keywords: Verizon FIOS northern Virginia Business Static IP Address Video Service Dual ONT sub-localtion sublocation sub location VOD guide
It took me a month and hours upon hours of phone calls but I finally have my TV service.
Guess what? Static IP and Video service IS compatible on the SAME piece of fiber. Dual ONTs and sub-locations are not needed and I'm proof. This is what I have now:
- Business Static with 5 IP addresses (Bill sent to the business name)
- Home phone service (bill sent to my name)
- FIOS TV (two dual HD DVRs .. bill sent to my name)
The core of the problem is Verizon business units simply can't work together. It took me a month of countless phone calls and 6 canceled installation dates to get where I am today. The reason Verizon insists that Static service and TV is incompatible is because they think their customers or their installers are morons when it comes to networking technology.
The FIOS set top boxes (STB) needs internet access. It uses the internet for VOD, the guide, and their widgets. Verizon ASSumes that if a customer has a static IP address that there is no way to get the STBs on the internet. This is of course, silly.
In the last week in January I had my 6th install date (the story is too long to tell and will only give me indigestion) --- the tech arrived to hook up my second fiber drop (yes that's right, Verizon in their many attempts to fix their mistakes installed a 2nd fiber drop to my house) but when he got to my house he proclaimed "Sorry, no one has been here yet to install the second ONT and I don't have ONTs in my van. .... this is odd though, it looks like they did patch video service to this ONT ... I wonder why they did that because you cant have static IPs and video"
This is what caught my attention. I've known all along what the TRUE problem is but I just couldn't get any reps, managers, or escalation specialists to believe me. They flat our refused to let me speak to their engineering team. The tech was about to pack it up and leave but I begged him to at least try it.
Me "Please, work with me here, Ive been without TV for a month, I have a new TV I cant use... can you please just try to get this going? I'll make you a deal.. you get the Coax and TV stuff hooked up and I promise you I can get thost STBs on the Internet ..."
The tech was cool about it. He thought I was a little insane but he worked with me. While he proceeded to hook Coax into the ONT I proceeded to work on the networking side.
- I dusted off the Actiontec router I had back when I had residential dynamic FIOS service.
- I assigned that router one of my 5 IP addresses.
- You need that Actiontec because it has a MoCA cable interface to run IP over cable. The STBs in your house will get their IP address and guide/VOD over the IP network.
and guess what? it worked perfectly. DUH!
Conclusion: As long as you can get your STBs on the internet you can have static service and FIOS TV working on the same ONT. It does work despite what the person on the other end of the phone is saying. If you're having trouble in Verizon FIOS and want to use my account as a reference contact me. For all the grief they caused me I'll take great pleasure it rubbing it in and telling them they are wrong over and over again.
3 comments:
I worked at an FSC over 2 1/2 years and they always told us,due to the way the routers in the back end system were configured, data packets for the stb's would never flow on a static user. Not only that, they redesigned provisioning systems to not allow a mix of static data and video and probably cause those cancellations. Quite a few people were willing to give up the ipg and vod to have video and static ip's on the same ont.
Hah.. yeah that's the same story I heard over and over again.
But it's BS, and i'm proof. :)
Yeah that is pretty silly, i have a similar configuration but i did it with the motorola NIM-100 and ditched my actiontec completely. The cable boxes don't seem to care how they get out to the internet, i have all my STB boxes on their own subnet/VLAN and they work fine.
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