FIOS reset

On Friday, our FIOS Internet service, television and phone service all went off. After a call to Verizon, picked up quickly, I got a very kind gentleman located in Texas. After doing a number of tests, he determined my network was not operating. After trying to set up a service call for the next day (and you can imagine they are very busy right now) he suggested he talk me through (on my cellphone) resetting the network. So he told me to go to the box in the basement where the FIOS service comes into the house. We were going to power down the network and let it reset.

This is a two part process which involved unplugging the electrical connection, then disconnecting the battery backup. When FIOS was installed the installer said the battery provides 9 hours of emergency phone service in case of a power outage. Since our whole network had somehow gone south, the battery was no  help.

So after unplugging the network from the wall plug in the basement and then removing the battery and disconnecting the red connector, there was no power going to my network. After waiting three minutes I reconnected in the same order, battery first then plug. Voila, everything came back, TV, phone, and after turning the modem on and off so it could recycle, Internet. In total, this process involved about 45 minutes on the phone and I had my service back right away instead of having to wait for a service call. The FIOS guy stayed on the phone with me the whole time.

I still don't know why the network went off. I noticed that water was dripping on the outside connection box from the roof. Whether that was the problem I don't know, but with the current mix of heavy snow, ice and melting and refreezing, many odd things happen. This is the first outage I've had of FIOS service in the more than 2 years I've had it.