Verizon Offers 20/20 Symmetrical FiOS Service

BlueMerle writes with news that Verizon is offering 20 Mbps symmetrical service for current FiOS customers in NY, CT, and NJ. It will cost $65 a month. Cable companies aren't in a position to match this capability.

Decisions, decisions....

[Bongo Bill]

On the one hand, finally, a competitive level of Internet service.

On the other hand, Verizon.

Well, it's a non-issue for me, since I'm not in any of those states, but it'll give me time to think about it between now and when (if) they start offering it in my area.

Re:

[kakofb]

ADSL2+ can deliver the 20mbit downlink component, and with Annex-M up to 2.6mbit upload.
I'm sitting on such a connection right now, here in Sydney. If the U.S. had line sharing legislation you could too!

Line sharing is a fantastic thing. It allows small ISPs to have their own DSLAMs in exchanges, while using existing copper networks to people's houses. Sure ADSL2+ is not anywhere near as good as FiOS can be, but it is far more open and competitive. I have the choice of at least 10 ADSL2+ providers on my

Re:

[pixr99]

Such a concept exists here in the US as well. It isn't available to all ISPs but it is open to CLECs (competitive local exchange carriers). These are the independent phone companies. They do exactly what you've mentioned. They put DSLAMs in the central offices. They have access to the incumbents' services, dry copper and, in some places, unbundled network elements (dark fiber).

ADSL2+ may already exist in the US but we've got a terrible combination of century old copper and *long* distances from COs to

Re:

[FlappingJerky]

Heck, I bet the 20/20 for $65 price won't last long. It seems like every time they push a new product out, the price eventually rises. I've been waiting for fios in my area for ages. I don't think they'll ever push it down where I live.

A good site to check if fios is available in your area is http://www.fiberexperts.com/ [fiberexperts.com]. However, I don't know if it's up to date.

Re:

[smashr]

If you call verizon you can have them switch your net connection from cable over to Cat5 coming off of the fiber box. You can then use your own router. If you google around you can find more information.

(If you also have FIOS tv then you need to keep the actiontech around, but it can be behind your other router)

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:

[SpecTheIntro]

Yes, it is completely real. In America, our bandwidth is taxed at $20/kb to make sure we don't support "teh piratez."

Re:

[COMON$]

Try having a company routinely have "billing errors" of $10-$20 a month, you have to correct them and watch your bills like a hawk. Makes me wonder how many people Alltel has screwed over that simply pay their bills every month. Or a company that re-routes your calls in what appears to be circles you just get an infinite clicking sound until you redial. Or voice mail that never picks up, or any of a billion technical issues. Not to mention all of 3 brick style phones to choose from until the contracts o

Heh

[ilovegeorgebush]

It's only as fast as the server you're connecting to...

Re:

[CastrTroy]

Well, to get the most of it, you'll have to connect to a bunch of different servers at the same time.

Re:

[dascritch]

Yeah... no way to saturate my 100Mb/100Mb FiOS here in Toulouse. (offered by Orange, price is 45E monthly)

Re:

[b1t r0t]

Important nitpick: You don't have FIOS [tm], you have Fiber. FIOS is a trademark that specifically refers to Verizon's fiber offering.

Re:

[Kjella]

The 1990s called, and want their client-server architecture back. Think P2P on hubs with a 10Mbit minimum, they've been around for some years (mostly outside the US) already. Having a symmetric connection means that P2P will become a lot more dominant than it is, not less. Who needs a server when your home connection can feed 20Mbit/s?

Re:Heh

[Rolgar]

Installing Debian from the MIT or Indiana mirrors, I peak about 20Mbps on my Cable line, and can get sustained of about 15Mbps. There are servers out there that can provide bandwidth. Also, when I hit my Morning Coffee button in Firefox, my 30 pages load in about 30 seconds. There are ways to benefit from higher caps.

Re:

[nschubach]

They also block port 80 if anyone is getting ideas.

Re:

[admdrew]

They also block port 80 if anyone is getting ideas.

I'm guessing just *inbound* port 80 traffic? ;)

Would be kinda amusing if they blocked all outbound connections on 80.

