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Archive for the 'fiber optic' Tag

Verizon reveals where FiOS really is in Orange County (Drumroll please…)

April 1st, 2010, 2:30 pm by

This is not an April Fool’s Day joke. After pestering Verizon for months, I finally got more details today about the availability of Verizon’s FiOS TV and Internet service in Orange County. Apparently, 70,000 households and businesses here can order the alternative TV service powered by fiber-optic lines.

The company offered a zipcode breakdown, which doesn’t necessarily mean you can order service if you live in that zip code. Apartment or condo dwellers need permission from the landlords or homeowner associations before FiOS can offer service.

So, where is Verizon FiOS in Orange County? Drumroll please… Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: Internet • Video & TV • • • • • • • • • • • • | 50 Comments »

How to get Google’s new 1 Gbps Internet service to launch in your city

February 10th, 2010, 11:37 am by
YouTube Preview ImageNominate your city for Google’s 1 Gbps Internet service

That Google, always experimenting with cool technologies from the money it makes off investors and its core search-engine service. Today, the company said it would soon begin testing super-fast Internet service of up to 1 gigabits per second.

The 1 Gbps speed is up to 100 times faster than what many consumers get. One gigabit is 1,024 megabits, so compare it with your own service. Most cable and DSL users get about 3 megabits per second for about $20 to $30 a month.

Google plans to build fiber connections right to a customer’s home, which is the same technology Verizon FiOS uses to offer customers Internet download speeds of 50 Mbps and upload speeds of 35 Mbps.

This is no small investment because it requires city permits and digging up the streets to lay fiber-optic cables and all the way up to a customer’s house. But Google has the money, at least to experiment. It said it plans to offer the service “at a competitive price” to at least 50,000 people. Possibly 500,000. Interestingly, in the Google video on right, the company says it plans to share the fiber with other companies who want to also offer fast Internet to residents.

googleinternetAnd Google is asking the public to tell it where to start. It could even be here in Orange County, if you can get your city to make some inquiries.

“As a first step, today we’re putting out a request for information (RFI) to help identify interested communities. We welcome responses from local government, as well as members of the public. ”

Google is asking requests be made by March 26 and offers this page for as a starting point. City and community officials need to answer some questions, but any one can nominate their city on this page.

A faster Internet pipe has more benefits then streaming high-definition videos from the web smoothly. It allows companies, like Verizon, to offer TV service and broadcast HD channels without the need to compress them. It can mean high-definition video calls. Or the ability to back up your computer’s hard drive online within seconds.

Google apparently has been buying unused fiber for years although analysts had suspected the purchases was to connect Google’s own data centers, according to a CBC News report.

Good reading about Google’s gigabit efforts online:


Posted in: Internet • • • • • | 17 Comments »

Would you buy a house because it has Verizon FiOS?

June 30th, 2009, 12:43 pm by

Would you buy a house because it has Verizon FiOS?Nearly 70 percent of 600 people surveyed recently said that yes, their next house better have that speedy fiber-optic based Internet service, such as Verizon FiOS.

And these are people who can’t order FiOS, like most of us in Orange County, even if we dangled a $100 bill in front of a Verizon installer!

When it comes to buying a house, this speedy Internet, which requires a company to connect cables from its facility all the way to a consumer’s front door, was more important than having nearby jogging trails, 24-hour security, a community pool or a neighborhood fitness center, according to report commissioned by the Fiber-to-the-Home Council and conducted by Oklahoma consulting firm RVA Market Research and Consulting. 

Fiber lets companies like Verizon offer its speedy FiOS network of super-fast Internet (up to 50 Mbps downstream, 20 Mbps upstream to upload videos, photos), TV service, phone and pretty much anything else it wants to offer customers at home. Many in Orange County have been salivating for the service, or so it seems.

In reality, though, will people really buy a house because it has FiOS?

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Verizon recently acknowledged that it slowed FiOS expansion plans in Southern California because customers who could order it, weren’t. Said Verizon at the time, “… In order to get the return on our investment we need to focus on areas that we’ve already built.” (Read the earlier story, Verizon’s FiOS TV rollout slows in So Cal.)

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: Video & TV • • • • • • • • • | 8 Comments »

Verizon’s FiOS Internet is going to get a lot faster

June 19th, 2009, 3:23 pm by

Verizon FiOSLooks like rumors of Verizon’s FiOS Internet service speeding up are true. I’ve been told to wait for news next week. A press conference will be held Monday morning with plans to announce the following:

“Verizon will reveal new choices for local programming available on the Verizon FiOS TV Network in the greater New York/New Jersey region. …The company also will discuss several new promotions and compelling broadband developments.”

Okay, so that’s not Orange County, but any movement over in the East could travel this way. And hopefully fast!

