FTTH anyone?

[Mushroom]

I struck gold for the second time this month. First it was e-Vision and now FTTH. A silly little piece of paper in the lobby says that FTTH service is available and that EID for my building is this and that...

Anyways, is anyone currently subscribed to the Etisalat FTTH service? Any feedback?

[fangpyre]

I got it installed back in Ramadan.
But its still not working.
And the DSL in my area is a bummer.

But the guys at Etisalat said the entire project will be functional in about 2 months.

[Mushroom]

You mean they came and pre-installed it for you, right? I wonder if its the same as what is available in my tower. Although I dont think they would say "is available now" if its just for the FiO router thingie to be installed in my appartment.

I called and they said its the same 4Mbps/512Kbps package. So I wonder if its going to be spiffier than the 4/512 DLS I have now. We'll see. I will try to set it up and see what happens. After all, it cant be worse than it currently is for me.

[fangpyre]

Yes, they did pre-install it.

It follows the same package scheme as the DSL.
But you will benefit from the fact that these are immune to noise, interference, and other things that slow down DSL.

[Mushroom]

Good point. So yeah. I will call tomorrow and set it up.

[darthoz]

2 engineers from Etisalat came over to my place in Nahda, Sharjah yesterday morning, saying they'll be doing the activation...after pulling cables through all the rooms in the house till the one I wanted the wireless router to be in, my internet stopped working, and they reassured that someone from Etisalat would come in the afternoon to fix it, but no one did.

Today, I logged a complaint and caused a racket, and they sent someone over...who unplugged my ADSL modem (Linksys WAG200G), which uses the old RJ11 type plug, into the second socket I never knew I had, and my Internet is up, but its on the old copper network, and not the fibre network. We already have the white box in the dining room though.

My question is...will Etisalat provide me with a new modem once the service is active, considering I never bought a modem from them to start with, and opted for the Linksys WAG200G as it's easier to manage instead of their crappy Speedstream?

Secondly, if they don't provide me with a modem, and insist I purchase a Siemens Gigaset 504 AGU from them, can't I use a Linksys Broadbank router and gateway, the way Du customers use? They both use the RJ45 connection after all.

[fangpyre]

They gave me one, even though I never bought one.
But I wouldn't be surprised if they charge you for it.

For it to work it has to have a PPPoE.
This will be used to supply your username and password to log on.
If it does this, then it will work.


I currently have the Airport.

[darthoz]

Thanks Fangpyre. Another engineer paid us a visit last night, this time, he had an Aztech modem, yay, which I confirmed was for us. But he left saying the termination wasn't complete, guess the cabling guys did a half-assed job. PPPoE. My current ADSL router/gateway (Linksys WAG200G) has that option too.

What's really weird is that my friend, who lives in a building opposite ours, but facing the Dubai Sharjah highway, got a free Siemens Gigaset 504 AGU modem, but hey, at least they got me a modem!

And my brother who lives in the building next to ours (brand new!) has a different way of connecting to the Internet. They terminated his internet and evision line to a single point, and he has his old Speedstream hooked to it, but thru a RJ45 port (using one of four LAN ports) instead of a regular ADSL phone line, and has a seperate eVision modem, which is as big as a wallet.

[fangpyre]

Great to hear.
I got a siemens too.
As for the box, I am not sure what the connection is.
This entire area is pretty much all fiber now.
But new or old building doesn't matter.
They get there when they get there.

[darthoz]

I don't mind Aztech, as long as it works, I'm planning on configuring my Linksys as a range extender/booster later on.