Re:

[nschubach]

Yeah, I figured it was implied. ;)

Would make for some boring internet without port 80.

Re:

[Dragonslicer]

They also block port 80 if anyone is getting ideas.

The last time I had Verzion DSL (several years ago), their tech support either wouldn't admit that they block port 80, or were too stupid to know that they do. I'd say either one is equally likely.

One word:

[Tastecicles]

Bittorrent.

Obligatory AYBABTU reference

[DrYak]

Narrator: In A.D. 2007, war was beginning.

MPAA/RIAA: What happen ?
Mechanic: Somebody set up us the bittorrent.
Operator: We get signal.
MPAA/RIAA: What!
Operator: Main screen turn on.
MPAA/RIAA: It's you!!
Pirate: How are you gentlemen!!
Pirate: All your files are belong to us.
Pirate: You are on the way to distribution.
MPAA/RIAA: What you say!!
Pirate: You have no chance to stay in business make your time.
Pirate: Ha Ha Ha Ha ....
Operator: Mafiaa!!
MPAA/RIAA: Take off every 'LAWYER'!!
MPAA/RIAA: You know what you doing.
MPAA/RIAA: Move 'LAWYER'.
MPAA/RIAA: For great suits and settlements.

Re:

[unitron]

I fail to see how this is "obligatory". Care to explain?

I really wish people would stop calling every random funny thing obligatory...

On Slashdot, applying impact incentive to deceased equines is always obligatory.

Re:

[marcello_dl]

I was thinking more like: one server in the office, a colocated or virtual small backup server for emergency, LAMP or equivalent (i prefer postgres and rails) and be done with the google model of "all your data are belong to us".

Still you're not free, until you stop depending on one ISP alone.

Re:

[CastrTroy]

No, just like all residential services, they will probably have some stipulation about not being allowed to use it to host servers. Also, I'm not sure they off a real SLA, so it would seem that you might be down when you most need the service.

Re:

[nschubach]

They block port 80 requests for sure. I'm not sure about other common ports.

Re:

[jandrese]

A lot of companies don't block any ports, but if you read the ToS you'll find that servers of any kind are generally prohibited. Frequently it is worded to include even port (not passive) FTP, bittorrent, and almost always VPN like connections. The typical industry boilerplate TOS basically says that you are allowed to surf the web and read email (preferably webmail), anything more is grounds for termination without warning or reimbursement. Luckly ISPs don't actually enforce their TOS unless they need a

Availability

[pinkocommie]

Call up your local Verizon office to find out availability. I called the 8xx-get-fios number and they hadn't even heard of the plan.

Re:Availability

[johncadengo]

I called the 8xx-get-fios number and they hadn't even heard of the plan.

Knowing the average slashdot user, it's probably because you requested the "Twenty-twenty symmetrical fiber optics to the premises internet service." Next time, just ask for the "really, really, really fast internet. Please."

Re:Availability

[Anonymous Coward]

SlashdotUser: I'd like the 20/20 symmetrical Fiber Optic Service

VerizonOperator: Sorry, we don't offer vision plans sir.

Re:

[pinkocommie]

LOL Thats actually exactly what I did when she tried transferring me to Fios TV. I had to explain that it was new internet package and established credibility by saying it was on CNN!!!. Anyways calling the local offices was the tech's recommendation b/c neither she nor her boss had any info about the plan

Cable Companies can match or exceed this in 2008

[ctrl]

With the advent of DOCSIS 3.0, cable companies can "bundle up" upstream channels for up to 120 Mbits. Standard DOCSIS 3.0 cable modems will have 4 downstreams and 4 upstream channels, for a total (theoretical) throughput of 200 Mbit/s DS and 120 Mbit/s US.

While the throughput is shared, there's something to be said about PowerBoost as well - they may be able to offer a 20/20 service with boost capability up to 40/40 or 80/40... or if you pay to download movie they may allow you to download that movie @ the full 200 Mbit/s.

Cable companies will be able to compete - but only if they don't keep shooting themselves in the foot with things like BitTorrent filtering.

Re:Cable Companies can match or exceed this in 200

[speaker of the truth]

if you pay to download movie they may allow you to download that movie @ the full 200 Mbit/s.

