Comcast or FIOS?

[Mongo53]

Thanks Mark,
Your explanation was very thorough, your early post was good as well. What confused me was the concept of connecting the Verizon router/modem through coax somewhere in the home for TV and Internet. I think I'm starting to see why that is now.

My home was built in '99, it seems the nature of progress, newer homes have the termination of all the low voltage (i.e. NON-Power) wiring at one central location and logically near where the services enter the home. Older homes that was NOT the case, and so many FIOS customer may NOT have easy options of just connecting some of their wiring directly to the ONT, or they use Wireless Networking and the location of the ONT usually on one side of the house, does NOT make for good location of the Wireless Router.

As well, it looks Verizon is trying to cut down on costs and equipment by combining the conversion of TV and Internet into a single unit.

BUT, in my case, I'd prefer to connect my home computer network directly to the ONT because:
*The center of my Home Network (mostly wired) is right there on the other side of the wall of where they would put the ONT.
*I worry about bottlenecks, latency and throughput using a device also controlling TV.
*I've had bad experiences and had friends that had even worse experiences using the "Company Issued" equipment.

I already have a good router, working very well at a central point in my network, I'd just opt to connect it directly to the ONT and skip the Verizon equipment. It would only be about 3 or 4 feet of ethernet cable, I don't think interference will be a problem.

Oh, 1 more question, the picture you posted of the ONT, is that the customer side of the ONT? i.e. the part that I as the home owner can open and work on without Verizon being there, to reconfigure as I feel is necessary? If thats true, honestly, I could play around and try several different configurations and see what works for me best.

[Mongo53]

Thanks MarylandMark, very informative. AFA the home builder cutting cost, yea its always a factor, my point the home keep up with technology somewhat and the newer the home, the more likely it is to have more drops/connections and have them configured in the "Star" or "HomeRun" pattern in one convenient part of the home.

A 50 year old home, you'd be lucky to find a single 2 conductor cable run as a loop to 2 phone jacks and that was it, if there was coax cable the previous owner added it later on. My home has CAT5e ran in the "Star/HomeRun" to every room in the house that you could possibly imagine ever putting a phone or computer in. To be honest, we purchased just before the home was finished, so I was able to specify adding additional phone drop, which the contractor used CAT5, so I just switched connectors on the end to make some wired network drops.

Pulling new cables into the home is NOT that difficult, but it is difficult enough to fall into the category of for "true handymen" and NOT someone that has never changed his own oil. Terminating the COAX is NOT that difficult to teach yourself, but the tools can be rather expensive, $30 for a cheap fairly reliable, $70 for high quality termination for an amateur, more expensive for pros.

You can tell I'm a hobbyist with this stuff. I put up a plywood board in my garage where all this wire terminates, got lots of cheap stuff off e-bay and built myself a cool patch panel where all this stuff meets up. Home Computer network, Cable TV, phone, I can disconnect and reconfigure it all in a matter of minutes.