AT&T for 9 months. It's not nearly as difficult as you would think.
    • The real problem with Verizon's "push" for FTTP
      (Fiber To The Premesis) is that this will only
      be done in areas with very high density occupancy.
      Every other locality, including suburbs and more
      "rural" areas will suffer the same way that they
      have suffered since the breakup of Ma Bell. No
      modern day telcos have the financial incentive, or
      the government regulatory oversight, to furnish
      such services equitably.

      I live in a metropolitan suburb where all wiring
      is underground, and has been for 35 years. 35-
      year old
    • With most fiber installs on homes, you get voice and data services (data split between Internet and TV). The box they install on your home essentially splits up the voice and data. It also includes a small UPS to keep your dialtone going in the event of a power outage.

      Your internal wiring doesn't really matter. It's cat5 to the NID they install - high speed all the way... err until it hits the first hop everyone else is using.

  • solution for old school ISPs? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by dirvish ( 574948 ) <dirvish&foundnews,com> on Sunday March 13, 2005 @08:08PM (#11929145) Homepage Journal
    I could see major ISPs like AOL and Earthlink latching on to this as their dial-up customer numbers dwindle. They have no connectivity to compete with cable and DSL, so something like this could keep them alive.
    • Yay! Now we can send Instant Messages at blazing speeds! (If you think I'm serious you deserve to be hurt)
    • Over here in the UK AOHell are reselling NTL cable, even with the same modems. They resell BT aDSL as well.

      They do their own Dialups.

      Why on Earth would anyone use them?
    • I'm not sure what you mean.

      In these parts, both AOL and Earthlink are available over the cable TV coax. And Earthlink, at least, also offers DSL here. Competition? By your definition, they've been playing for the opponents for years...

      Meanwhile, that same coaxial network was recently boosted to 5Mbps for, it seems, all connected residential subscribers for all connected services. And, to top it off, I do actually get that speed out of it consistant basis - in other words, it actually works. Today. R
    • One reason that Time Warner cable (and various other cable companies) loved to work with Earthlink even though ELNK did nothing but slap their names on the bill (yes... an Earthlink cable install is a Timewarner/Comcast rep coming out to the install and repairs), is that they provide the email accounts and advertising. Earthlink's email network is one hellava setup and takes the stress and upkeep issues that are normally supplied by the network provider.

      Trust me. Email servers are lords of pain when workin

  • Heck yea! (Score:5, Funny)

    by episodic ( 791532 ) on Sunday March 13, 2005 @08:12PM (#11929158) Homepage Journal
    Now slashdot will render in a tenth of a second rather than an eighth of a second like it does now! It is indeed a great day.

  • Can't wait... (Score:1, Informative)

    by webcrawler ( 765242 )
    I am forced to use Verizon DSL because the apartment management provides their own cable TV via satellite. Even though cable services (from Cox) are available all around within a 100 feet or so. My dsl modem shows the bandwidth at 860kbps down, 140 kbps up. I am looking forward to FIOS.
  • Given that I did RTFA, and that it is exactly the same as the post...

    Who are they negoating with, and when will my DSLExtreme connection become blazingly faster?

    Does anyone here have this service that wants to share their experance?

  • I hope this is true... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by alispguru ( 72689 ) <bob.bane@me.PLANCKcom minus physicist> on Sunday March 13, 2005 @09:04PM (#11929388) Journal
    ... and Verizon prices it rationally for third-parties to use. Right now I get ISP services from two places:

    Comcast ($65/month for basic TV + Internet)

    zzapp.org [zzapp.org] ($13/month for backup dialup and email)

    Comcast broadband is OK - fast downloads, pokey uploads and semi-annual short outages. I would drop it like a rock, though, if I could get broadband from anyone else, especially a cool local ISP like zzapp.

    If Verizon fiber has reliability near to my wired phone, I'd consider dumping the land line and going with VOIP.

  • I smell desperation... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Spoing ( 152917 ) on Sunday March 13, 2005 @09:50PM (#11929598) Homepage
    Follow this through with me...tell me what you think. Point by point; refute or agree with individual points as you see fit.

    1. People will go for good enough over better for convienience and/or price reasons.
    2. Fiber to the premises is an attempt at better...yet...
    3. The bells are institutions.
    4. Institutions are lothe to change and will fight it tooth and nail; institutions, once established, are primarily interested in perpetuating themselves.
    5. Current bell company DSL offerings fit this pattern;
      1. They really aren't trying to canabalize what they offer businesses (excessively expensive T1 lines with QOS while much cheaper lines with poor QOS...running over much of the same hardware).
      2. The bells also fight sharing the line with anyone, and do not offer even 1/2 of the same speed connection when DSL is provisioned by some other group.
    6. Network speeds are (roughly); [answers.com]

      1. Wired connections;
      2. 56K modem - (5.33 kB/s)
      3. DS1/T1 - 192.5 kB/s
      4. 10BT - 1.25 MB/s
      5. 100BT - 12.5 MB/s
      6. 1000BT - 125 MB/s (half duplex)
      7. 1000BT - 250 MB/s (full duplex)
      8. Fiber - 100-200 MB/s

