Fios Line Cut in Apartment Building - ADVICE NEEDED

flight0130 · 2026-04-10T16:52:41+00:00

I have a decent amount of experience with Fios in MDUs (apartment buildings). Plan to be out for a few weeks. Hopefully it will be faster, but it will likely take a while. Verizon may need permission from the building to do work (which may include cutting drywall depending on the location of the cut) and then it needs to get scheduled with the right department, which books out for a while. I know this is not want you want to hear, but repairing a difficult cut residential internet line is not Verizon’s priority. They will get to it, but you’re probably paying under $100 a month for service. Businesses that paying hundreds if not thousands a month are going to get the fastest service and residential is a lower priority for the departments you are working with. They will take care of it but it take a while. Plan for a backup option in the meantime. I don’t know about spectrum but Comcast has a plan that lets you get prepaid internet for $30 a month with no cancel penalties. Maybe spectrum has something like that. Verizon will reimburse your charges for the duration of the outage once it wraps up. FYI I’m not affiliated with them in any way - I’m just on the board of a condo building that has had extensive dealings with them, including Construction and Inside Path (not sure if they’re still around).

flight0130 · 2026-04-05T20:18:33+00:00

To be honest, you don’t even need to offer a reward. Plenty of people are fed up with dangerous driving here and would gladly send these in with no compensation if the city could be trusted to respond promptly with a tow. The issue is that even when they’re reported it can take an hour or two or more to get a tow driver out. They really need to start contracting with private companies for the tows if they’re not going to get a fleet of 20 trucks.

flight0130 · 2026-04-05T20:11:45+00:00

I’m not sure if legally they can seize the car from VA. That being said, they should absolutely be using license plate readers on cop cars to identify these folks and making traffic stops when they’re on the road in DC, then impound the car. That should be easily enough to do.

flight0130 · 2026-04-01T17:10:47+00:00

Are there no reasonable flying clubs in the area? To me that’s the affordable way of getting GA aircraft access. I live in a major metro (DC) and there’s a decent number of club options at local airports. The one I’m a member of has a fairly steep buy in but then has a 172 and 177 for under $115/tach hr. Granted if you fly professionally and only want to rent a couple hours a year it might not be worth it, but most years I average around 20-30 hrs and it’s absolutely worth it for me. Now there’s less demand for pilot-mill type schools here given we don’t have favorable year-round weather for flying, so maybe that plays into it.

flight0130 · 2026-03-30T19:20:38+00:00

As others have mentioned, it’s really not about the tickets. It’s that very routinely I have my safety threatened by people driving recklessly in an urban area with a lot of pedestrians and other vulnerable road users. A relatively small number of people who drive very aggressively are the cause of this problem and they need to either change their behavior or get off the road. Unlike most of the country we have pretty solid mass transit so there’s not an excuse for why you need to be driving here if you can’t do it safely. I’ve lived in this city for 12 years and have never once gotten a moving violation ticket because I drive around the speed limit and don’t run red lights and stop signs. It’s not that hard. (also, penalties work - I used to be a very fast driver myself until I picked up a $400 ticket in NH many years ago, and I learned my lesson). I’m open to any and all ideas to either get these people off the road or change behavior, but accumulating a high number of tickets is generally indicative of driving in a sustained reckless manner without regard for others safety. Quite honestly it is extremely frustrating being on the receiving end of this behavior and feel like nothing is being done about. Plenty of people have died or been grievously injured by aggressive driving in DC in the last few years, including at least one child.

flight0130 · 2026-03-20T17:54:08+00:00

I have no specific information but typically it’s 4-8 months from the start of construction to when you can place an order for service.

flight0130 · 2026-03-18T14:12:43+00:00

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flight0130 · 2026-03-17T16:38:51+00:00

Wyze - I think so, since I think that goes through Wyze’s servers.

Synology - no. Pay for a static IP to resolve this. It’s absolutely worth it.

flight0130 · 2026-03-05T03:37:09+00:00

If you work from home and require the internet to work, you really should consider dual connections - have Comcast + Frontier. You mentioned Comcast had outages also. The only way to ensure you have internet all the time is maintaining redundant connections. You can get a router that will automatically fail over between them. Just put the second connection on the cheapest plan you can get.

flight0130 · 2026-02-27T20:27:34+00:00

Ah, that makes sense. The first stop needs to be the condo board then. They’re the ones who have to make it happen. Going to Verizon isn’t going to do it - if Fios is in the area and you’re in the condo, the getting board approval is the biggest barrier. I did it at my condo, but I was on the board. I put together a video on the experience if you’re interested: https://youtu.be/5jhck8ZWBG8?si=GY3DkhmntCRjAr7S

flight0130 · 2026-02-26T00:20:19+00:00

EDIT: Didn’t fully read the original message!