How can they tell if I've paid for any of these? [sanctuaryforall.com]

Re:

[fabu10u$]

I had read that the real bottleneck in the DOCSIS system was the total bandwidth allocated to upstream traffic on each coax system. Apparently it has to be a separate band to keep from interfering with downstream television and data.

If true, the cable operators will have to keep deploying more fiber nodes to break the coax network into smaller and smaller pieces to be able to compete. Eventually they might have to run fiber to each house...?

Re:Cable Companies can match or exceed this in 200

[shakah]

With the advent of DOCSIS 3.0...

Do you have any numbers on DOCSIS 2.0 deployments, nevermind 3.0? I haven't seen anything but 1.x out in the field.

Re:Cable Companies can match or exceed this in 200

[Laebshade]

To use DOCSIS 3.0, not only would you need new modems that are compatible with this standard, but the network itself also needs to be upgraded. Lines need to have higher bandwidth and the CTMS has to be upgraded/replaced with DOCSIS 3.0-compatible hardware. Some MSOs still use DOCSIS 1.1, which is scary considering how long DOCSIS 2.0 has been out.

DOCSIS 3.0 has only been out for less than a year. Cable modem networks have significantly less upstream bandwidth than downstream bandwidth -- analog tv is to blame for this.

I'd rather have FiOS anyways; I drool over a symmetrical connection.

And yes, IACMT (cable modem technician) (though not a field tech).

No love for Socal?

[sqrt(2)]

I pay almost that much already for Charter high speed cable that's a fraction of those speeds. My upstream is half a meg. With 20/20 I could actually keep my BT ratios positive. I might need to buy some more HDDs though...

I doubt charter will ever improve in my area until they have some real competitors. Right now they're the only game in town if you want the fastest connection.

Re:

[packeteer]

With 20/20 I could actually keep my BT ratios positive.

Haha...

You think they would let you host bit torrent all day with that? Ya right, they would either charge an overuse fee (they are in nearly every unlimited internet package from major soulless corporations) or they would just shut you off.

Re:No love for Socal?

[speaker of the truth]

Why else would a home user need 20/20 if they aren't uploading torrents? Surely Verizon realizes this, right?

Re:

[teg]

Why else would a home user need 20/20 if they aren't uploading torrents?

Update picasaweb/.mac/flickr etc with personal photos, send emails with large attachments, upload to youtube, improving the experience while working from home on a VPN (saving documents to a server) are some samples of legitimate purposes benefiting from high bandwidth.

Re:No love for Socal?

[MLease]

There's a subtle implication there that uploading torrents is automatically an illegitimate purpose. However, many Linux distributions are available that way, as one example of a legitimate purpose for uploading a torrent. Torrent != piracy.

-Mike

Re:

[spikedvodka]

If only they'd understand that... /me fires up bittorrent, and looks at his list:
Planeshift Windows Client
Planeshift Mac Client
PlaneShift Linux-i386 Client
PlaneShift Linux-64 Client
Ubuntu Gutsy i386 .iso

and that's it... nothing illegal, just me being a good lil' net-citizen making sure servers don't assplode all over the place on release day

Ummmm... to run a little web server.

[Joce640k]

I could definitely use a little web server for my work - sending files to clients, etc. 20Mbit would do the job nicely.

At the moment I have to upload files to a third party server with my slow upload then send them a link. With my own connection they could get the files directly from me, no "wait while I upload it..." delay.

Re:

[nschubach]

Verizon blocks port 80, so no web server from you (unless you want to say, go to blah.blah.com:801)

Re:

[Red Flayer]

I could definitely use a little web server for my work - sending files to clients, etc. 20Mbit would do the job nicely.

Verizon's TOS forbid setting up a webserver on a regular account. You'd have to pay much more money if you want port 80 open.

Re:

[sqrt(2)]

I guess with all the problems with charter, at least they don't do any of that. I max out my connection (upstream at least) nearly 24/7 all month (Google says that's about 148GB) and have never been charged more or gotten so much as a warning. If I ever did get a connection with a company that limits it, I'd be sure to find out exactly how much I can safely use and get as close to that as possible every month.

Re:

[cdrudge]

To my knowledge Verizon Online (not Mobile) has never shut off someone due to service overuse.

