Fios TV One - a successful self-install. But....

[tekmeister]

Sharing experience with self-install of Fios TV One  with 'most Fios'  service package with the hope that it will avoid frustration for some at least....

After repeated 'threatening' emails from Vz about my old set top will soon not work, I finally plunged into the upgrade process. In full disclosure, I am a techie..and intimately knowledgeable about the underlying technology of Fios...and that helped with the self-install process.  Despite my successful experience, my full empathy for folks that are not tech savy and who are likely to be frustrated with the process. Verizon - PLEASE DO A MUCH BETTER JOB of walking through the install process by including more substantial printed instruction sheets - in simple english - than merely shipping the equipment with very scant printed install instructions included and asking folks to download an app - which may be buggy in itself.  Maybe it is generational but I don't find reading install instructions on my 3X5 size screen very helpful. You have to keep scrolling up and down during the process and god forbid, you run into problems. I DID NOT DOWNLOAD ANY APP and below is the process I followed based on my knowledge. Apologize for the lengthy posting but details are important

1) My OLD Fios set up had a coax cable as well as an ethernet cable coming into the house from the ONT (the unit installed outside the house).  The coax connected to the back of the set top and the ethernet connected to MY OWN ROUTER (Watchguard), not the one that Vz tries to rent you or sell you. Every service including on-demand, etc. was working just fine with that set up. 

For the 'upgrade', I maintained the same connections. Meaning, I asked Vz to ship just the settop. Not the router also. One important detail in my old connect was the use of a MOCA adapter to provide internet connectivity to the settop. The Actiontec MOCA adapter has a coax and a ethernet port and serves to extent an ethernet connection over a tv cable connection ('bridging' in tech speak).  I had a coax splitter that split the ONT coax connection - one going into the settop and the other going into the MOAC adapter. The MOCA's ethernet port was connected to my router and provided the internet connectivity. For whatever reason, the old settop was not happy if I tried providing the internet connectivity by connecting the ethernet port in the back of the settop directly to my router. THIS IS THE SAME SITUATION WITH THE NEW SETTOP AS WELL.

2) Now to the new settop  set up - unpacked the box and took out the settop box and its power adapter.  And the new remote which Vz calls Fios Voice Remote. Did not have to use any of the cables that came in the box since I decided to literally do a one-for-one replacement. Disconnected the coax cable, the power connection, and the HDMI connection to my TV from the old settop and connected the cables to the new settop in the EXACT SAME MANNER.  Before powering on the new settop, I  turned on my TV, and only then conncted the settop power adapter to the power socket (there is no on/off switch on the settop). The new settop came on and began to go through its start up process ('boot up' in tech speak) . There are two LEDs in front of the box - both started flashing - initially, one flashed green and the other red. After about 30 seconds, the colors flipped. The one that iniitally flashed green flashed red and vice versa. After another about 30 seconds, both flashed green. And after some more time, the the left LED alone started flashing yellow. And finally, the left LED quit flashing yellow and remained a steady yellow. Through this process, the TV screen was initially black (which concerned me since there was no start up message or anything). But sometime during the LED flashing process, the TV displayed a message to the effect "Welcome to Fios, set up is in progress..", etc. along with a progress bar that immediately went to  25%, then 30%, then 40%, and then jumped to 75% and to complete. The start up process took about 5 minutes to complete.  There was one WARNING though - to the effect that the settop will not work with the router connected, and that services may be limited, etc. I SIMPLY IGORED IT! For, I knew that all the settop needed was good internet connectivity - which it got through the MOCA adatper that was connected to my router. The warning could be a CYA on Vz's part so they can blame your router if things don't work and have you rent or buy their router. Despite the warning, at the conclusion of the startup process I got my services and was able to watch TV.  One last step was to 'pair' the new remote to the new settop (it connects to the settop via Bluetooth, not IR). Much to my pleasant surprise, the old IR Fios remote I had also worked just fine. It appears that the new settop has retained IR remote compatibility in addition to bluetooth.  Good job, Vz (giving credit where it is due!)

3) So, within about 30 minutes of unpacking the box, my self-install worked and I started watching TV.  BELIEVE IT OR NOT! However, it took a further 30 or so minutes during which I noticed that the settop auto-updated and rebooted before all functions and features worked and respnded as expected.

4) The only thing 'problem' with my initial set up was that I couldn't control my TV through the new remote (which has a very convenient and user friendly voice control). Vz seems to have provided the setup instructions on their website and I plan to complete that set up shortly.

 A VERY IMPORTANT THING I discovered  through the new settop install process was that the Internet connectivity it requires works only through the splitter-MOCA adapter arrangement I have described above. Connecting an ethernet cable directly from the router to the ethernet port in the back of the settop does NOT work (the start up process never completes  in that scenario). I discovered this through experimentation,  'wasting' about 15 minutes in the process. I desire to eliminate the MOCA adapter and make the setup simpler (one less device that could fail), but looks like I can't. Vz - please confirm this one way or the other in your install instructions.  

TRUST THIS DETAILED POSTING HELPS SOME FOLKS AT LEAST. GOOD LUCK!

[jack63ss]

I too just did a FIOS TV One installation and had an experience similar to Tekmeister . Mine involved 3 TVs, one with a TVOne DVR and two with TVOne Mini's. I've been a FIOS customer for quite a while so my expectations were almost underground. However I was very impressed about how easily it went. The instructions are basically plug it in, turn it on and do what it says on the TV, and for the most part it actually worked. My primary and one Mini were wired, so for jollys I set the 2nd Mini up wireless. And like I said, it just worked. I did make 1 error I needed to correct, but that was on me. And my remote actually worked better than my old ones as it worked the TV, cable box and soundbar on both TVs. And I was impressed by the wireless Mini as I moved it to a different (4th) TV and it worked fine (although the remote didn't run the TV, which I expected).  Somewhere someone at Verizon actually read the feedback and fixed some stuff.

My only negative comment was that while setting up the boxes there were a couple of messages on the screen that made it look like things were going wrong when they were not. It reboots a number of times which might make some people panic. There should be a screen up front that says BE PATIENT ! And there are a couple of times you push the OK button and nothing seems to happen for 30 seconds. I am not normally that patient but I sat on my hands and everything just worked. 

Overall, nice job !