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Verizon Offers 20/20 Symmetrical FiOS Service
BlueMerle writes with news that Verizon is offering 20 Mbps symmetrical service for current FiOS customers in NY, CT, and NJ. It will cost $65 a month. Cable companies aren't in a position to match this capability.
On the one hand, finally, a competitive level of Internet service.
On the other hand, Verizon.
Well, it's a non-issue for me, since I'm not in any of those states, but it'll give me time to think about it between now and when (if) they start offering it in my area.
...but is it art?
It's only as fast as the server you're connecting to...
ilovegeorgebush
Bittorrent.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
Call up your local Verizon office to find out availability. I called the 8xx-get-fios number and they hadn't even heard of the plan.
With the advent of DOCSIS 3.0, cable companies can "bundle up" upstream channels for up to 120 Mbits. Standard DOCSIS 3.0 cable modems will have 4 downstreams and 4 upstream channels, for a total (theoretical) throughput of 200 Mbit/s DS and 120 Mbit/s US.
While the throughput is shared, there's something to be said about PowerBoost as well - they may be able to offer a 20/20 service with boost capability up to 40/40 or 80/40... or if you pay to download movie they may allow you to download that movie @ the full 200 Mbit/s.
Cable companies will be able to compete - but only if they don't keep shooting themselves in the foot with things like BitTorrent filtering.
I pay almost that much already for Charter high speed cable that's a fraction of those speeds. My upstream is half a meg. With 20/20 I could actually keep my BT ratios positive. I might need to buy some more HDDs though...
I doubt charter will ever improve in my area until they have some real competitors. Right now they're the only game in town if you want the fastest connection.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
Narrator: In A.D. 2007, war was beginning.
....
MPAA/RIAA: What happen ?
Mechanic: Somebody set up us the bittorrent.
Operator: We get signal.
MPAA/RIAA: What!
Operator: Main screen turn on.
MPAA/RIAA: It's you!!
Pirate: How are you gentlemen!!
Pirate: All your files are belong to us.
Pirate: You are on the way to distribution.
MPAA/RIAA: What you say!!
Pirate: You have no chance to stay in business make your time.
Pirate: Ha Ha Ha Ha
Operator: Mafiaa!!
MPAA/RIAA: Take off every 'LAWYER'!!
MPAA/RIAA: You know what you doing.
MPAA/RIAA: Move 'LAWYER'.
MPAA/RIAA: For great suits and settlements.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
It's a very nice speed, especially it being symmetrical, but the question is: is this still consumer-grade stuff? Is it best-effort quality, i.e. may drop out any time? No redundancy whatsoever?
Or can we expect some guarantee concerning the uptime of the line? Looking at the price it's probably a best-effort thing so that makes it useless to host servers on such a line.
8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
Anyone know if Verizon lists what states/cities they're planning on providing fios to in the future? I'd buy this in a heartbeat if it was ever available in my area. Knowing in advance would be great and allow me to mark a big red circle on the day I can get rid of Comcast, haha
Using openSUSE instead of Windows since 9th of October, 2007 and liking it.
I am a Verizon FIOS customer of their 5/5 service in Portland,Oregon and pay $209/month for it. I wouldn't mind being able to get the 20/20 service in my area. When is Verizon going to show us some love? Verizon reps if you are reading this, the FIOS customer base in the rest of the country is really feeling unloved right now.
The NY/NJ/CT customers already had the higher 10/10 service available and you went and upped them to 20/20. While the rest of the country is stuck with pokey (relatively speaking) 5/5.
damn you guys in the states have it hard. My connection was just upgraded from 8/1 to 20/2 for free. 50 dollars per month. Welcome to Denmark :) And its even cheaper in Sweden.
Just paid my monthly $170 yesterday for 3/1.5meg internet, an HD DVR, 16 HD channels and digital cable with everything but showtime. Its expensive because i live in the boonies sort of, but its also worth it because theres nothing to do out here.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
This is what I'm talking about... COMCAST needs to die now...
Someone is finally coming to take your lunch. You have to suck pretty bad to make Verizon look like the good guy.
Dude, you're getting ripped off.
Verizon FiOS Packages and Prices
30/5 for $179.
What's the real price?
The gripe I have with Comcast is the price advertised is the price if you subscribe to the triple play package. Internet is 33 bucks a month provided they are also your subscription TV and VOIP provider aslo at 33 bucks a month each.
Anybody have a clue how much it is for Just the Broadband minus the telephone and Subscription TV?
With Comcast, Broadband Internet service is over $60 a month. 33 bucks sounds like a good deal until you find it subsidised by the telephone bill and basic cable.
I don't do subscription TV. A single item without the other 2 is over 50% of the price for all three combined. Maybe they figured I wouldn't be surfing while watching TV or something saving them broadband. Having the computer surf passing out MP3's while you watch TV is probably why they blocked torrents. The computer can work 24/7 keeping the pipe full while you can't.
I think the real reason to have the triple play tied to the cost of Internet service is to have leverage against Dish Network. The phone company resented the bundling of the landline phone customers and fought back with the same triple play plan and better Internet. The bundled service price wars are in full swing which sucks if you don't want a package. This bundeling hurts companies like Vonage and Packet8 who don't have packages. One of the VOIP providers recently folded. http://www.sunrocket.com/
I hope Qwest starts rolling out fiber soon. The price for just Internet on cable is kinda expensive. Over the air HDTV is less compressed than on cable.
The truth shall set you free!
Not meaning to troll, but with the plan I'm on I frequently receive speeds of 1.1-1.6 Megabytes per second while grabbing a torrent. The downside?? I only get 40 gig a month, once I hit that I am capped to a rediculous 64Kbps
I can't believe US consumers have been throttled for so long given I've had this connection for about 18 months now - sure it has a cap, but I rarely reach it anyway.
I pay $67/mo (including modem rental) for internet-only "high-speed" cable in Whatcom County, Washington. I get 10Mb/sec down and 900Mb/sec up.
I'd gladly pay $2 less for FiOS. :)
grey wolf
LET FORTRAN DIE!
