Poor internal wiring; what is needed for fios?
neighborlee
Newbie

I rent a large 70-year old house with ancient and poorly installed telephone wiring.   There are several telephone jacks,but I have found only one which can transmit a working DSL signal (that one takes a completely different path out of the NIC from the rest of the telephone wires).  I have my wireless router and a PC running off that jack (even though it is not the most convenient location).   I also have numerous coax connections scattered throughout the house for cable television.

I have received many phone calls from Verizon urging me to upgrade to Fios for television, phone, and internet.  Unfortunately, none can answer my questions on how Fios would work with my current setup.  What I do not understand is whether and how the Fios signal is split into telephone, internet, and television.   Does Fios hook into the existing coax and telephone cable in the house, or does it use one or the other?  Would I have to get someone in to rewire parts of my house to use Fios effectively?  Because this is not my own property, and my landlord does not wish to make upgrades, I am hesitant to invest too much of my own money in fixing the wiring.   I do have a background in networking and really want the technical information not just sales talk.  Thank you.

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Re: Poor internal wiring; what is needed for FIOS?
Anti-Phish1
Master - Level 1

@neighborlee wrote:

 What I do not understand is whether and how the Fios signal is split into telephone, internet, and television.   Does Fios hook into the existing coax and telephone cable in the house, or does it use one or the other? 


FIOS is fiber to the premises (FTTP).  VZ will install an Optical Network Terminal (ONT) which converts the fiber signals to coax for TV, cat5 or coax for internet, and twisted pair for telephone.  The ONT is usually installed near your existing service entrance. 

Coax - The install tech will check that your coax meets FIOS specs.  He will connect the ONT to your existing coax cabling for TV.   The VZ supplied router also needs a connection to the coax for the Set Top Boxes (STBs) which access the internet via the router.  

Internet - Internet is usually delivered from the ONT over the coax network to the VZ supplied wireless router, which means the router can be placed anywhere you have a coax connection.  You can optionally request a cat5 connection from the ONT.  In this case, if you want the router other than near the ONT, you are probably on your own for running the cat5 between the ONT and the router.

Phone - VZ runs cat5 from the POTS connectors in the ONT to your existing NID where they tie into your existing inside phone wiring.  If your existing phone wiring works for phone calls, don't worry about it.  FIOS doesn't use your phone wiring except for POTS.

Every install is different.  However, the above should give you a general idea of what is involved.