Follow Slashdot stories on Twitter

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×
Verizon Businesses The Internet

Verizon Boosts FiOS Uploads To Match Downloads 234

An anonymous reader writes Verizon is boosting the upload speeds of nearly all its FiOS connections to match the download speeds, greatly shortening the time it takes to send videos and back up files online. All new subscribers will get "symmetrical" connections. If you previously were getting 15 Mbps down and 5 Mbps up, you'll be automatically upgraded for no extra cost to 15/15. Same goes if you were on their 50/25 plan: You'll now be upgraded to 50/50. And if you had 75/35? You guessed it: Now it'll be 75 down, and 75 up.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Verizon Boosts FiOS Uploads To Match Downloads

Comments Filter:
  • What about (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    The 150/75 plan? What will my upload speed be???

    • Re:What about (Score:5, Insightful)

      by NoNonAlphaCharsHere ( 2201864 ) on Monday July 21, 2014 @12:01PM (#47501657)
      Advertised: 150/150
      Actual: 112/112
      • by NatasRevol ( 731260 ) on Monday July 21, 2014 @12:34PM (#47502009) Journal

        Unless you have netflix.

        Then it's the 400k/112MB plan.

        • by KitFox ( 712780 )

          Given that Lvel3 and Verizon are currently holding PR-offs over their peering, this may be related to that. Verizon says "The peering is not symmetrical so L3 should pay us for all the data they are pushing [sic] over our network." L3's response is that Verizon is NOT a symmetrical peer and never can be because their end is full of consumers that pull more data and don't even have upload capability as fast as the download capability.

          Verizon's solution? This change, then say "Look! We're symmetrical! Now p

          • by Rich0 ( 548339 )

            Sounds like there is a simple solution to that for Netflix.

            Have their application send outgoing packets to an IP on their ISP which just get fed to the bit bucket by the border router. So, if you download a movie at 2Mbps, the client sends random data at 4Mbps back. That forces your ISP to upload more than it downloads, and thus they have to negotiate peering.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        This is fiber. I don't have Verizon myself, but in general everything people complain about in regards to ISPs goes away once you're fiber. They'd have to have some pretty serious congestion issues for FiOS to start having trouble.

        Along that same line though, I've no idea why they had asymmetric on fiber to begin with. The point to ADSL (Asymmetric DSL) has to do with crosstalk on the copper lines in the DSLAM. This isn't an issue, at all, for Fiber. So it makes little sense to have asymmetric fiber service

        • Re:What about (Score:5, Informative)

          by CreatureComfort ( 741652 ) on Monday July 21, 2014 @12:49PM (#47502165)
          The biggest issue I have with Verizon Fios is the TV service. All of the video channels are so compressed that you inevitably get pixelation and tearing. This is particularly infuriating when it happens during playback for video on demand shows that you are paying extra for.

          And Verizon customer service is a complete joke. They don't even understand that it is their compression causing the problems, and their only solution when you call to complain is to reboot the cable box. After never less than 35 minutes on hold, then 30-50 minutes working with the idiot in Mumbai, then getting "accidentally" disconnected... makes me want to scream.

          But the 75/35 is pretty flash.
          • Re:What about (Score:4, Insightful)

            by roc97007 ( 608802 ) on Monday July 21, 2014 @01:56PM (#47502653) Journal

            > The biggest issue I have with Verizon Fios is the TV service. All of the video channels are so compressed that you inevitably get pixelation and tearing. This is particularly infuriating when it happens during playback for video on demand shows that you are paying extra for.

            I think this is pretty much true no matter what the medium. We've noticed high compression rates on satellite (both dish and directv), Comcast (awhile back...) and FIOS. We finally dumped cable entirely. For what network TV my family still watches, we have a big antenna pointing at the TV towers on the ridge over there. The signal is head and shoulders over anything I've seen from cable or dish, with the possible exception of sports on dish (for which additional bandwidth is allowed).

            I guess my learning from all of this is that traditional real time TV, with the possible exception of direct off-air broadcasts, just haven't moved with the times. There are no doubt business reasons for this, but it calls into question, why cable at all? High cost for low quality? Just say no.

