North State for fiber?

Jeppo

Jeppo

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So, we’ve been with Speculum since they began to offer service here in 1999. Although North State ran fiber to the adjoining neighborhood, it was never available to us. Last week, they finally ran fiber down our road and placed a cabinet right across the street. While their offer won’t save us a lot, it’ll be nice to finally have an alternative and the internet should be blazing fast in both directions.

My biggest concern is about the reliability of their fiber service. I’m pretty much forced to migrate our copper landline over to fiber VOIP and they WILL cut the copper. This means, if/when their fiber goes down, no more phone connection for our alarm system (which is the only reason I continue paying for a landline). Yes, I know I could eventually invest in a cellular alternative for the alarm but I’m just used to the 100% reliability and dependability of the copper landline. It works, no matter what.

Anybody have experience with North State’s fiber? Our daughter had it and says it went down each time it rained at her place.
 
Not North State experience, but might apply....

If you are using your phone landline for your alarm, it's possible it won't work on the fiber regardless once you swap over. I got setup with an IP phone configuration that provided a 'regular' dialtone in the house when we got fiber and fiber-based phone. However didn't work with our existing ADT alarm, so we ended up having to swap to a combination wifi / cellular backup based alarm system. If the alarm company asks you to pay for the new hardware or any installation costs, just threaten to switch to another provider and they likely will do it gratis (ADT did that for mine). There is a ton of competition out there right now with Ring, Simplisafe, etc. they are scurred to death of.

I suspect a lot of the fiber issues you might hear about aren't with the fiber part, but with providers who don't run fiber to your house and rely on existing copper or coax to get to your house (called Fiber to the Node FTTN). AT&T used to do that with their Uverse crap. My Google fiber to the house has been 10X more reliable than Spectrum / TWC was.
 
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Fiber to the premise is exactly that. No coax or interconnection. Nothing interrupts fiber but a cut line. Nothing has better transmission speed. I will never see fiber here in town. Spectrum doesn’t upgrade markets already established and competition is not a threat in older developed areas. One could only wish.
 
They claim they’ll pull fiber to the house. We’ll see. It’s stupid what they did. A year or two ago, the copper was finally kaput and they agreed to replace it gratis. I pointed out that they’d eventually save money by burying fiber at the same time. They passed. It’s maybe 3/8 mile from their cabinet to the house.

About the alarm not working with the VOIP line, was it the alarm system that wouldn’t recognize the dial tone????
 
Jeppo said:
They claim they’ll pull fiber to the house. We’ll see. It’s stupid what they did. A year or two ago, the copper was finally kaput and they agreed to replace it gratis. I pointed out that they’d eventually save money by burying fiber at the same time. They passed. It’s maybe 3/8 mile from their cabinet to the house.

About the alarm not working with the VOIP line, was it the alarm system that wouldn’t recognize the dial tone????
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Most alarms won’t work on VoIP unless the “dial tone” is less than 25’ out of the back of the RG. I know AT&T fiber the upload and download speeds are the same, I’m not sure about Northstate. AT&T fiber now offers speeds up to 5 gigs.
 
Jeppo said:
About the alarm not working with the VOIP line, was it the alarm system that wouldn’t recognize the dial tone????
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Yes. Alarm just wouldn’t initiate the call even though you could pick up a plugged in phone and get a dial dome
 
Seems they’re gonna pull the fiber on Friday the 11th and do the actual install the following Monday. We shall see.
 
@Jeppo

We’ve been with North State for years. We’ve had their Gigabit fiber for probably 10 - 12 years. We never have any issues outside of the very seldom hardware/router issues that are unrelated to North State.

I’ll never go back to anything else. It’s blazing fast and very reliable.
 
Northstate has great service. The newest equipment available is being installed all over their coverage area. They are not repairing copper service. Everything is going fiber.
 
Relatives on North State since the beginning of time. Nothing but problems and poor customer service. I dont know that they have an alternative where they live. They might be able to do wireless 5G from T-Mobile or Verizon but they are not tech savy and if I suggested an alternative and if they had problems I would never hear the end of it. Kinda like my wife and Spectrum. She works from home and her job depends on Zoom calls and mobile phone. I'd go T-Mobile 5G in a heartbeat but the first time there is a problem I'd have to get a divorce. Maybe not such a bad idea after all.
 
I have had North State for almost nine years. Never had a problem with their equipment or their service. My wife can watch Netflix while I download things and my son and I both play console games on Xbox Live, all going at the same time, never slows down.
 
No direct experience with North State, but lots of experience with fiber itself. The ONT (optical network terminal, the device mounted on or in your home that the fiber terminates to) should be the SIP device itself as far as the phone is concerned. The tech that does the transition from copper/coax to fiber should tie your existing inside wiring back to it.

Your devices inside the home (with the rare exception of commercial fax machines designed to run on pots or a PBX) shouldn’t even realize a difference in the dial tone, cause effectually there isn’t one.

As far as reliability, I know in my experience there are 2 issues that generally cause an (unplanned) outage, someone damaging the physical fiber line (digging where they shouldn’t be if buried, and vehicles hitting the pole the fiber is on for aerial) and power, the ONT relies on household power to “translate” light into the data which provides telephone, video services and “internet”.

