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Verizon Speeds Up FiOS To 150Mbps
wiredmikey writes with a snippet from MacWorld offering some welcome news for Americans sick of 20th-century broadband speeds "Verizon is adding a new tier of service to its FiOS fiber broadband service, offering 150Mbps (megabits per second) downstream and 35Mbps upstream for $195 per month. The carrier has begun to roll out the service to consumers in the 12 US states, plus the District of Columbia, where FiOS is available. Small businesses will be able to get it by the end of the year, Verizon said on Monday. The fastest service offered so far on FiOS has been 50Mbps downstream and 20Mbps upstream."
I've had 35/35 for a while, and I could have 50/50 if I wanted to pay another $30/mo for it.
If speeds don't scale like I think they do, then someone explain it to me please.
In Japan they pay like $40 for 100 Mbps. As usual the US is so far behind it's not even funny.
Damn, internet is pricy for the US people. I'm paying 15 euros for 20mbit/1mbit.
$195/month is the sort a price that only a monopoly can get away with demanding. Too bad nobody bothers to enforce the Sherman Antitrust Act these days.
I write sci-fi for metalheads
I honestly can't believe that people bitch about paying $200 a month for speed comparable to an OC3 ($20k/month).
What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
If I choose to live in the middle of nowhere, Alaska, does it apply to me? Why should they pay for my choice to live in the boonies? It's just promoting more sprawl.
SSC
Because in most other advanced countries, those speeds would run you a quarter that price or less.
$_ = "wftedskaebjgdpjgidbsmnjgcdwatb"; tr/a-z/oh, turtleneck Phrase Jar!/; print
Because people who buy an OC3 are actually using the capacity of their link. The end user—us Joe Shmoe's in our apartments, we barely use it at all. But when we do use it (say to watch an HD Netflix movie) we want it delivered fast.
So really, per gig used, $200 is very, very, very expensive if you pull down a dozen gigs a month (which is probably within reason for a netflix user)
I'll probably be waiting a long time. It's only been three years since they upgraded my phone lines to handle DSL. It'll probably be a long time 'til they upgrade them to fiber.
I think Congress could help too. Simple mandate, through the FCC, that phone companies MUST provide DSL (or cable or fiber) to any customer that requests DSL. And then give them a one-year-limit to do the upgrade. No person should have to be stuck on 50k internet.
If you want DSL or fiber how about you pay for the lines to be run I'm sure no company would object to that. The problem with people in the boonies is that the cost to run the line will not be recouped, think initial cost and maintenance, pricing it to cover the cost would be too expensive for most people, the only way everyone could get DSL is if the price were subsidized, I'm overcharged enough with out having to pay for someone else's service.
Knowledge = Power
P= W/t
t=Money
Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make
But when we do use it (say to watch an HD Netflix movie) we want it delivered fast.
You don't need a 150mbit/s connection to watch Netflix in HD. I watch it just fine on my 10mbit/s cable connection. The HD streams from Netflix run around 5-6mbit/s in my experience.
I can't think of any reason that someone would need this much bandwidth at home, other than geek bragging rights or a heavy porn/bittorrent fetish. Perhaps one day there will be a killer app that needs this much bandwidth but as it stands right now I'm not sure why anybody would pay for it. Must be nice to have that kind of disposable income lying around.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Yes, but they've been charging government mandated fees (totaling in the billions, literally) to deliver on that promise. We've already paid them for it, as an involuntary tax on services provided. So they should indeed deliver to you. They work around it be defining "broadband" as some tiny number like anything over 33kbps (don't recall exactly, anyone can google for the details).
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
In theory, yes. If the customer is close to the exchange. If they're not, then the DSLAM needs to go in a cabinet on a roadside somewhere. Often these are not large enough, so the cabinet needs replacing with a larger one. This needs planning permission, and because they look ugly locals have a habit of objecting... and then complaining that their Internet is slow.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
I honestly can't believe that people bitch about paying $200 a month for speed comparable to an OC3 ($20k/month).
I honestly can't believe it's not butter.
Probably because with that $20 thousand dollar connection, you actually get the speed. But with the home internet services, you get a burst of speed and then you get slowed down or cut off altogether. You're getting charged hundreds of dollars for a connection that flakes out.
Now you are trolling
Disagreeing with you != trolling
I'll pull this out of my ass but most of us are lucky to get above 3mbit.
You are pulling that out of your ass. Most cable providers would laugh at that speed. Granted, not everyone can get cable, but MOST people can. Around these parts the only people who are limited to DSL are those out in the rural sticks and they are frankly happy to have access to that comparatively slow DSL because it beats dial-up and satellite.
