mm wrote:
A friend tells me tonight that if you subscribe to FIOS from Verizon,
at least when you use it for everything you have (tv, internet, phone,
or any subset) when they install the optical cable, they take out your
copper.

So that you can never go back.

He says that even if you sell your house, the new owner can't get
simple copper phone or DSL line, unless he pays someone privately to
reinstall the copper wires.

That's why my friend kept a simple phone line, and didn't get VOIP.

That's what he says, and he's no dummy. Does anyone think he's wrong?

Is Verizon only in the mid-atlantic, or the northeast?

(Missa, this would explain why it is worth it to dig those trenches
and holes to run lines where there are few or no subscribers. Talk to
me later.)

I am no fan of phone companies but I don't see the point. FiOS is fiber
to the premise. They can run anything on it including phone service. So
there is little point for them to maintain a dual plant system of both
fiber optic and copper cabling.

As a subscriber you buy a service. If you buy dial tone service I don't
see why it would matter if it were provisioned on copper or fiber. Or in
the case of DSL you are buying broadband data. Why would it matter to
you if it came via DSL on copper or over fiber?