Verizon Speeds Up FiOS To 150Mbps 314
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."
Great - now put FiOS here please (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Re:So why is my lower tier so expensive? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Kinda pricy (Score:1, Insightful)
Not US as a big surprise for everyone.
Monopoly pricing... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So why is my lower tier so expensive? (Score:3, Insightful)
Why does 15 Mbps down cost $50? but 150 Mbps only costs $195?
If speeds don't scale like I think they do, then someone explain it to me please.
It likely has nothing to do with scale, and all about persuading you of the "value" of spending $200/mo for internet service.
Re:Nice, now why (Score:4, Insightful)
I honestly can't believe that people bitch about paying $200 a month for speed comparable to an OC3 ($20k/month).
Re:Great - now put FiOS here please (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Monopoly pricing... (Score:4, Insightful)
$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.
Take a look at the areas where FIOS competes with the cable companies. I live in such an area, and you will find that prices are down and features are up. Both Verizon and the cable companies try to one-up each other with internet speeds, tv packages and discounts.
While far from perfect competition, FIOS vs Cable really works out in the consumer's favor. In non-FIOS areas, the cable companies have far less of a motivation to compete.
Re:Nice, now why (Score:3, Insightful)
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)
Re:Great - now put FiOS here please (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Monopoly pricing... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Great - now put FiOS here please (Score:5, Insightful)
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).
Re:Great - now put FiOS here please (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Nice, now why (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Nice, now why (Score:2, Insightful)
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 can't believe people still trot this one out (Score:4, Insightful)
Because broadband internet is an essential service (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Monopoly pricing... (Score:3, Insightful)
Splitting regional monopolies into local monopolies isn't the answer. The answer is to make the telecom infrastructure publicly owned. Any business that wants to offer net service may do so as long as it contributes to the maintenance and improvement of the network. Ensure through regulation and appropriate penalties that the government does not abuse the public trust by spying on the network without a warrant.
Yes, I know this sounds like socialism, but I'm tired of caring.
Re:Great - now put FiOS here please (Score:2, Insightful)
>>>The problem with people in the boonies is that the cost to run the line will not be recouped
Raise the price then. Or use the funds from the USF tax.
And what new line? DSL uses the existing phone lines.
Re:Meanwhile (Score:4, Insightful)
yet some large cities in the USA rival some of the less dense cities of Japan in population density, yet the less dense cities of Japan still have magnitudes better i-net service.
The US has plenty of very dense areas (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Keep in mind (Score:3, Insightful)
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?
Re:Kinda pricy (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Meanwhile (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Great - now put FiOS here please (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Great - now put FiOS here please (Score:1, Insightful)
Maybe if you in particular weren't so guilty of karma bitching. It's fucking Slashdot for Christ's sake. Get a life.
Re:Great - now put FiOS here please (Score:2, Insightful)
They promised fiber in 1993 and charged us for it?
Bull. Citation please else we'll simply choose not to believe you.
Re:Nice, now why (Score:3, Insightful)
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.