Verizon Fios and Time Capsule Please Help

[benlee]

I've searched to the ends of the internets and back and have yet to find a definitive answer.

I am getting Fios in a couple of weeks and want to make sure I can keep my current setup.

Time Capsule supplying Wireless N
Airport Express supplying Wireless G
Back to My Mac

Does anyone have experience with this? Could you provide me with your exact setup so that it is understandable?

THanks for any help.

 

[x86isslow]

I've searched to the ends of the internets and back and have yet to find a definitive answer.

I am getting Fios in a couple of weeks and want to make sure I can keep my current setup.

Time Capsule supplying Wireless N
Airport Express supplying Wireless G
Back to My Mac

Does anyone have experience with this? Could you provide me with your exact setup so that it is understandable?

THanks for any help.

I have comcast, so I can't say for sure, but I've heard you can turn off the FIOS wireless and use a regular rj45-rj45 cable to connect it to your Time Capsule


edit: http://gravitationalpull.net/wp/?p=272

 

[benlee]

I have comcast, so I can't say for sure, but I've heard you can turn off the FIOS wireless and use a regular rj45-rj45 cable to connect it to your Time Capsule

This is what I have read also. Would this create any disadvantages? My only concern then would be BTMM working correctly.

 

[eddietr]

I have basically the same setup.

FIOS connected directly to a Time Capsule.

And then in another part of a house, I have an AEBS with several devices connected to it. And that is a wireless bridge and repeater for the signal from the time capsule.

I do not use the router which VZ provided. And B2M works perfectly fine.

I used to have to use the VZ router because I had Verizon cable boxes that required coax connections back to the router. But we got rid of those, and then I was able to dump the VZ router and connect the time capsule directly.

The result was *much* faster connection speeds (wired and wireless), and total reliability. The junk VZ router was a mess to configure and had to be rebooted every 2-3 weeks once it slowed to a crawl. And even after 2-3 days I was getting half of the rated speed of 50mbps.

 

[benlee]

I have basically the same setup.

FIOS connected directly to a Time Capsule.

And then in another part of a house, I have an AEBS with several devices connected to it. And that is a wireless bridge and repeater for the signal from the time capsule.

I do not use the router which VZ provided. And B2M works perfectly fine.

I used to have to use the VZ router because I had Verizon cable boxes that required coax connections back to the router. But we got rid of those, and then I was able to dump the VZ router and connect the time capsule directly.

The result was *much* faster connection speeds (wired and wireless), and total reliability. The junk VZ router was a mess to configure and had to be rebooted every 2-3 weeks once it slowed to a crawl. And even after 2-3 days I was getting half of the rated speed of 50mbps.

Thats what I'm afraid of. I have Cablevision right now and am perfectly happy with it and have my setup.

Fios is appealing because the HD Channels are better and the internet is faster and cheaper.

Maybe I should just see if Cablevision will knock some money off my bill to keep me. I don't want unreliability.

 

[eddietr]

Thats what I'm afraid of. I have Cablevision right now and am perfectly happy with it and have my setup.

Fios is appealing because the HD Channels are better and the internet is faster and cheaper.

Maybe I should just see if Cablevision will knock some money off my bill to keep me. I don't want unreliability.

Well, I still use VZ for the TVs, we just don't use their cable boxes any more. We use our own with cablecards. And that works perfectly fine.

And connecting the internet directly to the time capsule is perfectly reliable. And I get 50mbps as promised 24/7 with no exceptions. It's been perfectly reliable since we connected it directly to the time capsule.

The only problem is the routers they supply, which are terrible. But just don't use it. Get cablecards instead.

And, btw, the improvement in picture quality with FIOS HD is immediately noticeable compared to what we had before (DirecTV). It's not even close, especially when watching sports.

 

[benlee]

Well, I still use VZ for the TVs, we just don't use their cable boxes any more. We use our own with cablecards. And that works perfectly fine.

And connecting the internet directly to the time capsule is perfectly reliable. And I get 50mbps as promised 24/7 with no exceptions. It's been perfectly reliable since we connected it directly to the time capsule.

The only problem is the routers they supply, which are terrible. But just don't use it. Get cablecards instead.

And, btw, the improvement in picture quality with FIOS HD is immediately noticeable compared to what we had before (DirecTV). It's not even close, especially when watching sports.

What is this cablecards you speak of?
Sounds expensive.

 

[eddietr]

What is this cablecards you speak of?
Sounds expensive.

Actually, they (verizon) charge less for the cards than for renting their cableboxes. After a bit of negotiation, I pay $5/month for 5 cards.

 

[benlee]

Actually, they (verizon) charge less for the cards than for renting their cableboxes. After a bit of negotiation, I pay $5/month for 5 cards.

What do you use for your current cable box? Any downgrade in features? DVR mainly.

 

[eddietr]

What do you use for your current cable box? Any downgrade in features? DVR mainly.

We have 1 TiVO DVR, 1 MythTV (DVR) and the other TVs just have the cablecards plugged right in with no DVR.

BTW, the Verizon DVR they gave us was terrible, too.

Basically the bottom line with FIOS, is the connectivity and bandwidth are great. And unlike cable, it doesn't fluctuate. That part is really perfect. Upstream and downstream you get exactly what you pay for all the time.

But the equipment they give you (Router, DVR) pretty much suck.

 

[n0de]

If you are going to use VZ's cable boxes, then the wireless router they give you still needs to be connected to the intrenet.

When you look at this router you will see a coax connection to it, that's how it feeds VOD and the TV Scheduling to the boxes.

What I did was plug the FIOS WAN Cat5 into my TC WAN port, authenticating by PPOE. In the wireless router they gave me I turned off WAN authentication and plugged the WAN port into a regular ethernet port on the TC. The VZ router still needs to act as a DHCP server for the cable boxes so be sure and have that DHCP to be a different subnet than the one you use for your computers.

 

[x86isslow]

If you are going to use VZ's cable boxes, then the wireless router they give you still needs to be connected to the intrenet.

When you look at this router you will see a coax connection to it, that's how it feeds VOD and the TV Scheduling to the boxes.

What I did was plug the FIOS WAN Cat5 into my TC WAN port, authenticating by PPOE. In the wireless router they gave me I turned off WAN authentication and plugged the WAN port into a regular ethernet port on the TC. The VZ router still needs to act as a DHCP server for the cable boxes so be sure and have that DHCP to be a different subnet than the one you use for your computers.

But do you have two routers putting out a signal on the 5.8ghz bandwidth? I'd imagine there'd be some sort of interference/signal loss if both routers were in the same space. Is there a way to disable the wifi antennae on the VZ wireless router, and use a rj45 cable to hard connect the router to a TC?