        Wireless connections;

      9. Bluetooth 1.1 - 125 kB/s
      10. 802.11b - 1.375 MB/s
      11. Bluetooth 2 - 2 to 12 MB/s
      12. 802.11g/a - 6.75 MB/s
      13. 802.16a - 70 MB/s (30 mile range; licenced and unlicenced)

        CO/WAN connections;

      14. OC48 - 306 MB/s (reasonable multi-site corporate use)
      15. OC192 - 1.250 GB/s
    7. Look at #12 above: With WiMax (802.16a) hubs scattered around, why bother with a wired (or fiber) distribution system for anything?
    8. Tie that in with cheap VOIP "cell" phones...and there will be panic in both the cell and POTS providers.

    T1 was fine for many corporations 10 years ago. Many still use T1 lines...while wireless hubs are sprouting up either formally or informally. Driving around right now, it's trivial to get a wireless connection in many areas.

    Say you are a co-operative group like Seattle Wireless [seattlewireless.com], and you get some WiMax (or other equipment), why not just disconnect mostly or entirely from POTS and go peer to peer? Maybe you'll be able to offer the service for $10/month...after all, they are doing it now at lower speeds.

    If you were a bell executive, what would you do? What would you do to keep your stock from tanking when WiMax (or any other tech) eats your customer base?

    • http://ftthblog.blogs.com/ftth_blog/

      I also thought 100meg for FTTH was correct but not from that link.

      Try 1 gigabit.

      Good post dude. You owe me money!

    • WiMax (Score:3, Interesting)

      by ImaLamer ( 260199 )
      Verizon and SBC are ready to get into the wireless game.

      I already pointed out that SBC, AT&T, Sprint/Verizon and MCI testified in front of Congress [slashdot.org].

      Well, they mentioned the reason for the bigger mergers is so that the telcoms don't die. They want to have hands in every market, as they should to stay alive. The mergers give companies like MCI the wireless technology and it's implemented network and MCI gives up it's wired network (huge).

      They touched on WiMax, but they hinted that once the cell towers
        1. Sprint's CEO mentioned a few highspeed trials already, along with FiOS so I assume we are talking comprable speeds. Listen to the testimony to get an insight into their plans I'd say. They are really looking at it from a perspective that they should offer what makes the most economic sense on an individual basis. Wireless in sparse areas, mixed networks in high density areas and fiber in the suburbs (for example).

        Very interesting. Thanks!

        I'd like to see how Seattle Wireless and other minimialist grou

  • I heard about this two months ago (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Guy from verizon came to my house and we had some chitchat, I was bringing up how I cant seem to get broadband, and he brought up fios, and mostly the reason verizon is doing this is because of cost.
    Fibre is cheaper to run and maintain in the long run compared to copper. Mostly due to copper's physical limits, it's limited on speed and distance, and eventually has interference.
    fibre has insane speeds, you need less repeaters on the grid, and you can run more cable longer without signal loss, and zero interf

  • Verizon redefines an ISP (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    If you look at the reply to comment 04-440 on the FCC web site this is Verizon's definition of an ISP [24]:

    "With broadband, the role of the ISPs is primarily one of supplying content and applications, not in providing facilities-based Internet access services. This means that the major providers of broadband access services, including local telephone companies, have strong business incentives to provide consumers access to ISPs or other content providers..."

    So Verizon has redefined ISPs as content provie
    • That was taken from a posting to the isp-clec mailing list. The Slashdot audience doesn't know the whole context, so let me add to it here.

      The Verizon Telephone Companies are legally "common carriers", which means in this case that they are obligated to provide service to any willing customer. They cannot turn down a customer because they see it as a competitor, for instance. Verizon Online, an unregulated ISP, is a customer of the Verizon Telephone Companies. This two-company relationship allows other
    • I have run a successful dialup ISP Directory since 1998, and I tend to agree with this understanding of ISP. It isn't 1995 any more.

      1) Few ISPs any longer provide Usenet access - and usenet is in steep decline
      2) Blogs are largely taking over the functions people used to do with personal web sites (Here is a picture of my cat, and what I had at Starbucks today)
      3) Few ISPs run IRC servers any more
      4) Modem pool management, DNS and network transport have been outsourced to companies like Level(3) and/or agg
  • I wish Verizon would concentrate more on rolling out the FiOS than selling access to their network.
  • I hope that Verizon decides to start kicking the spammers off their network [spamhaus.org], because I shudder to think what one of them could do with that sort of bandwidth. That's not the only problem, either. I can only imagine the fun kiddies will have with armies of cracked computers [cnn.com] on Fios connections. Verizon certainly doesn't care [dshield.org]. Perhaps the damaged caused by drone armies on higher speed connections will result in enough backlash to make Verizon become part of the solution for a change...

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