John Czwartacki, of Verizon’s Policy Blog, dropped us a line asking if the writers and readers of ZNF would like to participate in a FiOS Q&A session:
Next Friday, I’ll conduct and post a conversation with one of the behind the scenes brains here at Verizon. Our first
victimcandidate is Brian Whitton, executive director of access network design and integration for Verizon. Brian’s title is just a formality — he’s the guy who knows about speed, what it means for the end user, and the innovations we’re deploying right now that make our fiber optic broadband to homes the autobahn of the Internet. Anyway, here’s your chance to ask an expert about G-PON, MoCA, and how Verizon hopes to transform the customer experience with the fiber we’re placing all the way into people’s homes.
You can never have too many friends in the blogosphere (even if they might not have appreciated my last post), so of course we have questions…. hopefully you do too. If so, please drop them in our comment area or theirs.
Davis:
One of the things that cable gets knocked for is only supporting a limited capacity of shows that can be offered through their VOD service at any one time. What is the maximum number of VOD videos that Verizon will have the capacity to offer on demand and on average how many VOD shows do they actually plan on offering through the service.
Mari:
Motorola technology and set-tops power the Verizon Home Media DVR service, so I’m familiar with its use of MoCA to network TV throughout the home. What is your view on the choice of MoCA (using existing coax cable) as a networking platform versus other options that are out there? What do you think of wireless networking platforms and when do you think we’re likely to see a wireless solution deployed that can effectively stream HDTV?
Dave:
The Verizon FiOS TV franchise was recently approved in my neighborhood, though I’ve heard from a variety of sources that fiber won’t be run to apartment buildings. As an apartment dweller (in a 40 year old building with hundreds of units), is this accurate? If so, is this a technical or financial issue?
Verizon representatives have gone on the record stating that HD content delivered over FiOS is never compressed beyond what is was when received from the content provider. That being said, is there theoretical limit to the amount of HD channels that FiOS can deliver? Will FiOS TV and Internet customers ever need to worry about their TV traffic stealing from their data bandwidth?
1. Is there any possibility of Verizon licensing the TiVo software, as Comcast and Cox have done, for FiOS?
2. FiOS currently supports CableCARD systems, such as the TiVo Series3. Should this continue indefinitely? Will Verizon continue to add channels to the standard digital tier that CC devices can access, or will they begin using Switched Digital Video for channels, locking out CC 1.0 devices?
3. When will I be able to get FiOS in my home? ;-)
Does FiOS have the Free to air OTA Networks available to TV’s equipped with QAM tuners? so that an additional box @ $5 a month isn’t required for all televisions.
With a fiber connection being symmetric, many fiber providers such as Paxio (www.paxio.net) are providing symmetric connections such as 5Mbit, 10Mbit, 30Mbit. Why is Verizon keeping this arbitrary asymmetric limit with Fiber?