If you (or the ONT, they should be on a GFCI loop if they are mounted outside or in the garage, so check the breaker/gfi before calling the provider) loses power, they will likely shut down all services with the exception of telephone until power is restored. Telephone is considered a priority service so the battery backup (built into the ONT, or stand alone if they use a ONT/Router combo) will keep your phone line up and working until it dies (8 hours is the “official” time, realistic is 12 or more if the battery is in good condition).

That being said, if you have a whole house generator, or a panel where you can power individual circuits in your home via a generator, the ONT isn’t a high drain device, consider tying it into your backup power, and the provider should have battery/generator setups on their transport equipment so even in the event of a prolonged power outage, you can still have internet.

The issue @BlackGun posted about above, with fttp not able to provide recognizable dial tone on certain devices is one I haven’t run into, do you know what kind of ONT equipment that provider is using? Maybe it’s an issue with that particular vendors equipment not providing adequate line voltage/current from the phone ports on the ONT itself.

Apologies @BlackGun it was @Diverdad that posted that
 
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We only use North State for land line phone and internet. They’ve been great with those services.

We use DirecTV for television. Been a customer with them since 1994 and never had an issue. When we rarely lose signal during a storm, it’s only out for 15 - 30 minutes.

I normally would have already dropped the satellite for an HD antenna, but we have a set of 500,000 volt power lines behind our house and those tend to cause some interference.
 
BlackGun said:
Fiber to the premise is exactly that. No coax or interconnection. Nothing interrupts fiber but a cut line. Nothing has better transmission speed. I will never see fiber here in town. Spectrum doesn’t upgrade markets already established and competition is not a threat in older developed areas. One could only wish.
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We are supposed to be getting fiber here in Hickory in the next year and give rectum some competition. They sent some paperwork out to the house. https://construction.metronetinc.com/l/HickoryNC
 
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DrDover said:
We are supposed to be getting fiber here in Hickory in the next year and give rectum some competition. They sent some paperwork out to the house. https://construction.metronetinc.com/l/HickoryNC
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I’m actually in Newton, NC but don’t want people to think I’m ignorant. I saw that announcement couple weeks ago. I live in a very old neighborhood surrounded by the hood. Not happening here.
 
It took the poor kid a full 8 hours to install and get everything working. He was a trooper. Before he left, we discussed the fiber/VoIP phone vs burglar alarm issue. He explained their install should absolutely work. I called the central station, explained my concern and asked whether I could put the system into alarm and have them NOT call the gendarmes. When I finished my request, I chuckled and pointed out to the central station guy that would be a great way for a burglar to hit my house. Anyway, we agreed how it was going to be done and the central station DID receive the alarm.

Cancelling Spectrum was a joke. They wanted to know why, who I was going with and the package/price. She made me a much more attractive offer when I refused to provide such market surveillance. I pointed out that I’d asked the same question two weeks ago, BEFORE deciding to replace them. Had they made the same offer then, they’d have not lost a 23 year customer. Now off to wait in line at the local Spectrum store to return their hardware.

C2E20B6C-2631-4267-A1FB-F560C32098E9.jpeg
 
Jeppo said:
It took the poor kid a full 8 hours to install and get everything working. He was a trooper. Before he left, we discussed the fiber/VoIP phone vs burglar alarm issue. He explained their install should absolutely work. I called the central station, explained my concern and asked whether I could put the system into alarm and have them NOT call the gendarmes. When I finished my request, I chuckled and pointed out to the central station guy that would be a great way for a burglar to hit my house. Anyway, we agreed how it was going to be done and the central station DID receive the alarm.

Cancelling Spectrum was a joke. They wanted to know why, who I was going with and the package/price. She made me a much more attractive offer when I refused to provide such market surveillance. I pointed out that I’d asked the same question two weeks ago, BEFORE deciding to replace them. Had they made the same offer then, they’d have not lost a 23 year customer. Now off to wait in line at the local Spectrum store to return their hardware.

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Spectrum did the same thing to me when I moved. When the lady finally accepted the fact that I was cancelling, I was told to bring their box back to the office. I told her if they wanted it, it would be on the front porch. It was picked up the next day. Ironically, one of the Spectrum service guys was my next door neighbor. I offered to give it to him, but they sent someone else. He never got a call.
 
Jeppo said:
It took the poor kid a full 8 hours to install and get everything working. He was a trooper. Before he left, we discussed the fiber/VoIP phone vs burglar alarm issue. He explained their install should absolutely work. I called the central station, explained my concern and asked whether I could put the system into alarm and have them NOT call the gendarmes. When I finished my request, I chuckled and pointed out to the central station guy that would be a great way for a burglar to hit my house. Anyway, we agreed how it was going to be done and the central station DID receive the alarm.

Cancelling Spectrum was a joke. They wanted to know why, who I was going with and the package/price. She made me a much more attractive offer when I refused to provide such market surveillance. I pointed out that I’d asked the same question two weeks ago, BEFORE deciding to replace them. Had they made the same offer then, they’d have not lost a 23 year customer. Now off to wait in line at the local Spectrum store to return their hardware.

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Is that a 500/500 service?

Or is that the speed your phone is getting?
 
BigWaylon said:
Is that a 500/500 service?

Or is that the speed your phone is getting?
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It’s 500/500. For my wired laptop, I get a bit more than that. If I get my iPad right next to the WiFi router, I get what you see on that screen grab. If I get a bit distant, or connect to an access point, it’s a good bit lower. I probably have the WiFi configured incorrectly. I went with the 500/500 because we were used to 200/20 and it was plenty for the two of us.
 
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