Re: Is there a wireless component of the ONT or other hardware of home FIOS connection?
Cuchullain
Enthusiast - Level 2

jonjones,

Thank you for your informative but, ultimately, unsurprising answer. I essentially know and understand what you explained already, but the problem is convincing my girlfriend. As far as myself, you are preaching to the choir! I just thought I would give this forum a shot, and see if I could figure out what exactly this technician was talking about. For all I know, my girlfriend misunderstood what the technician said, or misremembered it, etc., etc.

As I understand it, FIOS service is maybe the farthest thing from wireless/RF signals.

Anyway, I appreciate your and everyone else's time and suggestions. As you can see, I'm in an odd predicament. My girlfriend is so devoted to this lifestyle of minimizing exposure to EMFs, etc., that there is no option for me that involves convincing her otherwise. The only options in this case are to give in and get whatever service she approves of, which would help neither her nor me, or to not move in at all, and keep my current service!

I will try to relay what all of you have explained, and hopefully change her mind.

Thank you very much!

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Re: Is there a wireless component of the ONT or other hardware of home FIOS connection?
Cuchullain
Enthusiast - Level 2

CRobGauth,

I agree that you all have given the best answers possible in the situation. Thank you for your help, I really do appreciate it!

You're right, this is an uphill battle. I've tried and given up explaining that the position that EMI/EMF is dangerous to humans is at least inconclusive, because any conflicting studies I find my girlfriend dismisses as biased or financed by the industry itself.

Believe me, she is well aware of the town in WV! I'm sure we'll end moving there eventually. It's only a matter of time!

Thanks for your help and your time.

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Re: Is there a wireless component of the ONT or other hardware of home FIOS connection?
EMR1
Newbie

The FIOS-G1100 router still emits electromagnetic radiation EVEN IF the two wireless radio signals (2.4 and 5 GHz) are "turned off" from inside the router.  The only way to stop this is to turn off the power supply to the router.  True as I am writing this (November 2018).

In other words, you get inside the router by typing 192.168.1.1 in the browser URL line and you enter the router's admin password (printed on a label on the body of the router).  Click on the wireless part of the menu.  Turn off the 2.4 and 5 GHz radio signals, and the solid white wireless light in front of the router blacks out.   This suggests that the router stopped beaming radiation.  Not so.  The radiation continues!  How do I know?  Because my microwave or radio frequency detection meter still picks the signals loud and clear.  I have a well known and respected $400 meter.  It is designed to detect microwave radiation from cordless phone base stations, wireless phones, laptops, routers, phone towers, etc.  The pulse signal gets stronger the closer you get to the router.  0.6 volt per meter where my head is at; more than 6 V/m on top of the router (the meter peaks out at 6 V/m).  As soon as you disconnect power to the router, the radiation stops.  The meter can still pick up radiation from my neighbors' routers, but it is very weak (below 0.02 Volt/meter, the lowest visual display on my meter, but there are faint intermittent sounds coming out of the meter).   I am in a detached house.  I would not be surprised if, in an apartment building, the neighbors' wireless routers still cast radiation detectable inside your own appartment.

I called Verizon Technical support and escalated up to advanced support where I was told what I already knew from my radiation meter: the wireless card inside the router continues beaming even after you turn off the 2 signals from inside the router.  There is nothing you can do to stop the radiation unless you pull out the router's power cord.  The TV channels continue to work, but no more internet through ethernet cables.

Verizon does not make the routers.  They are made by another company.   I was given the manufacturer's name, but I don't want to cite it here just in case tech support was wrong on the name.

Both Verizon customer support and technical support could not give me the name of anyone higher up at Verizon who could discuss this matter in further details.  Therefore, I will have to Google my way into the Verizon corporate structure to try to speak to someone who can ask the manufacturer to change this situation.

How sloppy and irresponsible to allow a router to continue radiating after giving the user the fake option to turn "off" the radio signals!    Somebody thinks we consumers are stupid.

The temporary solution for now is to buy a wired-only router to handle the Internet and leave the coaxial cable connected to the turned off FIOS router.  I hope this will work.

