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FiOS (Fiber Optic Service) is a fiber to the premises (FTTP) telecommunications service, originally piloted in Keller, Texas, and now offered in some areas of the United States by Verizon. According to Verizon, "Fios" is an Irish (Gaelic) word for "knowledge"^[1][2]. In mailings to New Jersey customers, however, Verizon states that it stands for "fiber-optic service." Verizon has attracted consumer and media attention in the area of broadband Internet access as the first major U.S. carrier to offer such a service. In their rapidly expanding coverage areas, FiOS provides telephone, Internet and video services to the subscriber's premises. Some areas do not have the video service at this time due to franchise agreement, and some areas do not have any type of FiOS service at all due to underground electrical conduits.

Contents 1 Internet access 1.1 Common Bandwidth Tiers 1.2 Other Bandwidth Tiers 1.3 Port Blocking 2 Television (FiOS TV) 3 Telephone 4 Technology 5 See also 6 Notes 7 External links 7.1 Official 7.2 Unofficial

Internet throughput speeds are highly variable depending upon service territory and are affected by such factors as customer location, cost, and the offerings of the competing broadband providers. End customers usually have three or more choices for Internet bandwidth. The lowest bandwidth tier is typically 5 Mbit/s/2 Mbit/s in most territories, considerably faster than Verizon's fastest DSL plans. Most customers may double or triple their download speed (leaving the upload bandwidth unchanged) for a small additional fee (in most East coast territories, ten dollars is typical as of late 2007). For example, customers in the new Baltimore service area may upgrade to 15Mbit/s/2 Mbit/s for $10 per month. A third (or higher) service tier, when available for residential service, tends to provide a very considerable--nearly commercial--bandwidth (50 Mbit/s/10Mbit/s). Upgrading to the highest tier of service costs substantially more per month, and is rarely selected by household users.

• 5 Mbit/s Downstream / 2 Mbit/s Upstream
• 15 Mbit/s Downstream / 2 Mbit/s Upstream
• 15 Mbit/s Downstream / 15 Mbit/s Upstream
• 20 Mbit/s Downstream / 5 Mbit/s Upstream
• 30 Mbit/s Downstream / 5 Mbit/s Upstream

• 10 Mbit/s Downstream / 2 Mbit/s Upstream
• 50 Mbit/s Downstream / 10 Mbit/s Upstream
• 20 Mbit/s Downstream / 20 Mbit/s Upstream (Limited availability)

• Higher speeds tend to be available only in the highly-competitive areas, such as the Tri-State Region, Greater Boston, and Northern Virginia.^[3]

• Residential: Although the official Terms of Service (TOS) do not specify any exact blocked ports, the verbiage does imply that incoming TCP port 80 and outgoing TCP port 25 may indeed be blocked. Section 3.7.5 states "You may not use the Broadband Service to host any type of server whether personal or commercial in nature." Section 11.2 states that Verizon reserves the right to block "selected ports" to provide for email security.^[4]
• Business FiOS service is available in some areas, with higher upload speeds, static IP addresses and no blocked ports (for the static IP option)^{[citation needed]}.

Service tiers include:

• Basic — includes 15 to 46 channels
• Premier — includes 175 to 270 channels
• La Conexión — Spanish-language package, includes 130 to 150 channels
• Movie Package — 45 movie channels (Starz!, Showtime, Encore, TMC, Flix and Sundance)
• Sports Package — More than a dozen sports channels including Fox College Sports, Outdoor Channel, Gol TV, and the Golf Channel
• Movie & Sports Package — All the channels from both the Sports and Movie Packages
• Premium Channels — HBO and/or Cinemax
• International Channels — Individually priced international channels including ART, TV Japan, RAI, and TV5
• Spanish Language Package — More than 20 channels of news, sports, and movie telenovelas in Spanish
• On Demand library (with over 1000 Free programs) (not including movie channel subscriptions)

All service tiers beyond basic require a digital set-top box or CableCard which receive the television signal and decode for display on the television set.

TV is not available on FiOS business installations, though in some circumstances Verizon will install a second ONT to provide TV to a location that already has business FiOS.