We have Comcast cable, but I didn't opt for a cable modem because I found Comcast in a list of ISPs that block BitTorrent.
Not that I was looking for warez: no, I operate a legal BitTorrent tracker and dedicated seed to offer downloads of my own music (see sig). I need free access to BitTorrent just to monitor them, as sometimes the BitTorrent seed software (btdownloadmany.py) falls over.
Just my luck that I live beyond the range for DSL. After a lot of research I came across Stephouse, which offers something called "ISDL", or DSL over ISDN, which can go somewhat farther than regular DSL.
It works, but I pay $99 a month for 144kbps. At least I'm able to monitor my torrents, but I'm not able to watch videos on Youtube.
I'm very happy with Stephouse as a provider though, they have a remarkably permissive TOS, and their support people have been great.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
In my area where FIOS is available the local cable company offers 10/1 service for $50 USD/month. It's not 20/20 but for apartment dwellers who can't convince their landlord to allow FIOS installation it's not a bad deal. I'm sure it would still be 3/256k were it not for FIOS competition forcing speeds up.
I really wonder if Verizon could offer, say, 25/25 for the same price, but chose 20/20 because it's a "better" name.
I mean, what are the chances that the cost effectiveness sweet spot just so happens to be 20mbps up and 20mbps down?
I pay $67/mo (including modem rental) for internet-only "high-speed" cable in Whatcom County, Washington. I get 10Mb/sec down and 900Mb/sec up.
:)
I'd gladly pay $2 less for FiOS.
That's roughly what I pay for Comcast Internet at 3 meg down and 250K up. As a bonus, they protect you from Media Sentry and RIAA lawsuits by preventing them from downloading anything from you as evidence. Unfortunately, nobody else can download from you either. Your torrent uploads are mostly limited to 0.0K for max transfer sizes of about 0.1 Meg. I guess it's hard to be sued if you don't upload and provide evidence of sharing. I got Gutsy on a torrent and my DL was over 600 meg of data. My upload to support others was 0.1 meg.
I'll be glad when serious competition shows up here.
The truth shall set you free!
Over $200? As in around £100? For Internet access?
:)
Okay, so I'm only on "up to 2MB" ADSL, but we pay £15 per month. We could get up to 8MB if we wanted to pay £25-£30. Okay, so it's not synchronous, which will up the price, but three times as much as an up to 8MB connection? I'm glad I have low bandwidth requirements and am in the UK!
~£30 for 20/20 wouldn't be too bad if I felt I needed the bandwidth, though
Sounds like Cybercity just upgraded in your area (they are, AFAIK, the only ones doing the free upgrades, yes?)
:) - men ikke lige så rart som min kammerats 60/20 til 150kr/md)
My connection costs... just shy of 500 dkk/month for 20/20. That's around 100$. Granted, I opted for 10/10 at half that price, because I honestly don't need 20/20 - and that's even though my boss is paying my ISP fees (and he would gladly up it if I asked him)
(Før du spørger: Det er gennem min boligforening
As Verizon can and will cut your service for any reason they deem fit, change the price of service, and control your home network. you're forced to use their router and you have to pay for each computer connected to the internet.
I'll take a cable connection that gives me slightly more leeway in the meantime.
I would certainly be nice for those of us stuck with cable to be able to adjust or choose our own upload / download ratio. Perhaps with a simple web interface on the cable company support site, or even dynamically do it for us.
So in about 6 or 7 minutes I can fill up that 1 GB of storage? Or do I add wrong?
FAQs are evil.
I'd like to share my experience with a similar service I've been using since year 2000 in Italy. I have a symmetrical 10 Mbits fiber optic connection from Fastweb http://www.fastweb.it/. Their offers that can compare to the Verizon one range in the 50-60 Euros per month, so Verizon is definitely cheaper. :-) but otherwise I'd have waited some month and read what the other customers said.
The question somebody asked, directly or unspoken, in this forum is: do you really get all that speed? In my case the answer is yes. I FTP at 1000 kB/s (kilobytes) with the other guys in the Fastweb network and it's common to download files at more than 400 kB/s from US servers. CDNs usually bring that figure in the 700-900 kB/s range. That bandwidth isn't guaranteed by the contract but it never shrunk noticeably in these eight years, despite the fact that the customer base grew 100 times or more. On the other side, none of the 10 or 20 Mb/s ADSL connections I saw here in Italy (with other ISPs) were faster than one tenth of their nominal bandwidth, when downloading files from the same services I use.
So, if you trust your provider to invest in its interconnection with the Internet at large, those 65$ can be worth the expense. If you think that it will somewhat cap your bandwidth, stay with what you have. In my case I got a six-months-for-free offer and I jumped in at the very beginning of the offering
Finally, do you really need all that speed? My answer is yes: you find a way to put it at use once you got it and you don't want to go back.
Damn you guys in denmark have it hard:> In slovenia (limited locations currently) you can get 50/50Mbit optics (FTTH) for 50eur/month. Similar VDSL speeds (almost full coverage) availbale for 70eur/month.
Living in NY this sounds like a great upgrade to my current FIOS service but somehow I wish I was living back in my old hometown of Fairfield, Iowa. The local ISP, LISCO, is rolling out FTTP that features 100/100 Mbps as standard service in a package that also includes phone service with 1500 minutes of long distance for $60/month! Is this possibly the best deal in the country? Makes me feel like I'm getting taken for a ride by Verizon. http://www.liscofiber.com/pricesresidential.htm
I couldn't have been happier when FiOS was first implemented in my area. The day it came out, I scheduled for an appointment and cancelled my HORRIBLE Time Warner Cable internet service.
What really makes me laugh is all the commercials from Cablevision and TWC about their 'Advanced Fiber Networks'. All you get from them (in NYC, residential plans) is *maybe* 5-8Mbit down and 384Kbit up. With FiOS I get 20Mbit down, 5Mbit up and I pay the same - $44.95/month.
Still, the best part of it all is that the cable companies in this city are finally met with some competition - and how do they respond? By stepping up a campaign of misleading television and radio advertisements; NOT through improvement of service.