Re:No love for Socal?

[Rogerborg]

To my knowledge, Mel Gibson has never fellated a baboon, but I'm not clear on how espousing my ignorance contributes anything to thread. Perhaps you could explain that to me.

Re:

[gEvil (beta)]

To my knowledge, Mel Gibson has never fellated a baboon, but I'm not clear on how espousing my ignorance contributes anything to thread.

Well, I know for a fact that he has, so any point that you were trying to make is nullified.

Re:

[Port1080]

I had FiOS for a few months (granted, it was their 5mb/2mb package) and ran BT more or less 24/7 and never ran into any problems. Verizon has a whole host of other issues (their billing department, especially, is a joke), but as far as using your bandwidth goes they really don't seem to care if you max it out. They also don't make any serious attempt to block P2P, although they do block some of the common web services ports (i.e. you can't run an http server on port 80, ftp server on 21, etc).

Re:No love for Socal?

[speaker of the truth]

With 20/20 I could actually keep my BT ratios positive. I might need to buy some more HDDs though...

How many Linux ISOs do you download that you can't get your ratio back into the positive in a relatively small amount of time? Also why aren't you burning the ISOs onto DVD or CD? Surely it wouldn't be that expensive?

Yeah but what's the service level?

[cerberusss]

It's a very nice speed, especially it being symmetrical, but the question is: is this still consumer-grade stuff? Is it best-effort quality, i.e. may drop out any time? No redundancy whatsoever?

Or can we expect some guarantee concerning the uptime of the line? Looking at the price it's probably a best-effort thing so that makes it useless to host servers on such a line.

Re:Yeah but what's the service level?

[flynns]

I, uh. I really don't care, not for 20MBit up AND down for what it costs to have 12MBit down / 1Mbit up.

Re:

[Rogerborg]

You'll care when they shitcan you for using more than 12Mb/1Mb.

Re:

[Andy Dodd]

I think his point is that without a service level guarantee, there's a good chance you'll frequently see your "20M up" perform worse than your cable modem's 512k because Verizon oversold their backbone connectivity.

If Comcast thinks it has to resort to connection reset shenaningans for users making full use of their 512k up (might be higher for Comcrap - I think OptimumOffline is 1.5M up), how much of that 20M up do you think Verizon will let you use?

Re:

[Smidge204]

Indeed, this was my first question.

My OptOnline upstream got capped at a blazing 17 KB/sec for an entire year when I let sometyhing upload overnight at ~230KB/sec (The full 2.0 mbps offered). I don't know how long that ran, but the next morning an a full year afterwards I couldn't upload anything faster than 17KB/sec... and trying to do so starved other apps to the point where they would time out. I've been careful to manually cap my upload speeds at 80 KB/sec to keep far away from that invisible line and s

Re:

[Andy Dodd]

That 150 Kb stealth cap (which similar to Comcast, I don't think OptOffline ever admitted to) is why I call them OptOffline.

I got stealthcapped too for accidentally running BT uncapped for only a day or so.

RoadRunner only has a 512k per-user upstream cap and 5M downstream cap, but doesn't seem to care if you saturate it.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:

[tgd]

For what (little) its worth, I've had zero logged downtime on my FIOS connection in the last year, and while mine is 15/2, I can saturate the downstream 24/7 with no hiccups.

As a consumer, only one FiOS drop thus far

[WidescreenFreak]

You're joking, right? You know very well that at that price it's going to be a consumer-grade. I can't believe that you actually bothered to ask that question.

I don't know about others but in my experience the number of problems with my consumer-grade FiOS is minimal. I've had FiOS 15/2 for about a year now, and I've only experienced one drop where I lost both Internet and voice. I called to report the issue via my cell phone and was told, after a few minutes of investigating, that there was indeed a

Verizon FIOS customers in other parts of country

[linuxguy]

I am a Verizon FIOS customer of their 5/5 service in Portland,Oregon and pay $209/month for it. I wouldn't mind being able to get the 20/20 service in my area. When is Verizon going to show us some love? Verizon reps if you are reading this, the FIOS customer base in the rest of the country is really feeling unloved right now.