            • by tepples ( 727027 )

              but it calls into question, why cable at all?

              I can think of three reasons:

              • Someone is a fan of a particular talk show host on one of the cable "news" channels.
              • Someone watches sporting events that aren't shown OTA and are blacked out online because they're on cable.
              • Someone wants to watch a TV series as it airs rather than waiting a year for the season box set and having to deal with water-cooler spoilers.
              • The cable company offers basic TV at no additional charge with the purchase of Internet access.
              • > Someone is a fan of a particular talk show host on one of the cable "news" channels.

                Depending on which program you're talking about, it might be available via streaming, perhaps for a fee.

                > Someone watches sporting events that aren't shown OTA and are blacked out online because they're on cable.

                My wife is a football and basketball fanatic. For blacked out shows, she goes to sports bars. The rest she watches either OTA online. One year she got the DirecTV football ticket, and was very upset at the

                • Depending on which program you're talking about, it might be available via streaming, perhaps for a fee.

                  The programs are Morning Joe, The Rachel Maddow Show, and Monday Night Football. Is there a (legal) live stream of MSNBC and ESPN sold separately from pay TV?

                  For blacked out shows, she goes to sports bars.

                  That's great for people with no kids under 21.

                  This is a leftover from what I call the "tv tray generation", people who watch TV shows on the content provider's schedule, with commercials.

                  There are plenty of "TV tray generation" people in my family. Some are unwiling to spend an extra $180 per year for TiVo service. But I was referring to things like Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones, where one may have to actively avoid spoilers that come up in casual conversation at work.

                  Usually (but admittedly not always) there's a way to get internet without also having to get cable.

                  Internet without pa

                  • > But I was referring to things like Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones, where one may have to actively avoid spoilers that come up in casual conversation at work.

                    Netflix. (I must be one of the only people on earth who doesn't watch either Breaking Bad or Game of Thrones. But I know people who are addicted, and I'm told the experience is much better when binge-watching. Major advantage: No cliff-hangers.)

                    I mean, Breaking Bad is off the air, isn't it?

                    >> Usually (but admittedly not always) [...]

            • My local OTA channels are just as heavily compressed as the cable channels. Local stations are able to fit multiple subchannels into one regular channel, and to accomplish this, they reduce the bandwidth of the main channel. We're left with an overcompressed main channel and two amateur quality subchannels that show local ads and weather which earns the local station some extra income. It's going to get worse with everyone trying to cram more channels into their transmission medium without adding more he

              • Regarding OTA, one's mileage may vary. I watch very little TV, but as a geek I'm interested a bit in the technical side, and observe that our OTA channels are much sharper than any cable/satellite service we've ever had (and we've had everything that's been available, because wife and daughter are pretty much addicted). But I concede that I've not looked everywhere, and it might be different elsewhere.

                But you bring up a good point. I felt back when HD was being heavily promoted that there was a really go

          • by xjerky ( 128399 )
            Really? I have had FIOS for 5 years and never noticed pixelation....I thought the whole plus with having fiber to the home was that there was enough bandwidth to send the streams with little or no compression.
          • The biggest issue I have with Verizon Fios is the TV service. All of the video channels are so compressed that you inevitably get pixelation and tearing

            What are you comparing this to? The television signal on FIOS is superior to almost every other cable company since FIOS is one of the only services that sends the original stream and not a recompressed video. If you think the FIOS video signal is bad, you should try Comcast or, even worse, one of the satellite networks.

            This is particularly infuriating wh

        • Re:What about (Score:5, Informative)

          by ArhcAngel ( 247594 ) on Monday July 21, 2014 @12:53PM (#47502213)

          This is fiber. I don't have Verizon myself, but in general everything people complain about in regards to ISPs goes away once you're fiber. They'd have to have some pretty serious congestion issues for FiOS to start having trouble.

          It matters not how fast your download speed from your ISP is if said ISP's connection to the content [level3.com] you are requesting isn't able to deliver it.

          Along that same line though, I've no idea why they had asymmetric on fiber to begin with. The point to ADSL (Asymmetric DSL) has to do with crosstalk on the copper lines in the DSLAM. This isn't an issue, at all, for Fiber. So it makes little sense to have asymmetric fiber service other than for marketing purposes.