Cable companies aren't in a position to match this capability.
I doubt Verizon really is either, but it sure sounds good.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
This is extremely impressive, and may well be a game-changer...
When Verizon finally rolls-out FIOS here (they've said it's coming "soon" for a couple years), I'll probably sign-up for TWO connections... One for my home, and the other for a family member (within driving distance) or perhaps a friend. In exchange for free ultra-high-speed internet access, all they have to do is leave my back-up server running. rsync will finish pretty damn fast over a 20Mbps connection...
This really opens the possibility of a lot of online file-hosting services going out of business... It's no longer special that they have high-speed upstream, so why pay so much for an over-priced, terribly-limited, managed file hosting service?
Now if somebody could just convince Verizon to enable multicast on all their routers...
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Perspektiv Bredband - best price on the open market, I think :)
Then you can expect the bot-herders will be swarming up heavily to find machines to own that are on these networks. You can do a much better job of taking down Yahoo and I forget who else is on the shit-list of some of these idiots with this kind of uplink speed! It's like having your bots all co-located at an ISP on a DS3 or bonded T1's ready to do your bidding...
All content in this message is copyright (c) 2008. All rights reserved. RIAA is prohibited here.
Don't get me wrong, 20Mbps up and down rocks, but what if I am content with a meager 5Mbps up/down? I would love to get that for, say, $35 per month... I suppose this just isn't worth it from Verizon's point of view, but I think having this as an option would attract many more people, and steal more cable broadband customers. I bet many people have the same thought process as I do, that is, 20Mbps is nice, but I am fine with 3Mbps which costs me $35 per month (if thats true). Point being many people wouldn't justify the extra $30 per month to go from 3-5Mbps to 20Mbps...
... it isn't available anywhere, or hardly anywhere. Perhaps they should concentrate on expanding coverage rather than upping the speeds available to a very select few?
--- What?
I could definitely use a little web server for my work - sending files to clients, etc. 20Mbit would do the job nicely.
At the moment I have to upload files to a third party server with my slow upload then send them a link. With my own connection they could get the files directly from me, no "wait while I upload it..." delay.
No sig today...
I had read that the real bottleneck in the DOCSIS system was the total bandwidth allocated to upstream traffic on each coax system. Apparently it has to be a separate band to keep from interfering with downstream television and data.
If true, the cable operators will have to keep deploying more fiber nodes to break the coax network into smaller and smaller pieces to be able to compete. Eventually they might have to run fiber to each house...?
They say the mind is the first thing to
I very recently moved to Seoul and finally setup the internet yesterday. First thing I did was to test the speeds and here are the results.
Speed test in Korea: 94.7Mb down - 11.4Mb up
Speed test to Japan: 11.4Mb down - 7.8Mb up
Speed test to USA: 2.7Mb down - 0.9Mb up
My DSL in the US is working at ~630Kb up (have ATT which promises between 512Kb - 764Kb up). So even if I upgraded the service, my slingbox would barely perform better.....
Think we could get 20/20 all the way to the backbone for $65? That'd be nice, but somehow I'm guessing it will hit a bottleneck.
If it weren't for Al Gore - an AMERICAN, you wouldn't be using our tubes!
"The fight for freedom has only just begun." - Geert Wilders
I just want to say that I'm very excited for this service to come out. In light of the Comcast p2p throttling news (which is really not that much of anything new), I think this is great news for techies. I love my 15/5 FIOS service from Verizon because it's been consistently fast and reliable and the 20/20 is going to be one more victory for technophiles. My only paranoid concern has nothing much to do with this service, but it concerns me that there is no real competition against Verizon at the moment and I can see them steamrolling all of the other ISPs with their FIOS products and then using their clout to start doing sketchy things like Comcast is doing.
So you're saying that Slashdot can only post stories about things that impact everyone at once? Well, we can skip copyright law changes in France or Canada. We can skip censorship in China. We don't have to know what's going on Sweden when police paid for by non-Swede cartels raid colocation facilities. We can skip news stories about any IT cybercrimes that are homed in Russia.
I don't know where you're from, but in my world, hearing about things like this offering is useful. While I'm NOT in the US, some day (soon?) this may be offered here. Now that I've heard about it, I can make informed inquiries to my ISPs, who will register my interest towards their future buildout plans.
"Oh no... he found the
I've been using Optimum Online for about five years now and it's always been a pretty bad service up until recently. My connection would drop for fix or six hours at a time with no explanation a few nights a week. I'd call the support line and they'd fix something on their end and get it working again, but then it'd just drop a few hours later. It got to the point where it wasn't worth all the time spent on hold calling them every time it happened so I just began to work around it. On top of that my upload speeds were capped at about 17 kB/s which was a lot less than other people with the same plan as me were getting. Unfortunately, it was the only broadband service available to me so it was either learn to deal with the annoyances or switch back to dial-up.
Then about two years ago Verizon started rolling out their fios plans around here. A couple of my friends got it and loved it. It was a lot faster than cable and about 10 dollars cheaper to boot (or the same price for an even FASTER plan). So of course, I wanted to switch myself. So I looked at their site for details and started to get a little worried when I saw that they needed to install fiber in the ground. I knew it'd be a problem because I live in an apartment building, but their site claimed my address was eligible, so I figure it can't hurt to schedule an install. Of course the day the installer comes he tells me that I'm not eligible which was no big surprise.
But something great happened. I don't know if it was a coincidence or if Optimum had somehow found out that I tried to switch, but a few days later I noticed a huge increase in my speeds. Ever since then I've been getting down speeds in the range of 12~13 MBps or so and up speeds at about 2~3 MBps. My connection very rarely ever drops and when it does it's only for a few seconds.
If that's the effect that a single competitor has I can't help but wonder what sort of service we'd be seeing if we all had half a dozen or more broadband choices.
I was once a horse.
Why don't you start "SmugPassiveAggressiveEuroDot", then?
That way you won't have to see any US stuff ever again.
You gotta remember that with the exchange rate $209 is about 50 Euros.