Verizon also offers analog service, or POTS, over FiOS. The common model optical network terminals have 2 or 4 analog phone jacks. Verizon does not do anything that would affect or disable the pre-existing copper lines that carried phone service or DSL, though the official company policy is that customers cannot retreat back to copper service without higher level management approval^{[citation needed]}. However, there have in fact been reports in various markets that Verizon has physically deinstalled the copper lines at the time that FiOS was installed, effectively removing any "path of retreat" to copper based services.^[5] Verizon is required by law to share copper media with competing service providers, but no such requirement exists for fiber media.

Power outages may affect service availability. Unlike standard phone lines, the FiOS service depends on power at the customer premises. The replaceable FiOS backup battery will power the phone lines for 4 to 8 hours of call time per battery (reports vary). This may be an issue for sites that experience extended power outages that depend on analog phone lines for remote monitoring, alarm systems, and/or emergency calls.

Verizon FiOS products are delivered over the FTTP network using passive optical network (PON) technology. Voice, video, and data travel over three wavelengths in the infrared spectrum. To serve a home, a single-mode optical fiber extends from an optical line terminal (OLT) at a FiOS central office or head end out to the neighborhoods where an optical splitter fans out the same signal on up to 32 fibers- thus serving up to 32 subscribers. At the subscriber's home, an optical network terminal (ONT) transfers data onto the corresponding copper wiring for phone, video and Internet access^[6]. .

One of the three wavelength bands is devoted to carrying television channels that are compatible with Cable television products. The other two wavelengths are devoted to all other data, one for outbound and the other for inbound data. This includes IPTV video, telephone and Internet data.

This allocation of wavelengths adheres to the ITU-T G.983 standard, also known as APON or BPON. Verizon initially installed slower BPONs but now only installs gigabit PONs [GPON] specified in the ITU-T G.984 standard. These bands and speeds are:

• 1310nm for upstream data at 155 Mbit/s (1.2 Gbit/s with GPON)
• 1490nm for downstream data at 622 Mbit/s (2.4 Gbit/s with GPON)
• 1550nm for RF (non IPTV) video with 870 MHz of bandwidth

Unlike AT&T's U-verse product, Verizon's video service is not Video over IP (IPTV). Video On Demand (VOD) content and interactive features, such as Widgets and Programing Guide data are delivered over IP. However, the vast majority of content, including Pay Per View (PPV) is provided over a standard broadcast video signal which carries both analog and digital content up to 870 MHz. This broadcast content originates from a traditional cable head end that combines analog channels with digital QAM channels and travels over a various SONET networks and eventually arrives at a local serving office. The RF signal occupies 870 MHz and is modulated onto the 1550 nm wavelength. The optical Video signal at 1550 nm is then coupled with the IP Data signal at 1490 nm via the use of a Wave Division Multiplexer (WDM) and is sent out to the PON. The WDM also directs the incoming 1310 nm return from the ONT back to the OLT. At the ONT located at the subscriber's home, the RF video is sent over a coax connection most typically to a FIOS hybrid set-top box that handles both RF and IPTV video. The ONT provides Internet connectivity via an RJ45 connector, but also transfers IPTV video and internet IP packets onto coax using a 1.1 GHz channel to provide 100 Mbit/s of bandwidth as specified by the MoCA standard. Alternately, analog video may be played by any cable ready device, and traditional digital video may be accessed by any Cablecard certified television or digital video recorder such as a Tivo Series 3. However, interactive services such as VOD and Widgets are delivered by IP and are only accessible through use of one of FIOS's hybrid set top boxes manufactured by Motorola to support RF as well as the IPTV video. Verizon utilizes an IP return path from the Set Top Box (STB) so that subscribers may order PPV events, however users may call and order over the phone, then tune to a specified channel (starting at 701) to watch this content. The FIOS STBs play IPTV only from FIOS delivered via MoCA and not from video sources on the Internet. FIOS's IPTV implementation does not follow cable television formats and conventions for two way television and instead follows the DVB standard^[7].

MoCA is also used by FiOS for streaming video from the FIOS's "media hub" for the home, whose role is currently filled by Motorola's QIP6416 hybrid QAM/IPTV digital video recorder (DVR). There are several limitations to video connectivity in the home via FIOS. Only streaming of standard definition (SD) resolution video to STBs is allowed. Shows recorded in High Definition (HDTV) may be accessed, but only after first being converted to lower resolution SD video. Transfers of shows between DVRs or is also not allowed. Transfers to DTCP compliant devices via firewire is possible, but nearly all digital content except ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC and locals are flagged via CGMS-D as "copy once" and so may not be transferred.