The NY/NJ/CT customers already had the higher 10/10 service available and you went and upped them to 20/20. While the rest of the country is stuck with pokey (relatively speaking) 5/5.

Re:Verizon FIOS customers in other parts of countr

[tigerd]

damn you guys in the states have it hard. My connection was just upgraded from 8/1 to 20/2 for free. 50 dollars per month. Welcome to Denmark :) And its even cheaper in Sweden.

Re:

[empaler]

Sounds like Cybercity just upgraded in your area (they are, AFAIK, the only ones doing the free upgrades, yes?)

My connection costs... just shy of 500 dkk/month for 20/20. That's around 100$. Granted, I opted for 10/10 at half that price, because I honestly don't need 20/20 - and that's even though my boss is paying my ISP fees (and he would gladly up it if I asked him)

(Før du spørger: Det er gennem min boligforening :) - men ikke lige så rart som min kammerats 60/20 til 150kr/md)

Re:

[stinerman]

You gotta remember that with the exchange rate $209 is about 50 Euros.

I kid, I kid (at least for now I do).

Re:

[Technician]

What's the real price?

The gripe I have with Comcast is the price advertised is the price if you subscribe to the triple play package. Internet is 33 bucks a month provided they are also your subscription TV and VOIP provider aslo at 33 bucks a month each.

Anybody have a clue how much it is for Just the Broadband minus the telephone and Subscription TV?

With Comcast, Broadband Internet service is over $60 a month. 33 bucks sounds like a good deal until you find it subsidised by the telephone bill and basic c

Re:

[the_greywolf]

Anybody have a clue how much it is for Just the Broadband minus the telephone and Subscription TV?

I pay $67/mo (including modem rental) for internet-only "high-speed" cable in Whatcom County, Washington. I get 10Mb/sec down and 900Mb/sec up.

I'd gladly pay $2 less for FiOS. :)

Re:Verizon FIOS customers in other parts of countr

[Technician]

I pay $67/mo (including modem rental) for internet-only "high-speed" cable in Whatcom County, Washington. I get 10Mb/sec down and 900Mb/sec up.

I'd gladly pay $2 less for FiOS. :)

That's roughly what I pay for Comcast Internet at 3 meg down and 250K up. As a bonus, they protect you from Media Sentry and RIAA lawsuits by preventing them from downloading anything from you as evidence. Unfortunately, nobody else can download from you either. Your torrent uploads are mostly limited to 0.0K for max transfer sizes of about 0.1 Meg. I guess it's hard to be sued if you don't upload and provide evidence of sharing. I got Gutsy on a torrent and my DL was over 600 meg of data. My upload to support others was 0.1 meg.

I'll be glad when serious competition shows up here.

Re:Verizon FIOS customers in other parts of countr

[IBBoard]

Over $200? As in around £100? For Internet access?

Okay, so I'm only on "up to 2MB" ADSL, but we pay £15 per month. We could get up to 8MB if we wanted to pay £25-£30. Okay, so it's not synchronous, which will up the price, but three times as much as an up to 8MB connection? I'm glad I have low bandwidth requirements and am in the UK!

~£30 for 20/20 wouldn't be too bad if I felt I needed the bandwidth, though :)

Re:

[x_MeRLiN_x]

I pay £23.50 per month for 20 Mbps cable from Virgin Media as part of a package. That said, their customer support have presented me with no end of problems.

Sigh...

[Cyno01]

Just paid my monthly $170 yesterday for 3/1.5meg internet, an HD DVR, 16 HD channels and digital cable with everything but showtime. Its expensive because i live in the boonies sort of, but its also worth it because theres nothing to do out here.

Re:Sigh...

[djupedal]

"Its expensive because i live in the boonies sort of, but its also worth it because theres nothing to do out here."

Shit, man - print tickets, throw up some chainlink, projector that stuf on the side of the barn, put on a t-shirt that says "No Head - No Backstage" and go nuts...

Do you hear that Charter?

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone is finally coming to take your lunch. You have to suck pretty bad to make Verizon look like the good guy.

Re:

[kharchenko]

They only look good on paper. Two years ago they set up a FIOS service in a town next door (under a mile away from my home). I still can't get FIOS at my house and they don't know when I might. Pathetic.