I kid, I kid (at least for now I do).
If you don't live in US why are you here? It's most US-centric news here.
Extreme Programming - Redundant Array of Inexpensive Developers
Usage Cap : 20 Mb/hour
Additional costs : 20$ / Kb (including 10% RIAA preventive fee)
It takes 40+ muscles to frown, but only four to extend your arm and bitchslap the motherfucker
The transfer speed is by definition the minimum of all the different speeds between you and your partner. That I have a 100mbit local network means jack with a 1mbit link to my provider.
... well, where to anyway? Who can handle that kind of traffic load?
.5 or 2 seconds is not really an issue.
So I'm connected with 20mbit to Verizon, which sounds nice. But what after that? How much of those 20mbit can I reliably really use? I've seen already incredible speed hits during prime time hours in our 4mbit network here, because the provider simply can't handle a few 1000 people trying to use 4mbit simultanously. Does Verizon have a terabit link to
I'm fairly sure this can work with "burst" traffic, like web traffic or the like, where you have a sudden spike of traffic for a second or two, with lots of idle time in between. But can it sustain continuous traffic, like downloads and real time communication, at reliable 20mbit over minutes and hours? I doubt it. And, bluntly, nobody needs 20mbit connections for burst traffic. Whether the webpage loads within
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I pay £23.50 per month for 20 Mbps cable from Virgin Media as part of a package. That said, their customer support have presented me with no end of problems.
To use DOCSIS 3.0, not only would you need new modems that are compatible with this standard, but the network itself also needs to be upgraded. Lines need to have higher bandwidth and the CTMS has to be upgraded/replaced with DOCSIS 3.0-compatible hardware. Some MSOs still use DOCSIS 1.1, which is scary considering how long DOCSIS 2.0 has been out.
DOCSIS 3.0 has only been out for less than a year. Cable modem networks have significantly less upstream bandwidth than downstream bandwidth -- analog tv is to blame for this.
I'd rather have FiOS anyways; I drool over a symmetrical connection.
And yes, IACMT (cable modem technician) (though not a field tech).
Ha! We have an ironclad strategy for improving the cost/value of US telecom services.
All we have to do is keep pouring the contents of the US Treasury into Iraq, and very shortly that poor shmoe paying $200 per month in Podunk USA will have the satisfaction of knowing he's spending less than half for that connection than you would. Little girls in Chongqing China will be buying American made Barbies and their moms will be worrying about whether the plastics are made from genetically modified corn, which will also enable urban Americans to support themselves with government subsidies not to grow in pots on their fire escapes.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
With the advent of DOCSIS 3.0, cable companies can "bundle up" upstream channels for up to 120 Mbits.
The operative word there is "can". In practice, it will have "but won't" following it for any given cable ISP.
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Suck it linuxguy! We probably won't get FIOS for another 5 years here in SC. We are stuck with Charter.
Here in NY I have 20/5 Fios service for $50 a month. Welcome to the USA. :)
I bet you can't do that.
Really, what's the point of 20Mb connection when you can't use it for anything? All it really lets you do is get hosed more quickly.
Dude, you're getting ripped off.
Optimum Online Boost. 30/5 for ~$55/mo
I would jump on this in a second (FIOS is available in my area) if only it were a true internet connection offered by a real ISP. But (at least if this is a residential plan) if you look at the TOS you will see that it contains weasel words that you can get kicked for, you know, actually using the bandwidth you're ostensibly buying or for running any type of "server", which is really not clearly defined and certainly could include P2P apps (like maybe Skype). So, when you think about it, what you're getting is not really a true internet connection but some limited internet service package that only allows you to do a certain (ill-defined) subset of what can be done with an internet connection.
Finally, in my experience with Verizon (as a phone company) they treat their customers like dirt and their techs are incompetent. At one point they even screwed up our phones then came back to fix that and screwed it up worse. Eventually we had to draw them a damned diagram of how to do it correctly. I also talked to one of the FIOS guys at a kiosk they had in the mall. He couldn't give a straight answer about whether they do traffic shaping, have data transfer caps, or block certain protocols. As a test, I asked him about running a server on a residential connection, and he lied to me and told me it's permitted, which is directly contradicted by the TOS.
I'd love to get a cable or fiber connection that's much faster than my current DSL, if only there were a provider I could tolerate giving my money to.
"You call it a new way of thinking; I call it regression to ignorance!" -- Operation Ivy
To have FiOS you have to have a special modem and fiber run to your house. So what's you point?
Alot of cable companies have wired their areas with fiber, years ago. So the only change is a new modem, the same if you were a DSL subscriber.
FUD pure and simple...BFD if you are a field technician...I'm a cable subscriber.
Verizon was in my back yard laying fiber just last week for the neighborhood. Anyone out there have any experience with the amount of time that goes by between laying the cable and getting service? I am really hoping it will happen in under a year.
Randy Hall
"Welcome to Denmark :) And its even cheaper in Sweden."
Yeah, but in order to get it, I'd have to move to Denmark or Sweden.
I'll take two cans tied together with string before I'd live in one of those places.
I've had Verizon's 5/2 service since December 2005. Prior to that I had Verizon/GTE DSL, since 2000. In both cases the service was highly available and met the specifications. With DSL we had, at most, 2 or 3 short (less than an hour) outages in over 5 years. With FiOS we've had no outages whatsoever in nearly 2 years (it's also used to carry our phone service). I regularly use BitTorrent (Azureus client) and both download and upload rates meet the 5/2 specification, though I ususally cap the upload rate at 200KBps (so, roughly 1.6Mbps) to allow for other ACK traffic: I can browse and watch streaming videos with no noticable degradation while Azureus is doing 600KBps/200KBps (4.8Mbps/1.6Mbps).
For the DSL service from 2000 to 2005 and the FiOS since 2005 I've paid between $30 and $35 per month. I live near Dallas, Texas, USA. Because I'm able to download, through BitTorrent, so much good material over the internet (mainly British television shows) I haven't needed any kind of cable TV service.
I'm happy!
