Move ONT to other floor with existing fibre cable

So I live in a home that has two separate units and at one point had two active but separate FIOS fibre connections. There is a fibre connection on the third floor which is currently active and in my name and a fibre connection in the basement which was terminated when the previous owner moved out. He simply called up Verizon and cancelled the service. They never asked for the equipment back so he threw the ONT out well over a year ago. Nobody ever came out and disconnected any lines. I can still see both going to the utility pole outside.

Now, I want to move my ONT (and all my networking equipment) to the basement as I am purchasing the entire house. I called up today to explain the situation and that I just want to "move house" to somewhere with an existing fibre line. I explained that the line was never physically disconnected and I would like to activate my service there. I was told that you can't move your own ONT and a technician would have to come out to test the line and reactivate it at a cost of $200.

I'm not sure the person on the phone understood what I was telling her as I've witnessed them deactivate and reactivate lines over the phone with me at a previous address. I can't see why I need to spend $200 for someone to come out when there is nothing that needs to be done with the fibre lines physically. I've disconnected an ONT to paint a room and reconnected it fine so I know there's nothing tamper proof about it. I'm not asking for a new fibre line or anything like that. Anyone have any luck moving an ONT somewhere else with an existing line?

Accepted answers

Cang_Household

I need to clarify the ownership of the ONT. At all times, the ONT belonged to VZ, even if one canceled the service. The previous owner's action of throwing away the ONT was not advisable and one is liable to be billed for the ONT. This condition is stated in the Terms of Service and is perpetual even if you disconnect the service. Just like an easement agreement, ONT installed for a new PON line needs to stay on the property, and all future property owners also inherit the duty to keep the ONT.

By a similar token, you are not advised to move the ONT and the CSR is correct that a field tech needs to inspect the now loosely attached PON line.

If the previous owner were not to throw away the ONT, things would be much easier because PON lines are identifiable by the ONT attached to it. VZ could reconnect the service at the basement ONT and you only need to relocate your network gears.

All comments

Cang_Household

By a similar token, you are not advised to move the ONT and the CSR is correct that a field tech needs to inspect the now loosely attached PON line.

MyCatSeamus

I feared this would be the answer and that the ONT was going to be how the line was identified. Oh well. Thanks for clarifying that.

As for the now gone forever ONT, this would have happened end of 2020 and I have this vague memory of the landlord ignoring upgrade notifications as he planned to end his service when he moved out. I'm guessing it was quite old although I never saw it. Verizon probably wanted to upgrade/replace it back then so when he ended service they probably didn't want back what they intended to replace. That's just pure speculation though on something I have no experience with. Either way, that's not my concern as it wasn't my service or property then. I haven't seen a single Verizon letter come in the post in his name either since.

I'll just deal with it as-is and run some CAT6 down to the basement as out of principle I'm not paying $200 for me to watch a technician do something so simple.

This whole thing of equipment in your house you don't own and can't touch is very reminiscent of leased hard wired telephones in the 70s/80s to be honest.

Cang_Household

If the old ONT was end of life, VZ would come out, replace and activate at no charge, but that would be too late by now.

There are other technical solutions that may be more economic than running CAT 6 cables. Honestly, given the year, if you were really to run Ethernet cables, I would go with CAT 6a, but not CAT 8.

If the house has coax wired, you could try use MoCA adapters to feed the network back down to the basement, and then re-distribute to the house from the basement.

MoCA 2.5 can support 2500Mbps simplex. A MoCA adapter from goCoax is less than $70. VZ routers have built-in MoCA adapters in them too.