Under competitive pressure from local cable competitors like Cablevision, Verizon is fighting speed with speed. The company just announced that it is now offering connection speeds of up to 50 Mbps (megabits per second) downstream and 5 Mbps upstream over its FiOS network.
The previous top speed was 30 Mbps/5Mbps, on the high end. In the medium tier, Verizon upped the speed from 15 Mbps downstream and 2 Mbps upstream to 20/5 Mbps, and the top-tier service was increased from 30/5 Mbps to 50/5 Mbps.
The higher speeds were available in New York, Connecticut and New Jersey previously. Massachusetts and Rhode Island were added to the list recently. Verizon had 522,000 FiOS Internet customers across 16 states at the end of the third quarter of 2006.
Though the company did not announce any more specifics, one has to note that the high end service is expensive, like really expensive. The 30 Mbps service costs $179 a month. There was some talk that this service is going to cost $90 a month, but not sure what price Verizon is offering. In comparison, Cablevision’s 30 Mbps service is a third of that price.
Pssst.. hey Verizon, guys at HK Broadband are selling these kind of speeds for like $20 bucks a month. Come on, how about cutting us all a deal here?
Om can you use your pull and get them to speed up deployment in the Seattle area? I know a couple people who were in the early “test areas” and they said “it is” all Verizon says it’s cracked up to be. It is a good time to be alive.
-Dal
90? 179? i’m in boston and 20/5 is only 49.99…that’s 20 per month lower than comcast and rcn for a dedicated hub at the home versus a shared hub on cable…
btw, verizon is very aggressive in boston right now too…they’ve been doing door to door in several suburbs as well as setting up camp outside coffee shops…their entire cable tv and internet package including 20/5 internet as well as all cable offerings (hbo roster, etc, but not sports package) is 70 per month cheaper than rcn…
I wish there was more competition where I lived. RR has things locked up and gets aways with charging whatever they want.
Dave, you are sharing bandwidth somewhere. Even if you had 20/5 reserved all the way back to the CO (which you may or may not depending on where you live) you certainly don’t have 20/5 reserved at the Internet POP. That said, 20/5 for $50 is a great offer compared to Comcast and RCN of NE and I would switch if I could (live in an apartment building).
Om, the real issue here is that if Verizon gave you too good an Internet connection on the cheap then what incentive would you have to buy FiOS TV? Just imagine the growth of video entertainment options on the Internet if it could be taken for granted that millions of people had a good enough connection for high quality content (streaming or download). Netflix is already making inroads into the market previously dominated by premium channels like HBO, Showtime, et al. An uncompressed DVD, 4.5 GB, could be downloaded in 30 minutes with a 20 Mbps connection! Meanwhile, 20 Mbps is also more than good enough to be streaming in high def.
Exciting news… until I learned the Seattle area isn’t included in the upgrade. Hopefully Comcast will pressure Verizon to do the same up here soon.
What does an average consumer, or an avid downloader (ok, add multiplayer to that list as well) need anything above 5 Mbps for?
I would gladly get Verizon Fios and their TV for 70 dollars a month as someone had just said. I sincerely hate Dishnetwork right now which is giving me bs about why I can’t cancel because i signed with third party and not them and their rates are all messed up, long story. And cable tv is over priced like corporate America. If Verizon would just get to Suburban LA area i would gladly convert my town to their service given of course it costs $70 a month for both internet and TV.
yeah you’re right, who needs 5 Mbps…
as bill gates said himself, 640 KB of RAM ought to be enough for anybody
Wow $176 only? I have a 2MB down/1MB up Satellite link that is costing me $244 a month in Thailand. But, I guess that is the price you pay to live in remote parts. But, then again working out of Thailand, I can provide offset printing at 50% over stateside or European prices.
Meh… when I was in Japan, I got 100mbps fibre optic (NTT BFLETS) for $50 bucks a month. I could stream HDTV and download torrents at 12megs a second. Course only with Japan’s infrastructure could you do that so cheaply.
$179? I’d drop that in a hearbeat and have the biggest smile on my face as I wrote the check for those kind of speeds. In fact, I might even consdider moving into a FIOS neighborhood for that.
My only question is if they have the backbone to support that.
I have the FiOS 30/5 Mbps and I only pay $55 a month,,, depends on where you live. They had a deal for a few months where if you committed to a year you received it for $55.
FWIW, the 30down/5 up is only $54 where i’m from.
