Fios
Update: July 19, 2009
At last word, Verizon is commissioning their network - checking that
each of the thousand or so fibers they brought into the neighborhood is
properly connected. This was scheduled to take a month or so. After
that they will advertise to the community. As each contract is signed
they will trench a service fiber cable bundle to that house.
Update June 22, 2009
For the last two weeks Verizon contractors have been tunnelling
under our grass, sidewalks and streets putting in ducting for fiber
optic lines, and fiber optic cable. In addition we have been getting
advertisements telling us FIOS is coming. Yes it is.
Update May 31, 2009
No word from Verizon, except they keep advertising their FIOS HD
service packages.
Update Dec. 2008
I called up Verizon a few weeks ago and discussed the FIOS installation with a representative in PR. There is no definite date announced, this is all part of engineering's roll out. There will be some advertising to affected homes when the installation goes in. My guess is that it will be in the spring of '09 when the ground softens up.
Verizon FIOS service is coming to our neighborhood. This morning I bumped into the Verizon FIOS surveyor, who was making measurements in Derwood Station South, for fiber installation. The company has reached some sort of contractual accommodation with Rockville, and they are rolling it out to our area as GPON technology (gigabit passive optical network).
Installation will probably take place over the next 6 months to a year. The fiber bundle will be along Indianola Dr. with a main splitter/hub near Goldring Terrace. Then flush to the ground house-level splitters near each cluster of residences (like the telco and cable boxes, but lower, just plates in the ground).
One physical advantage they will have over coax cable is there will be an empty tube alongside the fiber bundle (both located in the 10 foot utility right of way), so that if a fiber breaks or needs to be modified they will be able to blow a plug through the tube and pull a new strand of fiber -- without digging up the ground after the first installation.
Assuming my accountant approves, I think I'll appreciate the 40 Mbps or so bandwidth this will bring. Others of you will no doubt appreciate the multiple digital TV signals and or the digital telephone connections (my biography is that I am an electrical engineer so this stuff is of great interest to me).
I will post any information on the website as I can.
Nick Radonic
President DSS HOA
July 15, 2008
