Thnking of Verizon FiOS?

Here is something to consider before you make the jump to FTTH (Fiber To The Home) from Verizon:

Will you ever, in the future, require the use of the telecom copper cabling that currently feeds your house? I'm not talking about the telephone lines inside your walls, I'm referring to the copper pairs that come from your street.

Verizon's policy is that once you have FiOS installed, they will make unusable those pairs that go from their publicly-subsidized infrastructure to your home.

If you ever decide that you want to switch to a different telecom provider - one that would use those copper wires - you yould need have new lines run, at your cost (if Verizon would allow it at all).

The hidden agenda:
Verizon (and other ILECs (Incumbent Local Exchange Carriers) were required to provide open (low cost) access to their copper infrastructure to other CLECs (Competitive Local Exchange Carriers). This allowed companies other than the ILEC to provide DSL and other telecom services, without having to build out their own infrastructure.

Verizon lobbied hard to make sure that the same sort of access would not be required of them, were they to build out a new, fiber optic infrastrure. With that in place, they began to roll out FiOS to their territory.

The bottom line:
If you want the option to go with another telecom provider (for data or voice service) other than your cable company, get it in writing from Verizon that they will not destroy your existing copper infrastructure in any way.

Or, don't get FiOS at all.