FiOS Arrives

As you might have remembered, my FiOS installation was scheduled for today. When I first setup the install I picked the noon - 4:00 pm block, the tech arrived at 11:55 am, just as I was coming in from work. It took the installer about 3 hours to configure everything as there was lots to do, from terminating the fiber connection to installing new CAT5 cable to my office. He was extremely courteous and very professional. He came all the way from Redondo Beach to perform the installation.

The free installation came with configuration of one PC (or Mac) to the new service but I told the tech that I could configure it myself, however he said he wasn't allowed to leave until my account was created. I choose my work notebook since if anything got hosed I could just reformat with little effort. The default software that Verizon recommends puts a lot of junk on your PC but the tech was good about working with me on a custom installation that didn't include any of it. To be honest I don't think any of this software really is needed to setup the account but is a way for Verizon to provide advertisements and third party promotions. If you ever had a Verizon DSL installation, it's basically the same stuff.

After the installation was completed I tested the speed using the Speakeasy Speedtest website.

Adelphia Cable
Download Speed: 4726 kbps (590.8 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 420 kbps (52.5 KB/sec transfer rate)

Verizon FiOS
Download Speed: 14992 kbps (1874 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 1744 kbps (218 KB/sec transfer rate)

As you can see from the figures, it's quite an improvement over my old cable modem. To be honest it's hard to tell how fast it is from just browsing the web since my old connection was quiet fast by dial up standards. The real difference is felt with large downloads from fast servers (ISO images) and HD movie previews. Uploads (via FTP or via Blogger) seem 10x faster than before which is a welcome improvement.

The only negative is that the installation came bundled with a enormous Actiontec Wireless Broadband Router. I suppose it's so huge since it handles VoIP, multiple HD stream's and ultra fast Internet speeds. It's also needed if your order the FiOS TV service. I guess I'll keep it next to my enormous Dell Dimension XPS Gen 4 computer (now that I think about it, the PowerMac G5 case is rather large as well). One benefit is that I now have a wireless G router (my old Linksys was B only) so Dave can't complain about the slow speeds the next time he comes over.

The one hiccup that I had was that I couldn't logon to the router's web configuration page. The default password didn't work so I had to reset the box in order to logon. I guess the installer setup a new password and forgot to mention what it was. There's lots more configuration options that I had before on my Linksys router so I ended up using the wonderful Port Forwarding site to quickly getup to speed on how to forward my Warcraft III ports.