Verizon is putting in FO in limited places around the country. Yet I can’t even get minimum DSL service in my area. They have told me that they have NO plans to upgrade the switch or the lines in our area. We don’t even have all the features, on our phone lines, that the rest of the country have had in the last ten years. And, No, we don’t live out in the sticks. This is typical Verizon. Go where the big money is and to heck with it’s everyday customers
I pay $40 for 30/5 from Cablevision (for a year anyway, because I switched from DirectTV). Why would I switch to Verizon when I have had nothing but crappy experiences with their DSL service?
I have FIOS and I live in NJ. I pay 39.99 which comes out to a little over 43 bucks a month for FIOS with 50mps. the cheaper 30is 29.99 a month. I don’t know where this 100+ dollar a month is coming from.
The most Verizon will offer to me is 768Kb/128Kb DSL even though my line was tested to 1.5Mb/256Kb. When can we get FIOS in our area? I keep asking for it but nothing is coming to our Area.
Well I think it’s funny but kinda a sham as well, I live in Northern Japan and get 1 GIGABYTE fiber connection to my house Up and Down. Now granted My router can only handle 100 mbs connection it’s still nice to have that 100 mbs Download and Upload. And here’s the kicker. I pay about 5000 yen for it.. That’s roughly 45 dollars per month. Verizon I do hope that by the time i get back to the states in a couple of years the US will have finally cought up with Japan and the rest of the Asian Market for fiber connections to the house.
Om,
Late getting to you but, while I liked much of your post — and the comments — on the fiber we’re offering, I threw your post-script (on HK) to a colleague here at VZ. Response: “The prices I have seen – one from a very recent Paul Budde Company analyst report – says that Hanaro’s standard offering is 51 megs for $40. We are offering 30 megs for $44 unbundled, $39 bundled. Still not on par megabyte per penny or whatever but come on. And Hanaro is not the entire market. Cable modems serve 4 million households in Korea. The speeds are slower and I can’t find anything right now on prices. But I would wager they are probably comparable to our price of about $39. Hanaro is the top of the line. Further, the Koreans have had problems with slowdowns in part due to over subscription and not enough backbone, at least that is what it appears. And while some fiber has been deployed, the US was the fastest growing fiber to the home market in the world last year according to the Fiber to the Home Council. Maybe the point is this – there is no nirvana when it comes to most markets. All markets have some good things in general a few things that could get better. That is what competition is all about. As long as there are choices, as long as prices are generally coming down and speeds are going up, as long as higher capacity networks with better upstream capacity than has ever been seen is the reality in the market, our markets are looking pretty good.” CZ
CZ,
not to get too technical, Hong Kong based City Broadband is selling 100 meg ethernet to home for flat $25 a month. I think that is what i call seriously cheap. Hanaro is a different story.
I live in sweden and have 100 downstream and 10 up, we pay around 50$ for that.
The U.S. is a third world country when it comes to mobile phones and Internet infrastructure
Om,
My mistake. I (obviously) took HK to mean Hanaro (Korea) Broadband. Thanks for calling me out. CZ
Of course, doesn’t help that the US has a much larger land area to cover:
Sweden:
410,934 SQ KM
Japan:
374,744 SQ KM
USA
9,161,923 SQ KM
Whenever people rattle off “so-and-so nation has zillion bps for the equivalent of $pocket-change a month” I remind myself that some of these places are smaller than the state where I reside and some aren’t much bigger than just the county where I live. Scale is a non-trivial issue when installing network capacity. A million users crammed cheek by jowl in a square million like Hong Kong isn’t a reasonable comparison to the majority of places in the US looking for new service options.
Imagine you have two businesses that want networking infrastructure installed. One business is entirely contained with a large ten story building. The other has an equal number of users but spread out in small offices over a 500 mile radius. Which job do you expect to take longer and cost more?
anybody in ny,nj,ct is crazy if they go with verizon fios. 180 dollars for 30mbps down/5 up is crazy.. even for 50down / 5 up .. cablevision has boost which costs a MAX of $65 for 30/5 and they will be providing 50/50 for approx 200/month eventually.
i pay 160 for everything a that includes tv,internet, an phone, so i dont know where you get 180 bucks for 30mbps o an i got 50mbps
Epobirs, the problem with your argument is that even the places in the US that do have high extremely high population density do not have especially low priced broadband. By your argument, every major city in the Northeast should have 100 Mbps broadband for < $50, yet not a single one does.
The 30 Mbps service costs $179 a month.
That’s somehow technically the national price, but everywhere I’ve ever looked it’s cheaper than that. It does depend somewhat on the area; if there’s any sort of competition it’s cheaper. In Fairfax, VA it’s $55/month for the 30 Mbps connection.