I'm envious of my friends in Tulsa that have Cox with those speeds. I'm paying the same price to Cable One for 8/.5, this increased within the last two weeks from 5/.5
You're joking, right? You know very well that at that price it's going to be a consumer-grade. I can't believe that you actually bothered to ask that question.
I don't know about others but in my experience the number of problems with my consumer-grade FiOS is minimal. I've had FiOS 15/2 for about a year now, and I've only experienced one drop where I lost both Internet and voice. I called to report the issue via my cell phone and was told, after a few minutes of investigating, that there was indeed a local outage and that they're working on it. About four hours later I was back up. This was on a weekend afternoon, so it's not like it was a matter of life or death, like some people make it out to be.
My only gripe when that happens is that Verizon does not give you any dial-up time with consumer FiOS. You might think, "Well, duh, how can you call when your phone line is down, too?" but I have a data cable for my cell phone, which can act as a modem. When I had their DSL, I also had 50 hours of dial-up per month. So, if DSL went down I could still use my Verizon account to access the Internet through dial-up. With FiOS Verizon doesn't allow that because FiOS and DSL/dial-up are considered to be different business entities from what I understand.
But overall I'm very satisfied with my FiOS connection and my uptime has been well over 99% during "normal" hours with me using it heavily at night and my wife using it throughout the day.
The Overrated mod is for reversing inappropriate, positive mods, not for voicing disagreement with a post.
This news looks good until you talk to your buddies in other connected countries. Hong Kong Broadband Network rolled out 100Mbps Symmetrical connections for $48.50.
He who laughs last...probably didn't get the joke.
Apparently, Verizon has differing levels of love for various parts of the country. From a business perspective, I can't really blame them. What do corn fields need with Fios? I'd just love a 1.5/768.
Not that I don't appreciate the potential, but as a mail service provider I have to cringe at the prospect of infected machines with fat upstream pipes.
It isn't FUD. Most areas, cable companies are the only source of internet access. You're not likely to see DOCSIS 3.0 (or even DOCSIS 2.0!) rolled out in areas where they maintain a monopoly.
DOCSIS 3.0 requires more than a new modem! Did you not read the post? Go back and read it again. To get that much upstream/downstream, yes, they can bond coax lines, but the downstream/upstream to and from the CTMS has to be there first, not to mention upgrading/replacing the CTMS (btw, CTMS is basically the server that controls communication on the cable modem network, and hooks up to a circuit/edge router to communicate with the outside world).
I'd still rather have FiOS, even though it requires a 'special modem' (duh, no different than cable/DSL, just more expensive) and fiber run to the house.
And by the way, I am not a field technician; I put at the end how I am not one. Did you just glaze over my post?
You need to check your fine print. Internet, phone, and cable are $33 each if you buy the Triple Play package...for the first 12 months. After the introductory promotional period, rates for all three go up to their default rates (about $60 apiece).
So again, what's the true cost?
Oddly enough, verizon does not (or atleast did not) do this. When I signed up for FIOS, it was initially only the internet and phone, no TV service (I was happy with DTV till I bought an HDTV.. and realized the cost of converting everything I had to DTV's HD capable equipment was higher then just switching to FIOS TV.. until I went out and bought an S3 tivo heh..). The price advertised was the price I paid, in fact I get a $5 discount for each additional service I subscribe to, its not much but it helps. With all 3, its about $15 a month discount, but these discounts are not reflected in their advertising.
Currently I have 15 down 5 up, FIOS TV with all the movie channels except for HBO/Cinemax, and a phone line (only really needed this for the alarm, there is no actual phone connected to it), with 2 tivos, 1 SA series 2, and 1 Series 3 with 2 cable cards, total monthly cost for me is about $130
I came, I conquered, I coredumped
You need to check your fine print. Internet, phone, and cable are $33 each if you buy the Triple Play package...for the first 12 months.
Hmm, so what's there to prevent churn? I mean like Vonage and Dish Network provide more for less. Keep just the Internet after the first year and drop everything else. I thought the package was what they used to combat Dish Network and 3rd party VOIP. Without the package deal, churn is likely.
The truth shall set you free!
A few years ago I dumped Verizon DSL when they switched to a policy of blocking all outgoing SMTP traffic, except that which went to Verizon's servers. And Verizon's servers didn't accept a FROM that wasn't a verizon.net email address. Goodbye personal domain! I went to Speakeasy and never looked back.
Does FiOS have similar ridiculous restrictions? If not, you can bet that they will soon. All that speed is useless if your ISP has a proven track record of screwing over their technically savvy customers.
Just because I run a web server doesn't make me a business.
Yes, but most people are lazy. I have triple play deal, internet, cable and phone each for $30 a month ($90 total). When my first year is up, it goes to $150 total. Second year, it jumps to almost $210 total. Was very hard to get those numbers from the cable company. You can bet that I won't be paying the $49.95/mo they want for phone service that 2nd year or the $69.95 they want for digital cable that 3rd year. FTA TV and some of the cheaper VoIP services sound pretty sweet.
In New York at least, it's $69.95 per month with a 1-year contract (that contract holds an $89 early-termination fee), and $77 a month if you don't want to sign a contract.
20/20 is awesome. But read the fine print on the contract you will never see and you will probably get limited to 1Gb/month transfer. Then surcharge heaven from there.
Anybody have a clue how much it is for Just the Broadband minus the telephone and Subscription TV?
"Internet only" $64.99/mo
https://www22.verizon.com/FiOSForHome/Channels/OrderFiOS/DoublePlay_Landing.aspx
(Be sure to click the "Need more upload speed? View additional plan" link to revean the semi-hidden 20/20 plan!)
=Smidge=
Smaller ILECs that are doing FTTH such as my employer, Surewest, have been doing 20/20 for quite a while now in the greater Sacramento area. We also have a lot of fiber in our CLEC territories now where we are directly competing with AT&T and their awesome U-Verse product... We offer up to 50/50 as well that's pretty damn expensive...
For the same $65 I get 30 MBps / 5 mbps (actually the cable modem downstream is completely uncapped so sometimes I get as much as 35 Mbps) which is probably more useful than 20/20 PLUS the TOS allows servers and ports 80 and 25 are not blocked.
