Switching from POTS to FIOS
twinz1
Enthusiast - Level 1

My phone and DSL service must be upgraded to fiber very soon.  The problem is my house is very old and not well-equipped for FIOS installation. We have few electrical outlets, none on the external walls, not much free wallspace,  and the main phone is a wall mounted phone in the kitchen. Another company said there would be a number of issues in our situation to switch to digital service and we may need to switch to a cordless phone.  

Will the upgrade from copper to FIOS be as smooth as Verizon claims?  Does anyone have any suggestions or advice?

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Re: Switching from POTS to FIOS
Edg1
Community Leader
Community Leader

The ONT(main FiOS box) and power adapter are both very small and mouted pretty much anywhere. The ONT can be mounted outside or inside with the power adapter. The power wire that connects from the ONT to the power adapter can also be extended to where it is needed. The phone in your kitchen will most likely work fine. You don’t necessarily need a cordless phone. 

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Re: Switching from POTS to FIOS
Edg1
Community Leader
Community Leader

The ONT(main FiOS box) and power adapter are both very small and mouted pretty much anywhere. The ONT can be mounted outside or inside with the power adapter. The power wire that connects from the ONT to the power adapter can also be extended to where it is needed. The phone in your kitchen will most likely work fine. You don’t necessarily need a cordless phone. 

Re: Switching from POTS to FIOS
twinz1
Enthusiast - Level 1

Thanks for your reply, hope my fretting is all for naught.  Also, congrats on being named this week's MVP.

Re: Switching from POTS to FIOS
Edg1
Community Leader
Community Leader

Thanks. I’m sure you will have nothing to worry about. I have had FiOS since 2008 and I had only one outage due to Hurricane Sandy. Very reliable. 

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Re: Switching from POTS to FIOS
need_fios_info
Enthusiast - Level 3

Do you need hardwired Ethernet connection from router to your PC? One of the issues with DSL to FIOS transition is that previously you could put your DSL modem on any phone jack in the house, typically the one nearest the PC. If you need router near PC, you will need to think about how to get cables from ONT to the new FIOS router.

If you are going all wireless, I would discourage putting the router in a basement, RF performance may suffer. They often want to place ONT near existing NID so they can tie into your exiting phone lines there. Depending on your house, this may mean ONT and router end up in a basement.

Couple other things:

1 - When they upgraded my phone+DSL to fiber they enabled a voicemail service which hijacked incoming calls after a couple of rings before my answering machine could pick up. Took me a month to realize I was not getting my messages. If you want to continue screening calls with answering machine you may want to call and have voicemail turned off.

2 - I had AT&T long distance (30+ years). After the upgrade, they hijacked my international calls and began charging astronomical rate per minute. Eventually they blocked international calls due to "unusual behavior" i.e. making international calls without international plan.  Log story short, if you make international calls, you will need to set up Verizon internatioal calling plan as part of this upgrade and drop whoever you previously had for long distance.

If you want to read more detail about my phone+DSL to FIOS transition you can read my posts: my user name is need_fios_info.

Good luck

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