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Re: Is there a wireless component of the ONT or other hardware of home FIOS connection?
Cuchullain
Enthusiast - Level 2

Hi,

I appreciate the time you took to share your knowledge of this with everyone. I may not have made this perfectly clear in my original post, but I was referring to any hardware -except- the gateway/router, specifically the ONT. A technician supposedly said that the ONT that interfaces with the house (the demarc, basically) emits wireless signals of some kind, and I was trying to get to the bottom of this (whether it is true or not, and what the context is). 

I agree that consumer products like gateway/router combos are not designed with the issues you brought up in mind, which I think is bad also. I would like to see at least a hardware switch that allows users to easily activate and deactivate the WiFi radio, rather than digging through the firmware to do so. I always turn this off when I am not actively using it, and it is a bit of a pain. Clearly, manufacturers expect (and probably rightfully so) consumers to simply leave it on forever and forget about it. 

In any case, I was trying to get to the bottom of the ONT "wireless" question, since as far as I understand it, it is as far from wireless as it is possible to be. Perhaps there is some wireless radio for transmitting ISP-relevant data to Verizon -- that is the only explanation I can think of.

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Re: Is there a wireless component of the ONT or other hardware of home FIOS connection?
Edg1
Community Leader
Community Leader

Like the previous posters said before. Mostly all electronic devices emit some form of EMFs. The ONT would be considered an "Unintentional Radiator" under the  FCC's CFR Title 47 Part 15 B.

The ONT does not broadcast any radio waves for communication purposes. It is just converting the infrared wavelengths for our routers, phones and cable boxes. Anything emitting from the ONT would most likely not be seen on a meter once you are a few feet away. A properly grounded and bonded ONT would help to further dissipate any EMFs.

Unfortunately the world we live in we are surrounded wireless transmissions and that's not changing any time soon. 

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Re: Is there a wireless component of the ONT or other hardware of home FIOS connection?
EMR1
Newbie

Cuchullain

The ONT box does NOT emit microwaves over my meter's operational frequencies 200 MHz to 8 GHz.  There is a magnetic field at a lower frequency next to it.  I will recheck it, but it did not worry me because the strength decreases fast with distance. 

The router is the problem because it never stops beaming even if your turn off the 2 radio signals inside the router.  Only relief is to disconnect the router or get another one.

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Re: Is there a wireless component of the ONT or other hardware of home FIOS connection?
EMR1
Newbie

Edg1,

There is plenty you can do to protect yourself if you become aware of what's around you.   For instance, I stopped that FIOS router from radiating a few feet away from me., once I discovered that its radio turn-off was fake.  Had I not discovered that, I would still be receiving radiations way above the safe levels.  Also, putting your phone in airplane mode (and checking messages at discrete times) matters.

If you measure electric fields around the 60 Hz frequency, you will find out you can do simple things that can reduce the electric field at your pillow's level by a lot.  Much better sleep as a result.  These things matter in the long run.

I only agree with you that there are certain things I can't do much about, like walking and driving where there are cell towers, etc.  We live in an electrosmog world, but, since distance is a big deal, the home is important because distances between pollution sources and our body are short and we can affect what we buy and what we turn off--as a start.  Something else if you sleep next to a cell tower.

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Re: Is there a wireless component of the ONT or other hardware of home FIOS connection?
Cuchullain
Enthusiast - Level 2

Hi,

This is a great answer and I would select it as my chosen answer if I could (but this is a long dead thread, or at least it was until it was recently resurrected). You've explained what the technician must have been telling her, that it does -literally- emit something, however negligible that may be. This is all moot and academic now, since I ended up moving to a rural area with only wretched ADSL connections (0.75 Mbps upstream, for instance). How I miss that FiOS connection! 

Anyway, thanks to everyone for helping me to get to the bottom of this. It looks the concerns were really baseless, but that the technician could see my girlfriend's adamant desire to know if there is even the slightest radiation of any kind and answered accordingly. 

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Re: Is there a wireless component of the ONT or other hardware of home FIOS connection?
CRobGauth
Community Leader
Community Leader

There is a 3rd signal you need to disable within the router.

On the main menu you have Change Wireless and Change Guest WIFI.

You have to disable not only the 2.5 and 5Ghz under wireless, you need to disable the Guest WiFI as well.

I won't guarantee that this will stop all RF, but that may be the source of what you are seeing.

Without a spectrum analyzer, you can't be certain if what you are seeing is coming from the wifi modem or some other part of the router.

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