20/20 plus a TOS that doesn't permit servers is a marketing trick. It doesn't actually offer anything useful to most customers beyond 20/5.
It's pretty easy to circumvent the comcast torrent filtering. Using forced encryption or even going as far as to route it over SSH works fine. Please don't flood someone's SSH though.
20/20 mbit should be enough for anyone.
Yes, you are right on all counts. They will eventually just have to install a fiber link to your house, just like Verizon is doing now.
We have four boxes with which to defend our freedom: the soap box, the ballot box, the jury box, and the cartridge box.
IT profession reasons:
Web dev's FTP access
ISO push for sys admins loading SQL2005
Virtual servers rely heavily on ISO push as well
Seamless VPN connections
Personal reasons:
Flickr
Sharing home videos with grandma
Easy home backups
More realistic gaming experiences
Video chat with multiple family members
If anyone else can think of good ones feel free to append to this post so maybe these trollers/ignorant users will see that there is more to networking than surfing porn and e-mailing their russian GF.
CS: It is all sink or swim...oh and did I mention there are sharks in that water?
Because every time a new technology is announced on slashdot, which could be used to copy data with order of magnitute gain in terms of speed (bigger pipes, bigger medium, faster burners, newer and better peer-2-peer network), you get a least one comment about impeding lawsuits.
Be it "take of every Lawyer!!! For great suits !"
Or "Unleash lawyers, now !"
Or "Incoming **AA lawsuits in 3... 2... 1... "
etc.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
20918 kb/s up, 8181 kb/s down
Our servers are plenty fast, thank you very much.
I'm pretty sure the parent has a "business class" connection (the only way to get a 5/5 with Fios AFAIK, why they rip businesses off on the downlink is still a mystery to me), business users always have to pay a lot more because the phone company figures they can afford it. At least he probably don't have inbound port 80 blocked.
I read the internet for the articles.
In Sweden you get 100 mbit/s down, and 10 mbit/s up from Bredbandsbolaget for 32 a month.
USA sucks, that have crappy inferior Internet infrastructure with capitalist company that have skyhigh prices for crappy slow Internet connection.
You setup the Internet?
Al Gore is on the line, he wants to talk to you.
Peace sells, but who's buying?
So is this like when my cable co upped our rates to 10MBup/1MB down but complained about some vague TOS violation ( you cant effect others ) when we actually used it?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
We're in Orem, UT on the UTOPIA network and we get 30 up/30 down on fiber for $110 a month...
I'd rather hold out for their 20/20 asymmetrical connections.
Symmetrical connections are cool and all, but not very useful for legal purposes (at the moment anyway) unless they also give you a static IP, or IPv6 capability. My static connection to my home computer network is indispensible to me, for work, and for my personal life. I lose the anonymity of dynamic addressing, but this is unimportant to me as I do not do any filesharing.
Their C/O in my area is full, so no DSL and no FIOS for new subscribers in my rich area of california. WTFBBQ I can go online and order each service, and it takes 45 days for them to say... oops no broadband for you. So maybe instead of offering a product that is 20x what you currently offer in most areas, howabout you take the money from the people already fighting to pay their 60/month.
Of course, to get DOCSIS 3.x or 2.x you have to have the infrastructure (e.g. lines, ISP hardware) to support it. But you do for FIOS, DSL, and other competing services too. So it really is only a difference between the modem device for the end user.
Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. - Elvis Presley (source: imdb.com)
3.7.1 You may not resell the Broadband Service, use it for high volume purposes, or exceed the bandwidth usage limitations that Verizon may establish from time to time for the Service.
and, as usual:
2.2 Changes to Service. We reserve the right to change any of the features, Content or applications offered as part of the Service at any time with or without notice to you.
I am living in New York City, and I have not been able to get Verizon to give me any indication as to when FIOS will be available in my neighborhood. They are pretty much clueless and offer me DSL instead every time I call. I am not sure Verizon in addition to the cable companies is capable of offering 20/20 service. As far as I am concerned, FIOS is not an actual product, it is just something that exists in adds which I see on TV.
Optimum Online (Cablevision) seems to have recovered from a less-than-stellar reputation -- I just moved into a neighborhood in NY that they serve and I'm getting 30 megabihts down, 5 up, 5 static IPs, all for about $75/mo.
Verizon's symmetrical service is obviously both faster up and dedicated and a little cheaper, but the freedom to run whatever servers I want and the static IPs are a nice touch. Of course, Cablevision only serves a few neighborhoods here in NY, but I'm glad that they have some competition.
Over a year ago, Verizon went through my mom's condo complex (heh, no, I'm not living in her basement), tearing up walls and ceilings to run innerduct for fiber. Last week, on her behalf, I again called Verzion to ask about FiOS availability. Still no availability, still no idea when it will be available, still no idea who knows.
But the truck is nice, I guess.
(Yes, I'm aware that there are legions of people using FiOS. Doesn't mean it's not vaporware elsewhere.)
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
Terms Of Service are a lot like backups. Most people never worry about them until they become important, and then it's too late.
(Note that I'm not saying *you* should care, just that *some* people should care, but don't, and end up very upset.)
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
I just moved back to the US from Japan this month and its so sad to have to go back the sub par overpriced service here. I was paying about $50 for a 100Mps connection and before that it was just included in my rent which is very common. The performance during anytime of the day was always impressive and I lived in one of the most denseley populated areas in Tokyo. Plus the TOS allowed me to run webservices. Outside the city service was just as cheap and reliable. This Verizon service would be equivelent to the economy family package there and it would be much cheaper. A lot of people just have no idea what they are missing because they are used to the service and prices here. Whats with these providers out here?
Damn you guys in Slovenia have it hard, and our neighbors to the south have it even harder. I can get (and have) 100/100Mbps fiber to the apartment for around 30 Euros, and can choose between eight different ISP's to deliver internet service over the fiber.
When is Verizon going to show us some love?
They are screwing you in the aft so hard and you are still feeling unloved?!