The original rumor (spotted on DSL Reports) started on Verizon FiOS’ message boards with an “employee” hinting of an upgrade this weekend:

“I am going to say hold off on you calling the billing office to get a (sic) higher speeds. Call on or after the 21st to upgrade your 10/2 connection and you will go up in speeds. I’ll disperse the info on 6/20″

FIOS Internet As of 6/2009
Speed: Down/Up Price/month
10 Mbps/2 Mbps $45-$50
20 Mbps/5 Mbps $55-$60
20 Mbps/20 Mbps $65-$70
50 Mbps/20Mbps $140-$145

How much faster can FiOS get? Today, Verizon offers download speeds of up to 50 megabits per second, and upload speeds of 20 Mbps.

But as I mentioned last December, the company expected to have the technology ready this year to hit the 100 Mbps mark. However, at the time Verizon said it had no plans to offer that speed in 2009 (See “Verizon FiOS: 100 Mbps Internet? Yes. Next year? Nope.“).

FiOS users can cross their fingers. Or, this could be another speed boost similar to the one announced a year ago this week, when FiOS bumped up customers from 30 Mbps to 50 Mbps, (see the earlier “Speed up your Verizon FiOS Internet for free; just ask“).

Maybe they’ll bump everyone up a notch without raising prices? It’s definitely interesting that Verizon is pursuing this faster fiber-optic-based Internet technology at a time when other Internet providers are pondering limits on unlimited use or at least charging per byte.

For those counting, here’s the top speeds offered by Orange County’s broadband players:

Company Speed Down/Up Price starts at:
AT&T U-verse 18 Mbps/ $65
Cox Cable* 20 Mbps/1.5 Mbps $59.95
Time Warner Cable* 15 Mbps/1-2 Mbps $56.95
Verizon FiOS 50 Mbps/20Mbps $140
*Cox and Time Warner offer “PowerBoost,” which can temporarily increase download speed for large files.

I will report the news as soon as I find out myself.

For those wondering, Verizon FiOS is Verizon’s fiber-optic Internet and TV service. The company is attempting to compete with cable TV companies and received a lot of positive reviews. Consumer complaints have focused around the difficulty of actually getting the service at home. In Orange County, FiOS is available in parts of these cities:  Brea, Cypress, Fountain Valley, Garden Grove, Huntington Beach, La Habra, La Palma, Los Alamitos, Seal Beach, Stanton, Westminster and certain unincorporated areas. I keep an updated list of O.C. cities HERE.

More Verizon FiOS news:


Check out the Gadgetress Guide to local TV services

Posted in: Video & TV • • • • • • | 2 Comments »

AT&T’s TV service adds sharable DVR

September 9th, 2008, 5:06 pm by

AT&T U-verseFor Orange County residents in AT&T U-verse territory, the TV service has unveiled it “Total Home DVR,” which allows up to four TVs in the same house watch the same recorded video or four different recorded shows.AT&T U-verse adds DVR that can record 4 channels simultaneously

I spotted this technology more than a year ago when visiting Cox Communications in Rancho Santa Margarita. Essentially, a home’s main TV is connected to a souped-up DVR that has  four TV tuners (to record four shows simultaneously) and a massive hard drive (to store recorded TV shows). Other TVs in the house are then connected to regular set-top boxes that connect to the main DVR via Internet technology.

This way, any TV in the house can access the recorded TV shows on the main DVR. This comes in handy for people with multiple TVs who, for example, start watching a recorded movie downstairs on the living-room TV but finish watching it upstairs in bed. You can pause the movie downstairs and not miss a frame when you hit play upstairs.

AT&T’s new Total Home DVR records up to 4 channels at the same time

The DVR stores up to 37 hours of high-definition video, or 133 hours of standard definition. And technically, says AT&T,  you can watch up to 5 HD programs at the same time (that’s 2 live HD programs plus 3 recorded HD programs).

It’s free to users, but if you need service for more than one TV, you’ll need to rent additional U-verse TV receivers for $5 a month.

AT&T, if you haven’t figured out by now, began offering TV service in OC last year. Traditionally a telephone company, AT&T is using Internet technology to pipe TV broadcasts into the home. It’s just like its telecom rival Verizon, which uses a completely different technology for its FiOS TV service, which launched in OC last year, too.

When I last asked AT&T where U-verse was in Orange County, the company gave me a list of these cities (or parts thereof): Anaheim, Brea, Buena Park, Costa Mesa, Fullerton, Garden Grove, Irvine, La Habra, Laguna Niguel, Orange, Placentia, Rancho Santa Margarita, San Clemente, San Juan Capistrano, Santa Ana, Tustin, Westminster and Yorba Linda.

AT&T will no longer divulge where its U-verse service is in OC but encourages people to check availability online at uverse.att.com.

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Posted in: news • • • • • • • • | 2 Comments »

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