Helford

Hi,

Just back from our house-hunting trip to NJ and the next stage is to look at utilities, etc starting with the internet.

We've been told that Verizon Fios will work to our new address, but given that this provider seems to work hard to make their service unique (their phones only work on their network as they don't use GSM, we are told) I wonder whether VPN masking will work with Fios or whether it's better to go with a less complicated provider? I've read many, many TV threads here, but don't see mention of Verizon or whether people using Verizon Fios are able to spoof the VPN to get UK catch-up TV. I have read the issue with IPlayer that people have written about inasmuch as it seems that it will be blocked to viewers outside the UK.

Any advice on which Internet Service Provider would be helpful. I'm really not remotely interested in US TV channels, and would envisage just using UK catch up where possible streaming over the internet.

Thanks in advance.

Pulaski

Sorry I can't help with your FIOS/VPN question, but Verizon replaced whatever it was using (I don't now remember) with LTE, which is what everyone who used GSM switched to too. Verizon made the switch several years ago, so whoever advised you is not up to date with technology changes.

Olly_

I have Verizon FiOS at home and use iPlayer etc. fine with a Smart DNS service. If you can get FiOS I'd definitely recommend it - it's way better than cable internet.

Actually Verizon still run a CDMA network, they don't have LTE everywhere. Unless your phone supports VoLTE and you have Advanced Calling turned on your calls still go over the CDMA network.

Pulaski

Right, but it's a legacy technology who's days are numbered - IOW I doubt Verizon is shipping any phones that don't work on LTE, or has done so in the past couple of years.

Olly_

They might support LTE for data but lots of cheaper phones don't support VoLTE so I doubt they'll shut their CDMA network down any time soon - if they did then anybody without a reasonably high end phone wouldn't be able to make voice calls.

GM cars with Onstar up to and including the 2014 model year rely on the Verizon CDMA network as well.

Pulaski

Verizon stopped selling CDMA phones in early 2014, so given the two year contract cycle that the phone company pushes, anyone with a CDMA only phone is already in a small minority. I am sure that there are reasons to keep running the CDMA network for a while, but I doubt it will be working five years from now.

All of that is of no relevance to the OP because if he signs up for Verizon mobile phone service he will not be offered a CDSM-only phone, because in 2016 no such (new) phone exists on the Verizon network.

Olly_

You can buy phones right now from Verizon that don't support Voice over LTE, so require the CDMA network to exist in order to make phone calls.

I doubt they'll shut it down any time soon - there are loads of embedded devices that rely on it too.

tom169

I can't speak for the VPN issue with experience, but I highly doubt they block VPN traffic given the amount of people that use it to connect to corporate networks etc.

Pulaski

So I see. That's strange, Verizon announced they were going to only LTE phones effective early 2014. Yeah, obviously!

rpjs

I'm on FiOS and use work VPNs all the time plus watch the iPlayer with the MediaHint proxy.

Helford

Thank you! That's very reassuring information. On that basis I'll do some digging on MediaHint.

TheKingOfHearts

OP,

Any ISP (Verizon, ATT, etc) will support VPN, albeit some may support more technologies than others. Traditional VPN's based on technologies known as PPTP or L2TP are without a doubt supported by the big US carriers - blocking these would disable a lot of Corporate connections, so they definitely do work.

Individual ISP's may however block certain free VPN related services such as MediaHint etc if they're consistently used for illegal services (See, Torrenting)

My advice would be to shell out maybe $40/50 a year, or around $6pcm for a paid VPN services from a reputable supplier, such as StrongVPN or HideMyAss, these paid services will not only provide you with much better speeds and therefore less buffering, but will also give you a level of security you don't get from the free alternatives. The free services are free for a reason - many regularly sell traffic information to advertisers, some even intentionally force additional ads onto page content. Your choice, but I'd recommend a paid services.

Absolute worst case that EVERYTHING is blocked (IE, China) you can still use software based VPN's (such as OpenVPN) which are extremely hard to be blocked, and in the US is almost guaranteed to be available.

Hope this helps!

hungryhorace

I have no idea what you're talking about (What does GSM have to do with a fixed line?), but if you have the option of FiOS you should take it.

hungryhorace

We're talking about two different things. One is FIOS the other is Verizon Wireless. Two completely different offerings.

To be clear, VZW uses CDMA for their voice network (which is of lousy quality), however, many parts of their LTE network now support VoLTE which - by virtue of being LTE - does not use CDMA for voice.

..not that this has anything to do with FIOS.

Pulaski

I know, I was only commenting on the confusion in post #1, where the OP was confused about Verizon and GSM.