I live in Sunnyvale, the heart of Silicon Valley

[MichaelCrawford]

You'd think I could get some kind of fiber service, but no, and when I googled for it I found this huge long thread on Usenet that was all about how Silicon Valley doesn't have good Internet because the phone company won't invest in upgrading their infrastructure.

We have Comcast cable, but I didn't opt for a cable modem because I found Comcast in a list of ISPs that block BitTorrent [azureuswiki.com].

Not that I was looking for warez: no, I operate a legal BitTorrent tracker and dedicated seed to offer downloads of my own music (see sig). I need free access to BitTorrent just to monitor them, as sometimes the BitTorrent seed software (btdownloadmany.py) falls over.

Just my luck that I live beyond the range for DSL. After a lot of research I came across Stephouse [stephouse.com], which offers something called "ISDL", or DSL over ISDN, which can go somewhat farther than regular DSL.

It works, but I pay $99 a month for 144kbps. At least I'm able to monitor my torrents, but I'm not able to watch videos on Youtube.

I'm very happy with Stephouse as a provider though, they have a remarkably permissive TOS, and their support people have been great.

What's in a name?

[doyoulikeworms]

I really wonder if Verizon could offer, say, 25/25 for the same price, but chose 20/20 because it's a "better" name.

I mean, what are the chances that the cost effectiveness sweet spot just so happens to be 20mbps up and 20mbps down?

Re:

[fons]

It's probably 17,8/17,8 or something like that, but marketing decided to name it 20/20 :-)

Re:

[IPFreely]

I'm in Boston. Our company is getting a business 20 put in right now (it's not live yet). We also had the option for a 35. These are business class lines and I don't know what the price is.

So other speeds are available, but probably at rates most home users would not want to pay. Pricing is all relative in these sorts of things. They charge what they can get away with.

Set your own ratio?

[Brit_in_the_USA]

I would certainly be nice for those of us stuck with cable to be able to adjust or choose our own upload / download ratio. Perhaps with a simple web interface on the cable company support site, or even dynamically do it for us.

Re:

[stinerman]

Exactly. I'm on a 1.5/128 plan (I swear Buckeye Cable allocates just enough upstream for the ACKs), and I'd much rather have a 768/768 connection.

The only problem with a symmetrical connection is that it breaks the paradigm that the Internet is for delivering content to their subscribers. The Internet had the ability to make everyone equals, where anyone could create content and put it out for everyone to see. It had that ability until the ISPs decided that anything more than a 8:1 down/up ratio qualifie

Benchmark data

[pmontra]

I'd like to share my experience with a similar service I've been using since year 2000 in Italy. I have a symmetrical 10 Mbits fiber optic connection from Fastweb http://www.fastweb.it/ [fastweb.it]. Their offers that can compare to the Verizon one range in the 50-60 Euros per month, so Verizon is definitely cheaper.
The question somebody asked, directly or unspoken, in this forum is: do you really get all that speed? In my case the answer is yes. I FTP at 1000 kB/s (kilobytes) with the other guys in the Fastweb network and it's common to download files at more than 400 kB/s from US servers. CDNs usually bring that figure in the 700-900 kB/s range. That bandwidth isn't guaranteed by the contract but it never shrunk noticeably in these eight years, despite the fact that the customer base grew 100 times or more. On the other side, none of the 10 or 20 Mb/s ADSL connections I saw here in Italy (with other ISPs) were faster than one tenth of their nominal bandwidth, when downloading files from the same services I use.
So, if you trust your provider to invest in its interconnection with the Internet at large, those 65$ can be worth the expense. If you think that it will somewhat cap your bandwidth, stay with what you have. In my case I got a six-months-for-free offer and I jumped in at the very beginning of the offering :-) but otherwise I'd have waited some month and read what the other customers said.
Finally, do you really need all that speed? My answer is yes: you find a way to put it at use once you got it and you don't want to go back.

Verizon?

[ScrewMaster]

Cable companies aren't in a position to match this capability.

I doubt Verizon really is either, but it sure sounds good.

Off-site...

[evilviper]

This is extremely impressive, and may well be a game-changer...

