[BC] FIOS comes to the Wilds of VA

[Alan Peterson]

At long last, the cul-de-sac I live on in Northern Virginia finally had a Verizon FIOS lightpipe laid down under the sidewalk. 

For anyone who already has the service in their home, I've got two questions:

1) How good is the RF immunity of the interface boxes and the indoor copper lines, specifically in the typical ham band frequencies between 1.8 and 147 MHz? Around my house now with its basic crapola wiring, my internet speed dips measurably when the rig is keyed.

2) Isn't there an option you can ask for when ordering where the existing copper line to the street remains in place and connected for telephone service, should there be an extended power failure in one's locale that surpasses the life of the battery backup?

Verizon customer service reps haven't been much help outside of their flip-tab answer books, and they don't know how to transfer me to an engineer. Can anyone offer their experiences?

Alan Peterson KJ4IVD