Verizon boosts Fios speeds

LAS VEGAS--Verizon Communications is boosting speeds for its Fios fiber-to-the-home service, the company plans to announce Wednesday.

The company's COO Denny Strigl is expected to announce the speed upgrades during his keynote speech at the NxtComm trade show here. The upgrades come as Verizon customers use more bandwidth intensive applications such as video downloading and photo sharing.

"The appetite for bandwidth shows no sign of slowing down," Strigl said in a statement. "Neither will we. We've already had successful trials of the 100-megabit home, which will be a reality faster than anybody thinks."

As part of the upgrade, all Fios customers will now have access to download speeds of 50 megabits per second and uploads of 20 Mbps for about $140 a month. The company is also offering its symmetrical 20 Mbps download and 20 Mbps upload service to all Fios customers for $65 a month.

Verizon had already been offering these speeds in certain markets such as Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York. But now the service will be expanded to Verizon's entire Fios customer base, which is spread throughout its 16-state territory. Previously Fios in these states, such as Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia, topped out at 30Mbps/15Mbps and 15Mbps/15Mbps.

Verizon will also upgrade its mid-tier offering increasing speeds from 15Mbps/2Mbps to 20Mbps/5Mbps. And the low-end service will increase from 5Mbps/2Mbps to 10Mbps/2Mbps.

[gerrrg]

And the BluRay fanboys insisted speeds and capacity of the internet would not increase fast enough to make BluRay obsolete...

[freemarket--2008]

So tell me, what percentage of the population has access to these speeds now? How about next year? How about in five years? Most people still don't and many never will. I'll stick with Netflix. Most new films are coming out in BluRay and it's available today, not in ten years.

[jrm125]

At those speeds it still takes a pretty long time to download a 50 GB blu-ray. And in case you hadn't noticed, the new trend is for throttled bandwidth and pay-per-mb services.

Oh, and let's not forget what would happen if EVERYONE started downloading movies. Those advertised speeds would fall faster than Bush's approval rating.

Quit being mad your crappy HD-DVD failed.

[moofer]

Screw speed increases... let's broaden the install area. Like maybe to Silicon Valley where 99% of the households could use the hell out of the service?

[ayoung45]

it's a shame there isn't anything near that speed here in Hawaii.

[amandachuck]

My Mom's house in Florida has Fios, and I thought it was fast already at 15/2. 20/5 will rock. If only she had the need for that speed!

[AXG]

Are there any caps on how many GBs I can download? I am reading lot of reports where ISPs (particularly Comcast) are "charging by the byte" if I go over a certain quota.

[DarkHawke]

Not to be a "BluRay fanboy," but c'mon, what's the market penetration of even, say, 10 Mbit downloads? How 'bout 6? Most folks, if they're lucky, are 1.5'in it, and outside of major metropolitan areas, it's dial-up, or if you have the beaucoup buckolas, faster but still comparatively pig-slow satellite. Even if you're going off of a 2G cell network (3G is REALLY restricted to metro areas), you're STILL not talking enough bandwidth to make HD-quality content downloads a reality. Until speeds like FIOS can deliver are at least as ubiquitous as POTS, disc media for video will reign supreme.

[TheJerzeeKid]

This is just the start of a long broadband journey. If you think about the possibilites of the cable Verizon is installing - it is not out of the question for gigabit internet looking into the future. Verizon knows it. 100 mbps on the equipment they are running, is barely tapping it's full potential. FiOS Rocks!! I am a current 50 mbps subscriber. Unreal!

[iamarcin]

It would be nice if i finaly got any FIOS in my area. I live in Long Island NY. I have even seen a Verizon guy tanning on a field close to my house about 6 months ago. Got so excited cuz i thought i would be able to get it. No such luck. They dont like the competition from Cablevision so they dont expand. From whay i hear they dont need to increase quality. From experience i know they need to increase availability.
But after they make pirated software and media unavailable or too risky to download i will have no use for it anyway. I wonder what will come first.

[sadchild]

gee i'm SO glad fairpoint is in new hampshire now instead of verizon [/sarcasm]

[freemarket--2008]

It wouldn't matter. Verizon is cherry-picking markets and will be for quite some time. Fairpoint may actually build out some broadband if it can get the money to do it. I would love an alternative to Comcast.

[celticbrewer]

gerrrg. "And the BluRay fanboys insisted speeds and capacity of the internet would not increase fast enough to make BluRay obsolete... "

BR won't be obsolete for 10 years. Yeah, a few metro area citizens might be able to get this FIOS 100mbit *IF* they pay through the nose for it. The overwhelming majority of the US won't get FIOS, and a good amount (80% or more) of people still dont have internet over 1mbps- a lot of those people are on dial up.

It's not speed and capacity, it's availability and price. But you probably can't cope with that idea because you're still reeling over the money you lost on your inferior HD DVD XBox add-on.

[freemarket--2008]

Good one! ;-)

[bluerain44]

I just got Earthlink Cable in NYC. I get 15Mbps up and 7Mbps down. I don't know what the posted speeds are. For this, I pay a total of about $90 a month.

[brucerobb]

*REALLY*?!? You need to do a broadband speed test. . . I think you probably have 15 DOWN & 7 UP. (*No, no! No soft drink remarks!* :)

[paul613]

"The company is also offering its symmetrical 20 Mbps download and 20 Mbps upload service to all Fios customers for $65 a month." 20Mbps uploads??? That's it: I'm moving my family to a FIOS neighborhood.

[amandachuck]

BluRay is obsolete yesterday. It was based on an old codec, and time has moved past. Using H.264 you can fit an HD film on a standard DVD. Using H.264, an HDDVD could have been the hands down winner, since it uses the same cheap laser as standard HD. Is H.264 lossless? No way. Do most customers care? No, they think upconverted DVDs look fine, and H.264 is much cleaner than MPEG2 squished onto a DVD...

[freemarket--2008]

Now you tell us! Why didn't you say something a year ago before the HDDVD camp waved the white flag? These multi-billion dollar corporations sure could have used your advice... well... except for that whole codec thing... which is... well... wrong.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray_Disc

Blu-Ray supports H.264 as well as MPEG2.

[peterwl777]

how old are you? 12?
I didn't understand one thing you said!
Guess you didn't pay attention in English class huh?
Ever hear of spell checker and maybe check your grammer while you're at it?

[peterwl777]

You ******* ******* punks post on here thinking you've got something earth shaking to say and that everyone gives a **** what you think!
99% of you haven't a ******* clue what you're talking about anyway.
P.S. If you pay for software, YOU ARE AN IDIOT!