I'd be happy with 20/10 service for less money.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
So, let me get this straight. Verizon takes 300 million in taxpayer money to roll out new infrastructure that they don't have to let me use (they block 25, 80, and 443 inbound), and that they can charge me a ridiculous price for - even though I already paid for it?
I don't think so...
No. The channel bonding feature of DOCSIS 3.0 requires new hardware. Basically, this is because bonding n channels requires n transmitters and receivers in the modem. Prior to DOCSIS 3.0 n was always equal to 1.
You must be new here
"But this one goes to 11!"
They should just say parts of the town of Greenwich, because FiOS service only covers parts of a single city (Greenwich) in Connecticut. The Byram area of Greenwich is the only place I've seen have FiOS service.
Enigma
We on the west coast, at least in the San Francisco Bay Area, doesn't have that type of service yet from Verizon. It is interesting that with all of the high tech companies here we don't have faster and more reliable consumer network. I know that ATT has U-verse and I'm looking into it since they say it is fiber to your door which they did install a fiber port at my home's demark box.
So, you're saying that a telecom company actually invested in its infrastructure, and that gave it a competitive advantage? They could be on to something here...
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
So how could I use 20 Mb "up" if I'm not permitted to run a server? I can't think of many things on my machine (other than bittorrent ;-) that could even start to use such a capacity.
Take a good look at the TOS for this $65/month "internet service". It's not that at all; it's "browser and email service". Pretty much everything else is forbidden.
If you want true "internet service" (including the right to run any apps you like on your own machine), the best price I can find is about $200/month. If anyone knows better, can you provide a link to the appropriate verizon.com page?
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
I have 10/1 for $50 a month here in Southern California from Charter.
Here in Romania, you get a 50 Mbps connectinon for 10$/month (http://www.rdslink.ro/fiber/fiber.htm) (4 or 6Mbps to the U.S.) I'm paying 100 Euros for 1 Gbps connection (to Romania and Europe), 3 Mbps minimum external speed with bursts to 10Mbps. Several years ago the only connection you could get here was dial-up; now the market is flooded with bandwidth and the problem now is the hard drive, because it starts to die when bittorrent transfers with 25 megabytes / second. I don't think I've ever came close to exhausting the gigabit, even with the 5 servers I have in my home. Curiously how 20Mbps sounds so unattractive to me, I mean ... it takes ages to download a DVD at 2 Megabytes/second :).
I think you were trolled.
:/
Thanks for the informative posts, I'm out of mod points
DOCSIS 2 which is what most cable companies are deploying now for internet services is roughly 40Mb/s down and 30Mb/s upstream. Now their infrastructure might have to be upgraded (like their connection to the backbone internet providers) but current cable modem technology has no problem handling those speeds (what Verizon is offering)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOCSIS#Speed_Table
I've never had any problems with my Verizon wireless service. Best coverage, no dropped calls in the city, no billing errors - completely reliable. Furthermore, both times that I renewed my contract at a third party store (thought it would make it easier to activate a new phone - it didn't), the retail monkeys signed me up for the wrong plan. One of the times I didn't notice it for months as the bill was about right - until I went on a trip out of state and racked up huge roaming charges, when I shouldn't have. Both times I called the Verizon customer service, and the very first person I talked to happily changed my plan to the one I thought I had signed up for and backdated it to the date I signed up - even months after the fact. I was expecting to spend a whole afternoon on the phone arguing with people, and was very pleasantly surprised.
The only negative side to Verizon Wireless is that their plans are more expensive than the other companies - $39.99 is the cheapest plan compared to $29.99 for everyone else, and their pay-as-you-go plans are highway robbery. But, yeah, my sister was with Alltel and she had all the same problems you mentioned, so I guess you get what you pay for. I just recently dropped Verizon for T-Mobile prepay, mostly because I just can't justify paying $45 a month when I only use ~150 minutes a month. We'll see how it goes.
Most of the horror stories that I have heard about Verizon, however, have been about their landline service. From what I've heard, they act like any of the regional telcom monopolies: "We don't care. We don't have to. We're the phone company". So I wouldn't judge one based on the other - the landline and wireless divisions are completely separate beasts. In particular I would be very wary of letting them cut your copper lines if you ever decide to go with fiber, because there is no turning back after that.
What plan do you have? I'm west of Portland, and have 15/2 service for $45/month. (or $49 - can't remember.)
$209 must be a "business" plan...
Now, if FIOS TV would just get here...
Supposedly 2008 is all about DOCSIS 2.0, Comcast is making customers return 1.0 compliant modems in batches. To even use Powerboost or Blast! you already need to have a DOCSIS 1.1 compliant modem... which pretty much are only 2.0 modems.
Here's some practical, real-use information.
I've had FIOS 15/2 service since late May, 2006. I have, over nearly that entire time period, been averaging in excess of 4 gb transferred per day in each direction. Through one torrent site only. That doesn't include everything else we've been doing on the same connection around the house. This includes a variety of things including running an IRC file server, VPN access to work, streaming/downloading videos, etc. I haven't set up a personal website, as I just haven't had the need, but the thought has crossed my mind. At least seven different computers and an Apple TV have been used on this connection over that same time period. As many as five simultaneous connections.
There has been zero bandwidth shaping, transfer caps, or protocol issues. For 17 months of HEAVY use. If I can manage to transfer in excess of 120 gb/month in each direction, there's no transfer cap in any meaningful sense. (Yeah, it might be 500 gb total transfer - If so, I'll never hit that.)
I'll have to try to dig up my TOS. I don't believe it's the same TOS for FIOS as it is for their DSL service, but I can't be sure about that. However, if the TOS forbids servers, they certainly aren't even hinting at enforcing it in my area. (Portland, OR.)
While I'm NOT in the US, some day (soon?) this may be offered here.
;-)
;-)
In quite a lot of places in the world, better service is already available at a lower price.
Note that, as others have already pointed out, the number is 20 megaBITS up/down, not 20 megaBYTES. Most other ISPs use MB to mean "megabyte", so you must divide the Mb (megabit) rate by something between 8 and 10 to make a comparison, depending on how you count overhead.
