FiOS: update I

So its been some number of weeks since I had Verizon's fiber optic data and TV service installed in the house. They call it "FiOS" (the installers told me its pronounced "fye - ous"). Anyway now that I've had some weeks to get the hang of it, I thought I'd let people know my thoughts. First, the data part (aka the intarweb) is totally bitchin'. Its hard to get a bead on what my true download and upload speed is though as I get radically different readings from the different speedtests available out there, so I'm not sure what's going on with that. A friend of mine said he'd try some of the same speedtests with his cable connection at some point. Perhaps he could report results in the comments? The only thing about the internet connection is that Verizon is basically Macintosh-computer stoopid. The techs came into the house and took one look at my Airport wireless transmitter and said, "will that work with our system?" Of course it will you dumbasses. Anyway, part of their standard operating procedure is to hook your main connection into a wireless router (I think its Cisco branded) that has 4 ethernet ports on it for connecting to your home computers. That kinda sucked for me because I have this whole nifty printer sharing thing going on with my Airport and I knew the Cisco router had no such funtionality. After doing some more speedtests, I basically just daisy-chained my Airport downstream of the Cisco router so that I effectively now have two wireless networks running off of the same internet connection. So I browse the net with the Cisco router network and when I have to print something from one of the laptops, I just switch networks over to the Airport. Its not an ideal solution, but it will have to do until I figure out a way to get the routers operating on the same network, or find a way to get the Cisco router to do the printer sharing I can do with my Airport.

I haven't yet played online video games with this new connection, but I will soon, maybe in another update. At that time I may also go on and explain what I've learned about wireless connections vs ethernet-wired connections and how that led me to wire every important room in my home with an ethernet jack.

Update II will deal with the TV service, and it will be long (because there is plenty to complain about)