Here in Seattle, I can't get more though DSL.
Switch to cable then. A properly designed DOCSIS network is always going to be able to provide more bandwidth than DSL, unless you are lucky enough to live across the street from the DSLAM.
better VPN into work. It would be quicker to check the source code repository out.
If you need a 150mbit/s VPN then your employer should be paying for your connection.
The rest of your points are actually valid, but still not worth $200/mo, at least IMHO. If you want to blow that much money on an internet connection be my guest but I'm not seeing the value there. To each their own I suppose :)
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
>>>the DSLAM needs to go in a cabinet on a roadside somewhere
And you don't think if I lived in Cow Corner Iowa, and requested a phone to DSL upgrade, my local company could get the DSLAM Cabinet installed within a year's time??? I think they could. And no you don't really need planning permission out in the middle-of-nowhere (no planning boards) and/or if the cabinet is attached to the phone company's pole (they have right of way).
I know people who are stuck on 50k and they'd be THRILLED if congress passed the law requiring the upgrade to DSL (or other high-speed equivalent), since it would represent a ~20 times increase to gain DSL.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
The Boston - DC corridor is roughly the size of a European country, and every bit as densely populated. So why don't we have high quality, low-cost broadband there? Yours is a good argument for why we don't have good, cheap broadband in Bismark, ND. For Boston-New York-Philly-DC... not so much.
If we followed this argument earlier in the 20th century, much of the US would still not even have electricity service. In the 21st century, not having low-cost, reliable, quality internet service is just as big a handicap - it seriously affects our national competitiveness. While I'm not sure that the GP post is the right solution, at the very least the government should be encouraging the development of internet cooperatives in underserved areas... not, as now, shutting down such organizations at the behest of Verizon, et al.
Neither I, nor a single person I know that wanted it has ever had FIOS; Verizon always says it won't be available for six months. This has been for years, since they first announced it. And I'm not in the boonies, I live near Boston. If I didn't hear tell of people that actually have FIOS, I wouldn't think it exists, but is rather some elaborate joke. Maybe they got a deal from regulators for their "ambitious" plan, took the money, and then only delivered to a very limited number of customers.
>> Because in most other advanced countries
And a few not so advanced countries. Actually , "not so advanced" would be taking it lightly.
Romania is still under recession , has some of the worst possible education and healthcare systems and the entire economical sphere is built on derailed socialist values (ie: prices increase on holiday instead of decreasing due to more sales , natural gas and petrol have some of the highest prices in the EU , basically everybody thinks ripping everybody off will actually benefit them)
Yet still we have one of THE BEST wan networks around , almost all cities are covered with FTTB , 100mbps for everybody @ 20$/month.
What's your excuse now USA ?
Gah! This is like the fifteenth population density excuse I've seen in this thread alone, and *every* thread about internet speeds is filled with population density arguments.
They're just not true. They look true, based on Japan and Korea, but look at European countries. Norway and Denmark are even less dense than the US, and they still kick our asses in broadband speed. We have shitty internet because of monopolies lying their asses off to the FCC and the public about how people "don't want" better internet than they already have and it would be prohibitively expensive to upgrade anyway. Population density doesn't mean shit, and if it did they would focus more heavily on WiMax or any of the half dozen other solid wireless broadband technologies that mainstream providers avoid like the plague; last mile problem solved.
The US has plenty of areas - San Diego/Orange County/LA county, the Northeast Corridor - that are every bit as dense as a European country. Yet we don't have low-cost, high quality broadband service anywhere. Why is that? I think the second part of your post is the true answer.
In my state, Verizon was bought-out by Frontier. If you live in Western Washington, and you don't already have FIOS-- you're not getting it. Ever.
Comment of the year
You mean like South Korea? Population density: 1,271/sq mi
Los Angeles County: 2,427/sq mi
New York City: 5,435.7/sq mi
Why are our cities, with double or even quadruple the density, still stuck with speeds two orders of magnitude slower with higher costs?
What's your excuse now USA ?
You have three times the population density that they do?
Here in Canada our service is far worse than in the US, and the population density is even lower. Meanwhile Japan, with the highest population density, has the best service. Now, I'm no statistician, but I'm sensing a trend here.
Yep. I can concur with the GP. I'm paying $35 for the same connection he has. Like the GP, that's my price limit. I'd love to be paying $20-$25 US for the connection that you have.
While I'm no fan of the telecos here, I do recognize that my price is subsidizing their expansion into rural areas, where there are only a couple of houses every mile. I lived in one such rural area. Without the regulators making rural broadband a requirement, those houses will never have broadband. And without me subsidizing them at least a little, telecos would go broke trying to make that happen.
