Dsl ?

Thanks for all the help but now I'm even more confused. What I have now is people PC which is dial up and pretty slow. We have direct TV which I was thinking would be faster but from what I'm reading will only be a little faster at best. I do not use the computer much at home but would like something faster than dial up but I do not want to spend much per month for the extra speed. From what I've read it seem's like I just need to see what is offered in my area. I'm way behind the learning curve on this stuff so I guess a little reserch will help.

Thanks for all the help but now I'm even more confused. What I have now is people PC which is dial up and pretty slow. We have direct TV which I was thinking would be faster but from what I'm reading will only be a little faster at best. I do not use the computer much at home but would like something faster than dial up but I do not want to spend much per month for the extra speed. From what I've read it seem's like I just need to see what is offered in my area. I'm way behind the learning curve on this stuff so I guess a little reserch will help.

A little faster for not much would mean DSL. Everything else is more expensive. DSL is slower than the others but is probably fine for what you want. It will seem like a Ferrari compared to dial up anyways.

Yep - get DSL. If Verizon DSL is available in your area, you should be able to get it for $15/month (http://www.dslonlinepromotions.com/verizononlinedsl.html).

Features - FiOS locks down all inbound ports, meaning you can't Sling or Orb, or access your home PC as a webserver (e.g., WebGuide for Windows Media Center). Cable tends to leave a broad range of ports open, although some will lock down the email ports. I don't know what DSL does.

This is incorrect. On residential FIOS, ports 80 and sometimes 25 and/or 135 are blocked (depends on region).

This is incorrect. On residential FIOS, ports 80 and sometimes 25 and/or 135 are blocked (depends on region).

Nope - they block them all in my area. Come over some time and run a port scan. I have. Occasionally there will be a high-range port open, but most of the time it's all shut down.

Nope - they block them all in my area. Come over some time and run a port scan. I have. Occasionally there will be a high-range port open, but most of the time it's all shut down.

A port scan won't really tell me anything unless you've forwarded the ports at your router, poked a hole in your host's firewall, and have an application listening to those ports on your host computer.

I'll gladly run a port scan on your IP if you've done these things. PM me your IP if you want.

I don't want to come off sounding like a jerk here, but there has been no mention of Verizon blocking all inbound ports on FIOS, so I have a hard time believing this is the case. This would have been major news and A LOT of people would be jumping all over Verizon right now if they did in fact implement such a draconian policy.

Daseal has FIOS in Centreville, so I'll probably get with him sometime to test this out. :)

I forwarded all ports to a PC and turned off the firewall on the PC first. The port scan should have returned errors from the PC, not to mention I had a webserver running on it which it should have picked up. It turned up nothing. I also tried the specific ports used by the webserver, and, again, nothing under FiOS. Same configuration works fine when I plug it into the cable modem (which is why I have both services for now).

Now, that said, I haven't tested this in quite a while (8-9 months). I'll give it another try to see if something has changed. If not, then I'll take you up on that offer.

BTW - right now there is no forwarding at the firewall, so there is nothing to send you.

According to the Verizon FiOS Terms of Service (http://netservices.verizon.net/portal/link/main/policies?epi-content=GENERICWIDECONTENT&viewID=content&action=TOS) they reserve the right to block selected ports if they deem it a security threat.

So it sounds like they can do whatever they want - not saying they necessarily are, but they sure leave the option open.

Yep. I'd prefer they left them open, but I can't complain too much. It's wicked fast, too.