Most of the optical network terminals (ONT) being deployed by Verizon are Tellabs 1600 series ONT. This ONT provides up to four provisionable voice telephone ports, a 10/100 Mbit/s Ethernet interface for data traffic, and one coaxial connector for CATV services. The Motorola ONT1000V is rarely used.

Verizon includes the Actiontec MI424-WR coax-enabled broadband home wireless-G router with installation of the service. This device is used for both FiOS TV and FiOS Internet. Verizon initially used the D-Link DI-624 router but has since switched to the Actiontec for the added MoCA capabilities.

FiOS ONT installed in Montclair, New Jersey

Close-up of FiOS ONT

Underside of FiOS ONT

• Fiber-optic communication - High-speed broadband used by Verizon's FiOS infrastructure.
• DOCSIS 3.0 - High-speed broadband specifications for use over Cable lines.
• VDSL2 - High-speed broadband specifications for increased speeds over copper telephone lines.
• Dynamic Spectrum Management - Attempt to achieve Fiber-Optic speeds over copper telephone lines.

• Verizon FiOS Internet
• Verizon FiOS TV

• FiosFAQ.com Continually updated Massive FAQs on Fios Internet, TV and everything FiOS
• Verizon FIOS availability/tracking using google maps
• Broadband Reports FiOS FAQ
• Installing Verizon FIOS fiber-optic Internet service to my house, by Dan Bricklin — many photos of the process
• Verizon FiOS TV - an in-depth user review
• Long Live Fiber article in PC Magazine
• FiOS installation
• Verizon to sell assets in NH, ME and VT
• Verizon vs. Fairpoint Info
• Verizon FiOS Video Verizon FiOS Signs 1 Millionth Customer watch video
• Verizon FiOS Install Dealing with Verizon FiOS dispatch.

v • d • e Cable, satellite, and other speciality television providers in the Americas
Cable	Adams Cable · Advanced Cable Communications · Atlantic Broadband · Armstrong Telephone Company · Alameda Power and Telecom · Allegiance Communications · Bright House Networks · CableOne · Cablevision · Champion Broadband · Charter · Columbus · Comcast · Cox · Crestview Cable · Fairpoint Communications · GCI · Graceba Total Communications · Insight · King Videocable · Knology · MCV Broadband · Mediacom · Midcontinent Communications · Millennium Digital Media · Northland Cable Television · Qwest Choice TV · RCN · Satview Broadband Ltd · Seaport Capital · Service Electric · Suddenlink · Tele-Communications Inc. · Time Warner Cable · Truvista Communications · Western Broadband · WOW!
Satellite	DirecTV · Dish Network · Sky Angel
IPTV	U-verse · VDC
Terrestrial	Multi-Choice TV
Fiber	FiOS
Canada · Europe · Africa, Asia, and Oceania

v • d • e Verizon Communications, Inc.
Corporate Directors	James Barker · Richard Carrión · Robert Lane · Sandra Moose · Joseph Neubauer · Thomas O'Brien · Hugh Price · Ivan Seidenberg · Walter Shipley · John R. Stafford · Robert Storey
Holding Companies	GTE · MCI · NYNEX
Bell Operating Companies	Verizon Delaware · Verizon Maryland · Verizon New England · Verizon New Jersey · Verizon New York · Verizon Pennsylvania · Verizon Washington, D.C. · Verizon West Virginia · Verizon Virginia
GTE operating companies	Contel of the South · GTE Southwest · Verizon California · Verizon Florida · Verizon North · Verizon Northwest · Verizon South
Long Distance Services	Bell Atlantic Communications · NYNEX Long Distance
Wireless services	Verizon Wireless (55%)
Internet services	Verizon Online DSL · FiOS Internet
Video Services	FiOS TV
Other Assets	Empire City Subway
Annual Revenue: $75.1 billion USD ( FY 2005) · Employees: 216,704 · Stock Symbol: NYSE: VZ · Website: verizon.com