By your argument, every major city in the Northeast should have 100 Mbps broadband for < $50, yet not a single one does.
It’s not, for example, the case that all of Japan has fiber. Fiber is only in Tokyo and downtown Osaka (which have a population density higher than the cities in the Northeast.)
Japan actually has a lower percentage of people with broadband than the US; fantastic speeds available in Tokyo, yes, but the inaka really is a backwater.
It used to be that you’d pay at least $150 for the local loop on a T1 in the late 90’s… never mind the ISP fees. Bandwidth is cheap everywhere now, and Verizon’s backbone has plenty of capacity (so far) to support it. I have no complaints with FIOS – bomb-proof latency, no outages, maxed throughput on downloads to giganews, what more could one ask for?
Well, if FIoS is anything like cable here in Brooklyn, NY, it will be 10 years before the cable actually arrives in the neighborhood and another 5-10 years before internet service is available. And probably another 5-10 before CATV over the fiber is available.
And when it does arrive, it’ll be $250/month before you’re done.
My broadband router/switch won’t give me more than 3.5mbps throughput no matter WHAT Comcast gives me at the modem (currently about 6mbps DL/385kbps UL.) What are you folks using to get around this bottleneck?
I have had FIOS for 9 months in Virginia. Have 30mbs connection and pay $56 / month. The speed is incredible, I have clocked downloads at 3500 kilobytes per second… I have downloaded 700MB in less than 3 minutes. It is amazing. I have never had an outage. Speed has always been 30mbit+ down and 4.6mbit+ up. I was told by several Verizon tech’s that they are expecting a competitive run with the cable company in this area and they are prepared to take them on. that their network infrastructures in my area are being upgraded as fast as they can and that at some point they will (at some point) offer up to 100mbit to 200mbit packages… that may be years away but it depends on how aggressive the cable companies try to go…
s.korea offers 90Mbps for about $35/mos.
even on both ways with uploading the same speed!
I wish they’d offer service in Harris County Texas. I’d drop Time Warner Roadrunner in a heartbeat for 30 to 50 MB per second speed!!
I wish FIOS or anything remotely fast was in my area. I get to choose between Verizon DSL 1.4/0.4 for $30 or Roadrunner 2/0.7 for $55, in NYC!
High Speed Internet Access and Broadband Provide We are a Nationwide broker for multiple providers that will find the best pricing.
I used to sell verizon door to door and i have seen the service and it is awesome. You guys who talk about Cablevision being cheaper for the same service does not make it better. You may be supposedly getting 30 megs but you are sharing speed with everyone on your street. Fios is a dedicated line to your house, thats why it is faster and better quality and more reliable.
Who the hell seriously can’t wait an extra 2 seconds? I think cable has struck the desired speed that most people can live with. If you are that much of an internet fiend that you need 50mbps download speed you need to lay off the MySpace, and crank.
I pay $55 a month for RR 7mb/0.7 in Queens,NY. My internet loses connection at least twice daily and TV once daily(30 to 4 hour periods). Timewarner is worthless
chuck… if you have no use for those speeds… then dont order it… some of us have better things to do than wait hours and hours and hours for our stuff be transferred. i personally could make use of a 100mb connection.
i currently have 3mb/1mb connections and its maxed out constantly… i share videos of my kids with the family members
I live in “Tech Valley”, the upper Hudson Valley in New York State. We live 4 miles from a city and 1.5 miles from the nearest Fiber Cable, which by the way they ran on a dirt road with hardly any customers. I live on a paved county highway and all we can get is dial-up. No cable, dsl (I’m 28K from the CO),no fiber, no satellite and no plans to do a damn thing. If you are in the rural environment you are discriminated against.
My phone line even has a constant buzz in it.
Long live 26,400 baud! We are indeed a third world country.
I believe that if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. My old 28K modem works just fine and I can surf my aol pages with no problem. I have plenty of time and don’t need this feos service or whatever it is. I don’t want to overdue my old computer with some things it don’t need. I am considering getting rid of the computer altogheter and just using my webtv as it is less hassle and easier to manage. With the computer there is just to much expense of virus software and there are just to many windows updates and popups. There is just too much stuff to have to deal with. I think I’ll just go back to webtv and forget about it! That’s be about all for me.
Nick in the country!
I pay $57 for 5down/0.7up with RoadRunner at Queens,NY. I also use the broadband for Internet TV which needs 1mbps without getting buffered. But during night hours, RoadRunner would drop to 0.5mbps,which restricted to watch my Internet TV program. TWC had tried to fix this problem for months. I finallt give up and sign myself for Verizon DSL for 3 mbps down/0.6 starting next week. I can’t wait until FIOS is availale in our area.