We're talking about 2 to 3 MB up/down, and better speeds than that at a lower price are common in many other technically-advanced parts of the world.
(Take this as an invitation to others to brag about their local rates.
(And we can also have a flame war over who's "technically advanced".
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
I wish I could get ripped off like that. I'm stuck with SBC Yahoo! High-Speed DSL (6M down, 768K up) for something around $80/month. I guess it's not awful, but I'd really rather have FiOS.
I live 6 blocks down the road from Microsoft Redmond Campus. Verizon FIOS is still not available here yet. WTF???
Camfrog Video Chat Server. 20 mbit upstream would barely cover 35 people looking at each other at the same time.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
with 32 customers per OLT, there is no way they can deliver true 20/20 service. Also I have heard rumors that Verizon blocks your ability to host any services (web server, ftp server, etc)
FIOS is dumb, there is no need to use Fiber for residential services. Hybrid Fiber/Coaxial networks make more sense. There is a common misconception that fiber optic is better than a cable modem simply because its optical.
The bottom line is that you will only have as much bandwith as your ISP allows you to have and how much you share with your neighbors . Ideally with FIOS you share the same fiber with 32 other customers, and a large chunk of that is devoted to video.
FIOS is Passive Optical Networking, similar to Ethernet using a hub instead of a switch. it runs at half duplex and is susceptible to collisions. It may be amazingly fast compared to what most people are accustomed to, but just wait till your neighborhood fills up with FIOS customers you will experience the same speeds as a cable modem. Even in rural areas you will essentially be sharing the same OLT with people in a larger geographical area, and lets not forget that PONs have limited distance so its not going to be available to people who live in BFE. I don't understand why you would build a $50,000+ circuit for a service that you will charge $65 a month for. dumb. I think the Verizon executives have a bet going to see how fast they can put themselves out of business.
Verizon is just using Fiber as a gimmick when in reality it is no better than a hybrid fiber/coaxial network. Fiber should only be used for Business customers on switched fiber rings or passive networks with less than 10 customers per OLT. Fiber is way to expensive to be installing it for residential service, it's going to take Verizon a very very long time to actually turn a profit from this. But what do I know I'm just a fiber optic network technician.
I'm curious, where do you live in Portland? Or are you just in the metro area? It's incredibly hard to find out where service is available. I once waited about 12 minutes on the phone before the rep realized I was in Qwest territory. And that's after giving a complete address and the number for my house's land line.
I prefer Portland to the Beaverton and Gresham areas but haven't found a reliable way to check availability. (For example, they claim FiOS is available in an area in SE where I used to live and know is Qwest territory..)
Thanks. That's certainly interesting information. Like I said, I couldn't get any straight answers from the FIOS guy I talked to, and the only answer he did give contradicted their TOS. Not that I expected him to know a lot of technical details, but it seems like "is there a cap?" is a pretty basic question.
Concerning running servers on residential FIOS, the easiest place to look seems to be the "Features" section of the FAQ which says:
As for the TOS themselves, I believe these terms of service apply to all Verizon residential internet connections, including FIOS. Some of the parts I don't like are the following:
So, at the least, they reserve the right to object to you running a server or violating unstated data transfer caps. And then there's that damaging reputation thing, which I'm not clear on the practical implications of.
It's interesting to know that they may not enforce these on their FIOS connections at the moment. I'd still be sort of reluctant to rely on them continuing to let me violate the TOS in the future, but maybe it's worth it. I really just wish I could get that sort of service from ISP that would deal with me straight.
"You call it a new way of thinking; I call it regression to ignorance!" -- Operation Ivy
Try Etheric Networks. I've had them for over three years, and they're a damn fine (local) ISP. Not cheap, but I routinely get 10Mbps up and down, though I'm only guaranteed 1.54Mbps. Excellent support as well.
M
...that they will offer zero technical support as far as utilising bandwidth in that fashion, while it may also violate their fair use policy. I had no more complaints from NTL after they capped me to 64K following a hectic day of downloading package updates... I informed them that their capping of my Elite connection package was a violation of their contract with me, and that I would be taking it to the Ombudsman. Six minutes later I was back on the full 10 meg. What I didn't tell them was that I had spent the last five months on that same connection running a Torrent tracker and a colo facility.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
I use a pretty good amount of bandwidth on my FIOS connection, and Verizon has not hassled me at all about it. I also host servers, but not a web server (IIRC, they block incoming port 80).
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
You want to talk about pokey? Until last Christmas, we were stuck with dialup. No, not the normal 56k dialup or anything that glamorous. More like... 32.6k on a GOOD day. Last Christmas, we finally got DSL support. We have an advertised speed (according to the modem) of 1.334mb/192k. The fastest I have ever seen it is just below 1mb/128k, and I do mean at the VERY best.
Then it turns out we were just slightly too far from the CO, so our service was strained and all kinds of cattywompus. As in, crazy SNR numbers in the trillions when they should be...oh...under 60. So now we are at half speed. Awesome. The fastest I can download a torrent is at 50mb/s.
Alternatives? Wild Blue Satellite. Uber expensive packages for decent speeds and horrid bandwith caps. I could go on, but I doubt I have to. No cable whatsoever.
I might also mention that FrontierNet has a monoploy on the area, but ironically, it was Verizon who bought them out, and made them step up the DSL support to the entire state of West Virginia. Regardless, I'm moving to VA, and THANKFULLY the aprtment complex I will reside in has FiOS availability.
There's a lot of fucked up shit on the internet. And I've downloaded it all.
If Verizon were content with shared bandwidth, it could offer 100/100, to every Fios customer, starting probably tomorrow. (The limiting factor is the Ethernet jack. Apart from that, the Fios BPON system can do 622 down / 155 up for every 32 customers.) Cable still loses.
And that's before they upgrade to GPON.
Share and Enjoy: 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
Moderator can be dense. Do not forget "/funny" tag next time.
It takes 40+ muscles to frown, but only four to extend your arm and bitchslap the motherfucker