          Consumer ISP's are all about getting content to you. They don't want you throwing up a server at your house to stream data to the ethers. They want you to stream media from them. So much so most have U NO RUN SERVER clauses in their TOS. An asynchronous connection allows them to advertise higher bandwidth "download" speeds and keeps those nasty server runners with paltry pipes to get their filth up to the internet.

  • Symmetrical? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 21, 2014 @11:56AM (#47501599)

    But they'll throttle my uploads to Netflix, right?

    • Re:Symmetrical? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by MetalliQaZ ( 539913 ) on Monday July 21, 2014 @11:59AM (#47501629)

      Yeah. Wouldn't be awesome of Netflix enabled a P2P client on the Verizon network? They should do it. The technology exists. It would be glorious.

      • Yeah. Wouldn't be awesome of Netflix enabled a P2P client on the Verizon network? They should do it. The technology exists. It would be glorious.

        If Netflix won't do it, the hackerites will do it for them sooner or later. They should get on it.

        • Re:Symmetrical? (Score:5, Interesting)

          by laird ( 2705 ) <lairdp@gmai[ ]om ['l.c' in gap]> on Monday July 21, 2014 @01:47PM (#47502607) Journal

          I built that network (Pando Networks) a few years ago. The content companies were generally pretty slow to adopt p2p technology, but game companies are all over it. One pleasant aspect was that the advantage of p2p wasn't just economics, though those were great, it was performance. Because downloading from dozens of sources is much more resilient, and on good networks more performant, than downloading from one source. And, with an intelligent network, it could connect you with peers that are close to you in the network, reducing network congestion at the interconnects by 80%. When we ran a large scale test across all the major ISPs, we in fact saw that p2p clients were able to reduce inter-ISP data exchanges (for the p2p network) by 80%, simply through intelligent peer selection, which ISPs loved, and download performance was better, which downloaders loved.

          And symmetric fiber networks are awesome at p2p.

    • by magsol ( 1406749 )
      Pretty much. This guy nailed it [arstechnica.com].
  • by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 21, 2014 @11:57AM (#47501607)

    They still have a long way to go to catch up to gigabit up/down though.

  • by alen ( 225700 ) on Monday July 21, 2014 @11:58AM (#47501615)

    biggest problem with upload is you send it over free links with Tier 1 networks, or you pay them to take your traffic. with all the user generated stuff now like Twitch, flickr, video calling and other services where you want a fast upload speed that's a lot of data to be paying for.

    with the current L3/Verizon dispute i wonder if they struck a deal where verizon will allow the connections to be upgraded for netflix to work on their network in exchange for L3 taking all their uploaded data for free.

    • Re:So who pays who? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by TemporalBeing ( 803363 ) <[moc.oohay] [ta] [ssentiw_mb]> on Monday July 21, 2014 @12:16PM (#47501815) Homepage Journal

      biggest problem with upload is you send it over free links with Tier 1 networks, or you pay them to take your traffic. with all the user generated stuff now like Twitch, flickr, video calling and other services where you want a fast upload speed that's a lot of data to be paying for.

      with the current L3/Verizon dispute i wonder if they struck a deal where verizon will allow the connections to be upgraded for netflix to work on their network in exchange for L3 taking all their uploaded data for free.

      Hmm...that actually makes for an interesting case.

      So Level3 basically pointed out the issue with User focused ISP's - that they're asymetric and would never provide the ability for those ISPs to compete in the peering arrangements that back-bone providers have. So now if they go to being symetric, it would allow the users to do more and possibly try to combat what the ISP (e.g Verizon) thinks is a fallacy but they can only prove if they make all their links symetric.

      Problem for the ISP is users don't really upload a whole lot any way. So it's not going to change anything for a while. It may get Level3 to drop the "symetric vs asymetric" part of their argument, but it won't change the amount of traffic going from the ISP to back-bone provider.

      What will be telling is if they do the same to the DSL customers in the near future as well. Otherwise they are still primarily an asymetric provider as they have more DSL than FiOS customers.