When is the US going to catch up with the rest of the world… This is ridiculous. But alas, I am in the same boat as some of you others that have other bottleneck constraints to worry about.
The frankenstein desktop I am using is about 10 years old, and its rip roaring 733 MHz processor can’t handle streaming video, definitely a bummer when the kind folks at IBM are willing to webcast Amen corner at the Masters. Not to mention when I have 20-30 tabs open in firefox and the whole tower starts rattling and roaring like one of those large outdoor air conditioning units. but i have found that a swift “ac slateresque” jab to its midsection can knock off a few decibels.
intel should just skip the step from duo to quad, and go straight to multi-core. photonics chips all around! then i could actually worry about things like up/dn speeds. maybe we should all just move to korea.
I think you guys are missing the point. (The guys that keep saying America is a 3rd world country and crap.)
Please tell me, how many of you are the best at everything? I know I ain’t, but doesn’t that also say the same for countries. Nobody can be the BEST at everything. WoW! One small thing, internet connection, and America sux…You guys are stupid. Good job.
http://www.speedtest.net/result/110506688.png
Hospital internet for the win. Hey, I don’t pay a thing…and it’s networked.
Hey I am an American from Philadelphia. The bottom line is that America is so far behind the Wireless/Cellphone & Broadband internet it’s not funny.
Corporations control everything up to congress and things are not going to change as fast as they do in EU.
At least I guess we can be thankfull they aren’t keeping us in 56k.
My 5Mbps down / 2Mbps up is $39.95/mo. I’m not sure how useful 50 Mbps is at this day and age, but they should at least lower the price of the slowest package. I wrote an article on my experience with Verizon FiOS Internet.
Hey! I have really crappy Verizon DSL (I actually have no idea what it is exactly)… its pathetic. Especially after I moved to Long Island, NY. The normal speed for a song is 10 kb/s hahah…when I’m lucky I get 20 kb/sec… It starts off at 30kb/sec but quickly goes down…
Anyways, I am looking to change to either Verizion Fios or Cablevision (Optimum Online)… When it comes to price per mb of down/up cablevision looks good… however I heard those numbers are a load of bull. Fios is more consistent.. I’m not really looking for anything great… My 10 kb/sec is pathetic enough. As I go on the main Fios site it shows prices that are much diff then what you guys say. I currently live in NY. I’m thinking that the prices on the site are the maximums and that I could possibly get it for much cheaper.If I do, I will get either the 5mbs/sec or 15 mbs/sec depending on price.. Can anyone near New York, NJ, New England etc with fios tell me what they are paying and how did they get those prices. And what do you guys think about Cablevision?
Hold on to your hat. Within the next few months, Totally wireless T1 speed up and down through buildings, trees, 30+ miles from the NOC throughout North America unlimited plus unlimited VOip, router included for $29.95 a month, $8.00 commissionable. Say goddbye to the cellular phone age. Embrace the technology ISP’s or
Come on about USA bigger then Sweden . The NY area has more people than Sweden in a smaller area and the internet is poorer. Here is not about distances , here is about winning and about no Federal Presure. Look what programs Sweden and South Corea have.
Listen, FiOS is Verizon’s effort to finally catch up with cable but they are going with there old habits of overcharging people and sticking people with a “ball and chain” contracts. why would I pay even $1 for shaty service??? I am now a cable vision customer and I am enjoying 30 mbps down and 5 mbps up for only $40 and when Optimum Ultra is revealed to the general public (thats 50 mbps up and 50 mbps down) I will a proud owner….. Onced I switched from Verizon I never looked back!
I must tell you “former verizon customer”, Verizon does indeed suck the high hard one for many reasons.. but for you to be pimping cable is ridiculous! Cable speeds suck MOST of the time due to them overloading and overselling the nodes. It’s like trying to fill 20 keg cups with beer out of one tap at the same time… There just isn’t enough to go around. But instead of being honest with consumers and telling them that their bandwidth is being shared with the entire neighborhood, they continue to promise 10mb connections and rarely deliver (maybe from 1:30am – 5:30am). So don’t worry about looking back, you wont have to… you will be looking forward trying to figure out how got left behind.
Oh yea, and as car as Cox, Mediacom and the rest of these jokers shaping traffic, you will also be outwitted as you always are… we (collectively), are smarter and have more drive than you and your engineers ever will so give up on stopping p2p and bit torrent traffic.