Broadband Front Lines: Fios’ success lies in their hands

Fairfax, Va., resident Thomas Cushing wasn’t about to make the same mistake twice.

He remembered waiting before signing up to get DSL service--and then waiting some more to actually get the high-speed Internet access he wanted. So when Verizon announced the availability of its Fios technology, which deploys fiber to the premises (FTTP), Cushing was quick to call.

And so it was, on a cool overcast morning in mid-February, that John Petrosino and Steve Duran, both services technicians in Verizon’s Fios deployment, pulled into the Cushing driveway armed and ready to bring Cushing’s 1940s-era home into the 21st century of communication.

Petrosino and Duran represent the front line of Verizon’s attack on its broadband competition. Like hundreds of technicians in 13 states around the country, they now spend their days running fiber optic cable a few hundred feet from where it has been installed in neighborhoods to the home of customers, like Cushing, who has ordered Internet access at speeds of 15 Mb/s up to 30 Mb/s.

Verizon’s ability to expand its FTTP footprint quickly and cost effectively hinges to no small extent on the ability of its workforce to tackle the new challenges of not only handling fiber optic cable but also configuring computers, running inside wiring and setting up battery backups. It is a challenge that Dave Jobson, the local Verizon manager in Fairfax, readily acknowledges.

“Given the particulars of any given house, the jobs can be small, easy and straightforward, and take a couple of hours, or it can take all day,” he says. The average is a little less than four hours, but if the home’s layout requires extensive inside wiring and if that wiring is complicated--say there’s no attic and the basement is finished--it’s a much more difficult proposition.”

There are homeowners “who don’t want to see an inch of wire,” Jobson says. “And what we want is for the customers to be happy.”

Petrosino and Duran are very fortunate to be working at the Cushing home. Just inside the front door is the office in which Thomas Cushing is installing his new Alienware PC--a high-performance unit favored by gaming enthusiasts. Already installed, in a closet converted to equipment storage, is the Ethernet router that connects the other computers in the Cushing home via an extensive network of wires that has required Cushing to install new thresholds over the base of every doorway on the first floor. He is using a combination of wireless and wired network to connect four computers. Downstairs, the cement-board walls in his vintage home prevent wireless connections from working, Cushing explains.

Duran works outside and Petrosino inside, working simultaneously to get the connection up and running. They arrived at 8:30 a.m. and by 9 a.m., things were well underway.

Duran uses a Coleman camp chair and a large Stanley multiple section carrying case that features “every connector we could possibly need,” he says. “No two houses are the same, so it’s good to carry everything with you that you could possibly need,” he says.

The cases were the idea of some technicians in Keller, Texas, says Petrosino and he brought the idea back with him after visiting that installation, Verizon’s first.

“I bought my own for $10 at Home Depot, and then my supervisor liked it so much, he got them for everyone and reimbursed me for mine,” he said. “It makes you more efficient--you are not running back and forth to the truck.”

The actual drop to Cushing’s house is installed before the services technicians ever show up, by a contractor. Verizon is offering a six-day connection window, once a customer’s house is passed by the Fios network, largely because they have to determine whether the drop is aerial, which is quickly deployed, or buried, which takes longer.

“Eighty percent of the drops in Falls Church are aerial, but some customers have paid us to bury their cable,” says Jobson. “So we bury the fiber optic cable as well.”

Cushing’s drop is aerial, and it’s already hanging by the front of the house. Verizon uses pre-connectorized drops of 90 to 105 feet. One of Duran’s first jobs is to coil up the extra and put it inside the slack tray that is in the back portion of the optical network terminal. He does this while trying to avoid trampling the bushes, getting stuck on the thorns of a rose bush or damaging the emerging spring flowers, apparently confused by the early February warmth.

Having a pre-connectorized drop doesn’t mean that Duran’s job is easy. He has to create telephone and Ethernet connections--at one point, the plastic connector in the RJ-45 jack disappears into the shrubbery--and admits that on colder days this winter, these final connections have been a challenge.

“But I’d rather work in the cold than the heat,” he says.

Inside, Petrosino chooses the right drill bit to install the power source and battery backup, two separate beige plastic boxes. Many customers prefer to have them in the basement or in the garage, says Jobson. The batteries are expected to have a two-year life span, and then it will be up to the consumer to replace them, according to a Verizon spokesman.

Verizon is prepared to handle a variety of customer requests, including putting the ONT itself inside, Petrosino says.

“We’ll cut the connectorized end off, and only drill a small hole to run the fiber through, then fuse it on the inside,” he says. “We are fully trained to do whatever the customer wants.”

In the final stages, Duran lets Cushing know that both of his telephone lines will be going down briefly. Using a wirelessly connected laptop, Petrosino puts in the order for the Fios service, and once it comes through, first one and then the other phone line are turned up on the fiber network and tested.

In what early on proved the toughest part of the job for Verizon techs, Petrosino now configures Cushing’s computer, initially hitting a brick wall. Cushing then realizes that his new computer is not connected to the Ethernet router--one quick click and things are up and running.

Then comes the big test--Petrosino shows Cushing that his computer is receiving data at 12.766 Mb/s, or not quite the advertised speed of 15 Mb/s.

While Cushing laughs off the difference, Petrosino shows how a quick reconfiguration of his PC’s settings gets him quickly to the promised land of 15 Megs.

“Up until you start configuring the computer, what you are really doing is hanging a gizmo and running wire for the jack--and even if it’s Cat-5 wire, it’s a variation on what we’ve been doing for decades,” Jobson says. “At first, getting our techs used to configuring computers was the hardest part because it was the new part of this. But after a short while, we’ve started having a little chat every day, where everyone shares the various weird computer configurations they’ve run into. That’s what we’ve been learning about since September.”

Virtually every PC needs some resetting to get the maximum speeds, he adds.

Installation times are coming down, says Jobson, but there is still great variation, based on the specific houses involved.

Cushing’s house has proved straightforward and quick--less than two hours after they started the installation, Duran and Petrosino are ready for the last step, which is to take down the copper drop from the pole across the street to Cushing’s house. From now on, this home will be part of Verizon’s fiber network, regardless of whether or not future customers want high-speed Internet or the television service Verizon will launch later this year.

And while the work on the Fairfax home went smoothly, Duran admits there’s part of the job that’s never easy.

“It’s hard,” he says, “to install this all day and go home and not have it.”