FiOS Engineer Answers Your Questions

FiOS Engineer Answers Your Questions

Brian Whitton, Executive Director of Access Network Design and Integration for Verizon, was able to answer your remaining questions re: FiOS and our fiber optic innovations  

Our geeky-goodness continues with answers about HDTV, TiVO, CableCard, and IPTV.  Questions are in bold italics.

Q. Verizon representatives have gone on the record stating that HD content delivered over FiOS is never compressed beyond what is was when received from the content provider. That being said, is there theoretical limit to the amount of HD channels that FiOS can deliver? Will FiOS TV and Internet customers ever need to worry about their TV traffic stealing from their data bandwidth?

A. We transmit the HD stream at the bit rate and format in which we receive it from the content provider. We have no need to compress it further given the capacity our all fiber network design provides.  As we have communicated in the past, our current network design has all broadcast video content, including analog, standard definition and high definition channels, carried over 1 of the 3 wavelengths operational on the FTTP passive optical network (PON). As both the demand for more channelized content and the availability of channels continues to grow, we would evaluate accommodating additional channel capacity over the other downstream wavelength. So, from a practical perspective, we do not see a limitation to the number of HD channels that can be delivered across the FTTP network.

Regarding the second part of the question, we have designed FTTP to continue to expand the amount of available bandwidth to the home, for both video and broadband data, to meet and exceed what customers would want today and in the foreseeable future. For example, we have announced our plans to rollout GPON, which increases the amount of downstream bandwidth by a factor of 4, and the upstream bandwidth by a factor of 8. This bandwidth is in addition to the bandwidth on the PON set aside for broadcast TV. Consequently, we do not anticipate bandwidth congestion from video and data services in the home being an issue.

Q.  Is there any possibility of Verizon licensing the TiVo software, as Comcast and Cox have done, for FiOS?

A. I am not familiar with any plans to do so, but we continually re-evaluate our product set and seek ways to enhance the quality of our FiOS TV product for our customers.

Q. FiOS currently supports CableCARD systems, such as the TiVo Series3. Should this continue indefinitely? Will Verizon continue to add channels to the standard digital tier that CC devices can access, or will they begin using Switched Digital Video for channels, locking out CC 1.0 devices?

A. That is correct, we do support CableCard so that devices, or hosts as they are often referred to, that are CableCard compliant can view encrypted content. We have no plans to cease support for CableCard. Since our launch of FiOS TV in 3Q’05, we have continued to expand our broadcast channel lineup, inclusive of both SD and HD content. Using the bandwidth enabled by FTTP, our plans are to continue adding broadcast channels this year and CC devices will of course be able to decrypt and view these channels as well.

Verizon views IP TV as the next stage in the evolution of entertainment video. The industry, comprised of equipment manufacturers, service and content providers, are currently evaluating the solution for digital rights managements for video delivery using a unicast and multicast approach and it would be premature to speculate what the impact might be on CabeCard devices.

Q. When will I be able to get FiOS in my home?

A. It is hard to say not knowing what state and town you live in. We have and continue to execute successfully on our commitment to make FiOS available to an additional 3M households each year. At the end of 2006, we had passed in excess of 6M residences and businesses, and will pass 3M more, each year, through 2010. You can go here to inquire about FiOS availability in your local area.

Q. Does FiOS have the Free to air OTA Networks available to TV’s equipped with QAM tuners? so that an additional box @ $5 a month isn’t required for all televisions.

A. Yes. We carry SD over the air channels both in analog and QAM. HD OTA is carried over QAM only. TVs with built in QAM tuners will be able to view all unencrypted content over QAM. Of course, an HD TV with an integrated QAM tuner is required to view the unencrypted HD content.

 Q. With a fiber connection being symmetric, many fiber providers such as Paxio (www.paxio.net) are providing symmetric connections such as 5Mbit, 10Mbit, 30Mbit. Why is Verizon keeping this arbitrary asymmetric limit with Fiber?

A. Our products are carefully crafted based on feedback we get from our customers. Indeed, our FTTP network can easily support a symmetric data service. As market dynamics change, we would re-assess the benefit to our customers of introducing a class of symmetric data services.

Q. In light of both the increased range of the PON home-run architecture and the additional physical footprint acquired in the MCI merger, when can we expect to establish a truly national presence and compete directly with AT&T, Embarq, etc.?

A. Verizon’s announced plans for deployment of FTTP are limited to our local telecom footprint.