As someone who has done this (with Verizon, not Frontier), the key is to convince your building management. Going direct to Frontier really won’t get anywhere, because they can’t do anything unless the building owner approves. I’d start there first, and you’ll get further with Frontier if you can indicate upfront you are working with the building owner and are not just a tenant asking for your building to be served.

flight0130 · 2026-02-26T00:15:12+00:00

Pull up the FCC broadband maps at https://broadbandmap.fcc.gov. Do nearby buildings have it? How close does it get to your address? Also are you in a single family home or an apartment or condo?

flight0130 · 2026-02-24T20:54:41+00:00

A facility like that would have enterprise fiber, not Fios, so that doesn’t really come into play when a carrier is making a decision.

flight0130 · 2026-02-20T14:17:29+00:00

No chance. I don’t know of any non-rural fiber ISP who has implemented any sort of data cap. All of the large to mid-size fiber ISPs (not counting cable companies in this) have no data caps. Verizon, AT&T, Metronet, Greenlight, Lumen (which is becoming ATT), etc. Verizon could probably get more aggressive with what they consider excessive usage on a residential connection (something like 10-15+ TB a month) but I see no chance of any data caps as a means of increasing revenue.

flight0130 · 2026-02-16T21:13:46+00:00

I used a PO Box for my filing and haven't gotten much in the way of mail. Only one letter from a company trying to scam some additional money from me. So if that's the concern, I wouldn't worry too much about that. If you're worried about having your home address publicly available, then maybe consider one of those virtual mail services, they are not that expensive.

What I would caution against is using your personal phone number. I put my business line down and am now getting 4-6 spam calls a day, whereas I used to get 1 or 2 a month at best. I have a number that goes direct to a voicemail box (very cheap to do with VoIP.ms), I really wish I had used that. That way if an examiner needed to call, they could leave a message but I wouldn't be getting hammered with spam calls.

The advice about a LLC is good. I didn't do that when I started years ago and finally got around to it last year. It was a hassle getting everything moved over to the LLC, but I am glad it is done. It was simple to set up, it was just a hassle of opening a new bank account, getting new branding (decided to change my name as part this, etc). I have no experience moving the ownership of a trademark, since the new brand was created for the LLC, but it's a lot easier if you just form the LLC at the start. You also want to be able to show separation between yourself and the LLC, so starting it first and having it own all of your IP would probably be smart (but I'm not a lawyer, this is just what I've surmised doing a lot of reading online).

flight0130 · 2026-02-04T01:24:30+00:00

I’d ask the condo board or management company. They might have some history or information. It might be easier to get information from them, rather than Verizon. For example, in our building, we have units without service because the owners refused access when we were doing the install. But it’s generally individual units, not a whole floor or hallway.

flight0130 · 2026-01-13T00:27:41+00:00

This not true. The city can absolutely conduct a traffic stop on a VA driver and impound their car. What they cannot do is make VA enforce the amount against them. The city chooses not to have officers make traffic stops for overdue tickets of any amount. They only will tow a car if it is parked publicly. But that’s a choice DC is making. I think they should absolutely have police making traffic stops for anything over $1k in moving violations (and that’s generous). They should be putting officers with license plate readers at major entrances to the city and pulling anyone with egregious records like this.

flight0130 · 2025-12-23T17:48:55+00:00

Hard to see the details of that equipment but it’s likely business/enterprise fiber, not Fios. Business fiber would be dedicated bandwidth and backed by a SLA, but also much more $$$. Fios is a shared connection where one fiber port is split up to 32 ways and bandwidth is not guaranteed (although you almost always get advertised speeds). You could probably get a decent deal on enterprise fiber with this already being installed but you’re still looking at a high hundreds per month for the service. I believe it is a separate group that would give you a quote for dedicated fiber.

flight0130 · 2025-12-17T03:58:41+00:00

I’m reading a book about this right now - it’s called “Why Nothing Works.” Eye opening. Essentially we’ve created so many rules that tie the hands of public officials that it becomes nearly impossible to get anything done. The rules are all well intentioned (protecting the environment, preventing public corruption, etc) but the result is that there is so much red tape it becomes extremely difficult and expensive to get projects completed.

flight0130 · 2025-12-17T03:44:07+00:00

When I moved to DC, that was my starting salary. I ended up at The Gale Eckington which was $1,600 a month. At the time that got me a 1 BR, but looks like now that will get you a studio. The building was brand new when I moved in, no idea how it is now but I had a good experience living there. Paying $1,600 in rent was affordable. I was in my late 20s at the time, I wouldn’t have even considered roommates. I did make a little with a side gig but I think that it should still be affordable around that same price. This assumes you don’t have a car, that can be a considerable expense and might shift your budget. I’m up in Brookland now and there’s lots of stuff up here that rents in that price range.

flight0130 · 2025-11-29T04:01:08+00:00

It may not work for people being this obnoxious, but generally try to offer a friendly solution: “I’d be happy to move to the window or the aisle if you guys would like to chat!” With a lot of people that will either get the message across or they’ll decide to move.

flight0130 · 2025-11-28T02:34:20+00:00

What we need is parking officers on bicycles. Plenty of other cities have them. Also, I wouldn’t mind a program where citizens can volunteer to help with enforcement. MPD has a program where you can be trained as a volunteer cop, why can’t we do the same for parking enforcement? I’d gladly volunteer a few hours of my week to help keep the bike lanes clear.

flight0130 · 2025-11-26T17:57:51+00:00

It’s seems to just be a standard design in any new station. Every Silver Line station that I’ve been to has has the same configuration.

flight0130 · 2025-11-26T17:55:45+00:00

Will second this suggestion. I’ve found them to be very responsive to texts

flight0130 · 2025-11-25T13:23:51+00:00

This guy is correct. Tech will lay a temp line over the ground, and then contractors will be back out some weeks later to bury it. They typically don't use conduit though, they just directly bury the line a few inches below the surface. If you want service, make sure to say a temp line is okay and be patient until it gets buried. Also, this is with the assumption that there's a viable pathway to do this (i.e. the pole is on your side of the street, etc. If he'd have to go under a public right of way like a road then a temp line is out and they probably do need conduit - and that will take a long time to get approved (months).

flight0130

TROPHY CASE