      Question is: Will Verizon only do this temporarily as part of an argument with Level3? If so, expect a change in the future when their plan doesn't work out. If not, then hopefully other ISPs will follow in order to "compete".

      • What will be telling is if they do the same to the DSL customers in the near future as well.

        DSL works over high frequencies in existing copper phone lines. Far more physical bandwidth is typically allocated to the downstream than to the upstream. Balancing this out would reduce download speeds in favor of upload speeds. Are you sure implementing SHDSL [wikipedia.org] wouldn't require rolling trucks and mailing modems?

        • What will be telling is if they do the same to the DSL customers in the near future as well.

          DSL works over high frequencies in existing copper phone lines. Far more physical bandwidth is typically allocated to the downstream than to the upstream. Balancing this out would reduce download speeds in favor of upload speeds. Are you sure implementing SHDSL [wikipedia.org] wouldn't require rolling trucks and mailing modems?

          Except Businesses have had access to higher speed symetric DSL for a lot longer; though that's typically a dedicated line instead of one sharing its bandwidth with a voice line.

  • Consumer plans only? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by amaiman ( 103647 ) on Monday July 21, 2014 @12:02PM (#47501667) Homepage
    Will this only apply to consumer FiOS plans, or are they rolling this out to Business FiOS, as well?
    • by Raxxon ( 6291 ) on Monday July 21, 2014 @12:39PM (#47502067)

      That's my big question.... I went with a business acct so I could get static IP's instead of playing silly games with dynamic dns hosting crap....

      I'm gonna be so pissed if they say "residential only"...

      • by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 21, 2014 @12:46PM (#47502135)

        See the press release here:
        http://newscenter.verizon.com/corporate/news-articles/2014/07-21-fios-upload-speed-upgrade/

        Short answer: new and existing business customers will be getting it too "later this year".

        • by Raxxon ( 6291 )

          That's a useful and informative link and it's being modded down?

          Sucks that I get it "later this year" with no real specification on when. Also makes me irritated that I can't upgrade past the 75mbit plan currently. ;)

  • by LordKaT ( 619540 ) on Monday July 21, 2014 @12:08PM (#47501715) Homepage Journal

    As a FiOS customer this would matter to me if Verizon wasn't actively trying to extort money from Tier 1 providers.

  • by colfer ( 619105 ) on Monday July 21, 2014 @12:19PM (#47501837)

    Now all Netflix needs to do is get a FiOS account at their house.

  • by jlv ( 5619 )

    When my FiOS went from 25/25 to 50/25, my measured rate went from 25/25 to 60/40! I hope that with this "update", I don't end up being downgraded to 50/50.

  • Uploading is still a fraction of what downloading is... Most home consumers, even those with IoT devices or heavy P2P users, are still net consumers of online information. (Think Netflix, Windows Updates, VPN, remote desktop, etc.) I see it as a gift I didn't care to receive but one that I wouldn't pass up. So, I have to ask, what's the point?

    A more valuable gift would be continue the lack of symmetry, and bump existing download & upload speeds by some percentage. Until Netflix becomes P2P, most
    • Uploading is still a fraction of what downloading is... Most home consumers, even those with IoT devices or heavy P2P users, are still net consumers of online information. (Think Netflix, Windows Updates, VPN, remote desktop, etc.) I see it as a gift I didn't care to receive but one that I wouldn't pass up. So, I have to ask, what's the point?

      How else are they gonna get all the constant live-streaming from your various computer & console webcams & microphones up the pipe without you noticing?

  • Both Verizon FIOS users were reportedly very happy (other than their experience using Netflix).

    • by dave562 ( 969951 )

      This...

      Last I heard, Verizon was scaling back / had stopped expanding their FiOS network. Is that still the case?

      While this is great news for current FiOS subscribers, it means fuck all to the rest of us who do not, and likely will not ever have, FiOS.

    • Both Verizon FIOS users were reportedly very happy (other than their experience using Netflix).

      Really? I live outside the city (as in no water or gas infrastructure) and I still have FiOS, here in Northern Virginia.

      • Both Verizon FIOS users were reportedly very happy (other than their experience using Netflix).

