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."
Re:Nice, now why (Score:2, Interesting)
Look at the price. The ISPs continue to believe they deserve hundreds of dollars for connections like this even in a major city where population density is extremely high.
Re:So why is my lower tier so expensive? (Score:4, Interesting)
Because speeds don't scale like you think they do. If you have lots of little pipes going into a fat one, you can manage contingency and plan easily. If the little pipes are 10x the size, it's harder - especially as the actual point where service is impacted (around 80%) can go from 'ok for next 6 months' to 'upgrade now' due to a single customer changing usage profile.
It's like the difference between driving trucks, and driving cars - yeah, they are 3 times the length, but they cause 10x the traffic slowdown.
Service providers work of graphs that measure peaks (and 95%s), and if a single customer can move the peak from 85% full to 100% full, then it's hard to plan a good service - the only way is to have more contingency, which means more equipment/fibre/lambdas.
Re:So why is my lower tier so expensive? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Great - now put FiOS here please (Score:3, Interesting)
>>>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.
Re:Meanwhile (Score:4, Interesting)
You're lucky enough to live in one of the few areas in which there are several broadband providers. In most areas this isn't the case and you don't have anything to bargain with. You can't threaten to switch to another provider because there aren't any. Where I live there's only two. Comcrap and Quest. Both suck and have almost identical prices.
Cell phones, same thing. There's really only 3-4 carriers in the US. Add to this the fact that they're allowed to lock you into 2-year contracts and we start to see why all phone service sucks.
FIOS? What FIOS? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Nice, now why (Score:2, Interesting)
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 ?
Re:Monopoly pricing... (Score:1, Interesting)
I live in a FIOS vs Cable area. I have 35/35Mbps FIOS Internet (the fastest consumer tier in this area), their best HDTV package, digital voice, HBO/Cinemax all for $130 (not including taxes and STB's).
Before FIOS was available, I was paying Comcast about $140 for 5Mbps/384Kbps Internet, basic cable, no digital voice (I was paying an additional $40 for Verizon POTS), and no HBO/Cinemax package.
Since FIOS arrived in my area, Comcast and Verizon have been competing big time. Comcast has definitely improved speeds, packages, and pricing but they still can't keep up with FIOS.
Re:Keep in mind (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:Great - now put FiOS here please (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:Nice, now why (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:Nice, now why (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:Great - now put FiOS here please (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:Because broadband internet is an essential serv (Score:5, Interesting)
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".