While they are money grubbing bastards, the US still has a lot of areas where only a few people live, and where the communications infrastructure is spotty. That alone makes it more expensive for ISPs to operate here.
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
Because the same company, Verizon in this case, also has to service the non-high density parts. Yes, they have different pricing for different areas. But the probably can't/don't want to price it too differently.
85% of the American population lives in, or near, a densely populated urban area. Over 21 million people live within short driving distance of New York City. 17 million live in and around Los Angeles, 10.8 million around Chicago. . . and you get the idea. Most Americans live in population density very similar to what we see as Europe's 'high density', more than enough to pay for the relatively few who don't.
There is only one reason why US broadband sucks: we have telecom monopolies which are federally-mandated through lack of oversight. I live in NYC, surrounded by the equivalent of one quarter of the entire UK population, and have, essentially, two options for broadband. I can either get Time Warner's offerings, or the offerings of a provider who pays Time Warner to use their lines, or I can have Verizon's offerings, or use a provider who leases Verizon's lines. That's it: two, in a place with an average of 27,000 people per square mile. And if I want a blazing 3 Mbps, I'd better be willing to dole out $50/month.
It's not about the tech, it's not about the density. It's about unregulated corporate greed. If you don't believe me, look at the outcry over even the idea of net neutrality.
I am a believer of momentum and curves.
The telecoms promised us fiber optic networks nationwide in 1993. They charged us for it, and never built it. They've had 17 years to do it, giving them one more year is more than generous enough. The heads of the various ISPs involved should be sitting in jail on fraud charges. They've stolen more than Bernie Madoff ever did.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
That blog is LYING to you.
If you read the Actual 1996 Bill it says companies must upgrade to 56k Digital lines (which was considered very fast in the mid-90s). It says almost nothing about fiber. So the companies did *exactly* what Congress told them to do.
Blame Congress not the corporations.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
http://www.newnetworks.com/FCCCITIbroadband.htm
No OS on the planet can protect itself from a user with the admin password. - Yvan256
If the Democrats really cared about improving the broadband situation, they'd have grown a sack, told people flat out that Socialism makes sense in a certain situations and that last-mile infrastructure is one of them.
Right! Unregulated big business naturally tends to monopolies and cartels where competition is extinguished. This happened in the Nineteenth Century Gilded Age, and just over 100 years later here we are The New Gilded Age awash with its new robber barons.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
The parent post is most certainly not Flamebait. This does happen and has been documented many times.
FCC analysis shows that average (mean) actual speed consumers received was approximately 4 Mbps, while the median actual speed was roughly 3 Mbps in 2009. Therefore actual download speeds experienced by U.S. consumers lag advertised speeds by roughly 50%.
Source (Warning: PDF): http://www.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2010/db0813/DOC-300902A1.pdf
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
If we followed this argument earlier in the 20th century, much of the US would still not even have electricity service...
That is absolutely right. It was government intervention, and government subsidies that created rural electricification (and also brought in telephone service). The Rural Electrification Administration (REA) was abolished in 1994 after having completed its task of extending these two services to all of rural America.
Ironically it is that same rural America, which is also currently being heavily subsidized by the more industrialized blue states, that is raging against "socialism".
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
FiOS has always sounded like one of those things I'd love to have. It's not ever going to be available where I currently live.
A couple of years ago, when it looked like I was going to be moving out of state, I thought that, all other things being somewhere near equal, I'd sure like to move to an area that had FiOS service. So, I tried to find out where in the general area of my possible destination it might be available.
No one at Verizon was willing to talk. I could randomly stab in the dark with a street address and get a yes/no answer, but no coverage map. "Trade Secret" or something. That was annoying.
If you compare apples to apples (i.e., business FiOS to an OC3), then you're wrong.
Business FiOS is guaranteed speed (both directions), with an SLA. Now, like every other ISP, they'll only guarantee the speed to the edge of their network. Once off their network, they obviously don't have any responsibility.
In my personal experience, though, the limit that Verizon claims as your fastest possible speed for your FiOS line is lower than the actual peak speed you will see.
Evidently you didn't read the report. Click the link I posted to the abstract, follow the link to the actual report. Page 5 has the ISP claims, summarized on page 8. Financial commitments on page 9. Incentive regulation information on 11 and 14, outcomes on 15. Page 31 mentions NY's 2.3B tax deduction in exchange for NYNEX's 1B upgrade commitment, which was never fulfilled. Et cetera. Every other sentence, every claim of fact, is footnoted. It goes state by state, company by company, through the whole history of 1990-2004. There are over 230 citations.
No OS on the planet can protect itself from a user with the admin password. - Yvan256