        Really? I live outside the city (as in no water or gas infrastructure) and I still have FiOS, here in Northern Virginia.

        Yeah, they apparently weren't able to roll out FIOS to anything other than outlying suburbs across most of the U.S. Not very many people are able to get FIOS, and they stopped expanding their service area a few years ago, and even sold off parts of their fiber network to other companies in certain markets. If you aren't in a FIOS service area now, you probably never will be.

  • I thought Comcast, with its self-proclaimed (yet widely disproven) focus on customer happiness, had the fastest internet access speed in the US.

    .
    Will Comcast catch up to Verizon? If so, when?

    • Will Comcast catch up to Verizon?

      Wow, I wonder, if my fellow citizens of the command-and-control persuasion still think, the government mandating the higher speeds would've been more effective in delivering the bandwidth to consumers...

  • by Gothmolly ( 148874 ) on Monday July 21, 2014 @01:11PM (#47502347)

    Call me when I can get more than 3 Mbps. Bastards.

    • Completely agree. FiOS is 1/8th mile away from my house but they won't bring it the last couple hundred feet. I'd be stuck on ADSL, but I am using 100+ GB/month on my unlimited data, symmetrical 30 Mbps LTE, tethering my 5 GHz 802.11ac smartphone (Galaxy S5) to my 5 GHz 802.11ac wifi adapter on my computer. I uploaded an hour-long HD video to youtube yesterday in about an hour. If Verizon Wireless doesn't want me tying up ~40% of the bandwidth on the local tower, they're more than welcome to ask their non-W

      • Doesn't your phone provider get cranky about your "unlimited" use of the 4G?

      • FiOS is 1/8th mile away from my house but they won't bring it the last couple hundred feet.

        Sounds like you need to strike up a deal with one of your neighbors, to sign-up for FIOS and host a WiFi AP aimed towards your house for you. Give them free internet access (throttled when you're maxing it out) or just a few dollars more than the bill, and you'll both come out ahead.

  • I'm on Verizon. Fark has been unreachable all day. This appears to be Verizon's problem, not Fark's, so... the fark is going on here? How does a major ISP lose connectivity to a major news-like site?
  • by scorp1us ( 235526 ) on Monday July 21, 2014 @01:23PM (#47502429) Journal

    The problem isn't in the upstream, it's in the downstream. Specifically their L3 interconnects.

  • No doubt this is because it is taking the NSA too long to suck the data out of your computer(s).
  • ...you'll be upgraded to pound sand with both hands.

    North Carolina was promised FIOS "real soon now" for years. At this point, it's pretty clear that if you don't already have it, you won't be getting it. Google blimps, drones, and sewer lines will bring us high-speed broadband long before Verizon significantly extends their buildout.

    • At this point, it's pretty clear that if you don't already have it, you won't be getting it.

      Not true here. It was quite a while after their announced buildout freeze that FIOS became available here. A neighboring city had it for a while, and since then, it has expanded a few cities away, and filled-in all the coverage gaps, too.

      Frankly, I hate FIOS, because they immediately take away nice cheap DSL as an option. Why the hell does my mother need to pay $65/month for the slowest FIOS package, when she's ne

  • by coinreturn ( 617535 ) on Monday July 21, 2014 @02:17PM (#47502781)
    They like to raise their prices constantly. The extra cost will appear later this year - I guarantee it.
  • Now my online backup service will smash into my monthly usage cap in the first hour it runs.

  • My current plan is 25/25. Looking at the press release, I don't see any upgrade for that plan.

  • They claimed that residential customers could have IPv6 2 years ago.

  • I've wanted FiOS for such a long time -- despite the unfortunate circumstance of necessitating becoming a Verizon customer. Now, I may move just so I can have it...

  • I didn't believe it but ookla resulted in a symmetric 50mbps up and down. Now I have to read the article to see why they did this.
  • Whatever price Verizon says it'll give you for FIOS, add $5/mo for the router rental that's forced on you, for absolutely no reason.

This is the theory that Jack built. This is the flaw that lay in the theory that Jack built. This is the palpable verbal haze that hid the flaw that lay in...

Working...