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.

Heh

[ilovegeorgebush]

It's only as fast as the server you're connecting to...

Yeah but what's the service level?

[cerberusss]

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.

Re:Yeah but what's the service level?

[flynns]

I, uh. I really don't care, not for 20MBit up AND down for what it costs to have 12MBit down / 1Mbit up.

Re:Verizon FIOS customers in other parts of countr

[Technician]

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.

20/20 how far?

[Organic Brain Damage]

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.

Re:Heh

[Kjella]

The 1990s called, and want their client-server architecture back. Think P2P on hubs with a 10Mbit minimum, they've been around for some years (mostly outside the US) already. Having a symmetric connection means that P2P will become a lot more dominant than it is, not less. Who needs a server when your home connection can feed 20Mbit/s?

Re:Do you hear that Charter?

[kharchenko]

They only look good on paper. Two years ago they set up a FIOS service in a town next door (under a mile away from my home). I still can't get FIOS at my house and they don't know when I might. Pathetic.

Re:Yeah but what's the service level?

[Basilius]

I currently have Verizon's FIOS at the 15/2 level. It is _always_ 15/2. I've never had the connection be slow. If I've had a problem it's been with my router and a reset fixes it.

For $20 more a month, it's tempting to go to the 20/20 level when it's offered in my state. The install tech told me in nearly these words: here's your connection, we don't care what you do with it. No bandwidth shaping, no restrictions on servers, etc.

Wasn't Verizon blocking outgoing email?

[Xthlc]

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.

Re:One word:

[jandrese]

A lot of companies don't block any ports, but if you read the ToS you'll find that servers of any kind are generally prohibited. Frequently it is worded to include even port (not passive) FTP, bittorrent, and almost always VPN like connections. The typical industry boilerplate TOS basically says that you are allowed to surf the web and read email (preferably webmail), anything more is grounds for termination without warning or reimbursement. Luckly ISPs don't actually enforce their TOS unless they need an excuse to kick someone off of their system.