Some info on FIOS fiber cable installations
bbinnard
Contributor - Level 3

Short notes:

1. For new installations try to have the ONT box installed inside where you can have easy access to it

2. Find out where your FIOS fiber optic cable connects to the main feed, and how access to this is obtained

3. When a technician comes to your location, get his cell number and the phone number of his supervisor

4. When scheduling a cable install, make sure the FIOS tech and the cable installer are there at the same time 

5. Do not hesitate to contact the supervisor and ensure the right people will be at the right locations at the right times

My story:

Last Wed.afternoon around 1;00 PM a squirrel (or maybe it was a raccoon) chewed through the fiber optic cable coming into my house. When all my services dropped (TV, phone, Internet) I thought it was some sort of general outage, but after being down for about 3 hours I called Verizon support and reported a problem. They said a tech would be at my home Thursday afternoon.

It only took the tech a short time to realize my fiber optic cable was probably bad. But he could not verify this becuase the telephone pole where my connection to the main fiber cable was located happened to be in the back yard of a neighbor with 3 large dogs, and the tech did not want to risk a man/dog interaction. He left a note at the house with his supervisor's name and number and suggested the supervisor be contacted to set up a time for access to the telephone pole the next day.  He also gave me the address of the home where the pole was located and I went there Thursday evening after the ownsers got home from work.

The lady of the house said she had called the supervisor but he had no knowledge of the problem. So I said I'd call the supervisor Friday morning and make arrangements for access to the telephone pole on Friday. When I did that (7:30 AM Friday morning) the supervisor said he would have the tech come back and take care of the problem.

Around 10:00 Friday morning the Verizon tech arrived and verified that my cable was bad. He did this by placing a laser light on my end of the cable - inside the ONT box which I had installed inside a bedroom closet - and then using a light detector and a 20' ladder to reach the junction box on the main FIOS cable in the dog owner's back yard. After determining that no light was coming through the cable he ordered a new cable installation. He told me it woudl take only a couple of hours to install the new cable, but his supervisor said that pending the arrival of the cable installer he should move on to his next job. I already knew that cable installations are done by a Verizon subcontractor.

After a few hours I called the Verizon supervisor again and he said it wasn't clear a cable installation could be scheduled that same day, and that it would probably be another day (Saturday) until the cable could be replaced.  I told him I was not a happy customer since all my services had been down since Wed. afternoon.

Much to my pleasant surprise a couple of hours later the cable installer arrived and got the new cable installed in about an hour. After another couple of hours the Verizon tech arrived and finished the connection of the cable to my ONT box. This turned out to be somewhat difficult becuase the cable installer left a lot of excess cable on the ONT end, and although the ONT box is designed to hold a fair amount of excess cable the tech had a hard time getting it all in there.

But he did and as soon as the ONT reconnected all my services were back online. My total outage was a few hours more than 2 full days.

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