Re: verizon FIOS +linux

Amadeus W. M. wrote:
On Thu, 10 Aug 2006 12:11:01 +0000, Jean-David Beyer wrote:

Amadeus W. M. wrote:
On Wed, 09 Aug 2006 23:41:57 +0000, Jean-David Beyer wrote:

Amadeus W. M. wrote:
Slightly off-topic...

I got an offer in the mail from verizon for a fiber optics
internet connection, which advertises 5Mbps upload, and between 5
and 50 Mbps download. That's very tempting.
That is not the terms around here in New Jersey.

When I signed up the speeds offered were

5 Mbits/sec down, 2 Mbits/sec up 15 Mbits/sec down, 2 Mbits/sec up
30 Mbits/sec down, 5 Mbits/sec up.

I took the middle option. That was last spring sometime. Since then
they have raised the speed to 20 Mbits/second down and 5
Mbits/second up.

Right now, the actual speeds from near Red Bank, New Jersey to NYC
are:

Last Result: Download Speed: 20074 kbps (2509.3 KB/sec transfer
rate) Upload Speed: 4257 kbps (532.1 KB/sec transfer rate)

Before I subscribe, are there any known issues under linux? Do I
have to run some proprietary program in windows first, to sign-up
(as I had to when I installed dsl)?
Sort-of. You must register at their site to activate the service,
and their site stupidly insists on using ActiveX. Stupid because
all it asks is something simple like your name and password.

Now the techie(s) that install the service for you should bring a
laptop with them that runs Windows so that they can do it for you.
But mine did not, claiming the batteries were dead. Luckily my
other machine (the one not directly connected to the Internet) does
have a Windows XP license, wo we temporarily hooked the Verizon
stuff to it, booted Windows on it (it is dual boot), diddled the
networking to talk to the Verizon-supplied D-Link router (DI-624)
router and activated the service. Then I had to put it all back.
But it is no big deal if you are allowed to run Windows on your
machine(s). You need do this only on one machine and only once.
I imagine I still get an IP address through dhcp, right?
Right, or you can pay a lot more and get a static IP address if you
want one.

Is it stable? Reliable? Fast? Any gotchas?
Stable and fast. Reliable. No gotchas.
Thanks!
All this sounds fantastic. The offer I got was 5/2Mbps for $34.95,
which is less money, for more upload speed than what I have now.
That was the official terms when I signed up. But if you get your local
and long distance through them as well, they drop the rates so I pay
$39.95/month for the 15/2 service, and they just speeeded it up,
gratis, to 20/5.


But the $39.95 is just the internet alone, right? It doesn't include the
phone service.

Right.

That's just to lure me in, they do have 15/2 for ~$45 and 30/2 for a
LOT more. Probably the 15/2 would be the best deal.

Since I posted, I read on a blog though, that

1) It's pppoe, not dhcp. Is that true? Not sure if the guy who posted
that knew the difference. If pppoe, I'd need a phone line, which I
don't have.
Yes and no. The stuff coming out of the box on the side of the house is
pppoe, but you need not know that because they supply a free router
(their version of the D-Link DI-624, called a VDI-624) that talks pppoe
to the outside box, but talks just plain ethernet to your computer(s).
You do not need a dial-up line for pppoe in any case, but your
computers will never see it anyway.
2) You have to use their d-link router, although there are reports
that other people have replaced it with their own. Don't know why the
d-link would be so special and why another one would not work.
Other ones will work, but with problems if maintenance is required. The
D-Link they supply has custom firmware in it so Verizon can remote
test everything all the way to the router. One thing (least important,
but obvious) is that they can tell you when it is time to replace the
battery in the ups part of their box. The techie says they can tell
when you are going to have trouble before you even know it.

What battery? What's it for?

Because your telephone service (up to 4 lines) comes through the same box,
and the telephone company does not supply power through the glass fibre.
This is done locally from your power company, and if it went out, you would
lose telephone service. So Verizon puts a small UPS in the power supply. Of
course, I plug that into an APC Smart-UPS 620 that I had lying around.

3) Most importantly, they won't let you run any sort of server.
They will if you pay more.

I absolutely have to have sshd running permanently. Do they do
anything funny in their routers? Do they allow incoming connections
to your computer?

They do not do it in the router. Probably at the central office.

That's what I meant, their central office.

They do allow me to run the ntpd even though it is technically a
server. But you will not be able to run servers anyway unless you get a
static IP address, and these are normally for the more-expensive
business accounts.

I know that they do not block all connections to ports <1024, which is
what I thought they might do. I suppose they block port 80 so you do
not run a web server.
Thanks!


Now, how often does your IP address changes with pppoe? I only used pppoe
once for about 1 year, when I had dsl, and I had all sorts of scripts to
check if the address has changed, and notify me by email if it did. If
there's one good thing about my current ISP is that for 1,5 years that
I've had them, they have not changed my IP address, even though I've had
many interruptions - seems like my connection works according to the
weather, and if the stars and the planets are in alignment. But the
address is rock solid.

My IP address changes every time I power off the Router. It also changes
every time there is a problem on the line, say once every two months or so.
I have never noticed it as it seems to happen when I am asleep anyway, and I
would not know, but it is in the log maintained by the D-624.


--
.~. Jean-David Beyer Registered Linux User 85642.
/V\ PGP-Key: 9A2FC99A Registered Machine 241939.
/( )\ Shrewsbury, New Jersey http://counter.li.org
^^-^^ 17:40:01 up 1 day, 2:37, 3 users, load average: 4.35, 4.32, 4.22
.

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