When Verizon finally rolls-out FIOS here (they've said it's coming "soon" for a couple years), I'll probably sign-up for TWO connections... One for my home, and the other for a family member (within driving distance) or perhaps a friend. In exchange for free ultra-high-speed internet access, all they have to do is leave my back-up server running. rsync will finish pretty damn fast over a 20Mbps connection...

This really opens the possibility of a lot of online file-hosting services going out of business... It's no longer special that they have high-speed upstream, so why pay so much for an over-priced, terribly-limited, managed file hosting service?

Now if somebody could just convince Verizon to enable multicast on all their routers...

If this is indeed true...

[jskline]

Then you can expect the bot-herders will be swarming up heavily to find machines to own that are on these networks. You can do a much better job of taking down Yahoo and I forget who else is on the shit-list of some of these idiots with this kind of uplink speed! It's like having your bots all co-located at an ISP on a DS3 or bonded T1's ready to do your bidding...

Lower speed = lower cost?

[s31523]

Don't get me wrong, 20Mbps up and down rocks, but what if I am content with a meager 5Mbps up/down? I would love to get that for, say, $35 per month... I suppose this just isn't worth it from Verizon's point of view, but I think having this as an option would attract many more people, and steal more cable broadband customers. I bet many people have the same thought process as I do, that is, 20Mbps is nice, but I am fine with 3Mbps which costs me $35 per month (if thats true). Point being many people wou

Re:

[porcupine8]

I do get 5Mbps for $30/month - but then, I live in one of the few places (it's not even the whole city, just a few neighborhoods) where we actually have *gasp* TWO cable companies COMPETING! And so, surprisingly enough, the one that's competing against Comcast is pretty cheap. Even if you don't want this particular service, hopefully if Verizon expands it it'll drive other prices down. Every new choice for consumers shakes up all the other choices a little.

FIOS at any speed sounds good, but...

[sjonke]

... it isn't available anywhere, or hardly anywhere. Perhaps they should concentrate on expanding coverage rather than upping the speeds available to a very select few?

20 Mbits is fine, but the backbone needs updating

[twfry]

I very recently moved to Seoul and finally setup the internet yesterday. First thing I did was to test the speeds and here are the results.

Speed test in Korea: 94.7Mb down - 11.4Mb up
Speed test to Japan: 11.4Mb down - 7.8Mb up
Speed test to USA: 2.7Mb down - 0.9Mb up

My DSL in the US is working at ~630Kb up (have ATT which promises between 512Kb - 764Kb up). So even if I upgraded the service, my slingbox would barely perform better.....

20/20 how far?

[Organic Brain Damage]

Think we could get 20/20 all the way to the backbone for $65? That'd be nice, but somehow I'm guessing it will hit a bottleneck.

no servers, period

[m2943]

http://www.verizon.net/policies/popups/tos_popup.asp [verizon.net]

3.7.5 You may not use the Broadband Service to host any type of server whether personal or commercial in nature.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Competition is Great

[Yeef]

I've been using Optimum Online for about five years now and it's always been a pretty bad service up until recently. My connection would drop for fix or six hours at a time with no explanation a few nights a week. I'd call the support line and they'd fix something on their end and get it working again, but then it'd just drop a few hours later. It got to the point where it wasn't worth all the time spent on hold calling them every time it happened so I just began to work around it. On top of that my upload speeds were capped at about 17 kB/s which was a lot less than other people with the same plan as me were getting. Unfortunately, it was the only broadband service available to me so it was either learn to deal with the annoyances or switch back to dial-up.

Then about two years ago Verizon started rolling out their fios plans around here. A couple of my friends got it and loved it. It was a lot faster than cable and about 10 dollars cheaper to boot (or the same price for an even FASTER plan). So of course, I wanted to switch myself. So I looked at their site for details and started to get a little worried when I saw that they needed to install fiber in the ground. I knew it'd be a problem because I live in an apartment building, but their site claimed my address was eligible, so I figure it can't hurt to schedule an install. Of course the day the installer comes he tells me that I'm not eligible which was no big surprise.

But something great happened. I don't know if it was a coincidence or if Optimum had somehow found out that I tried to switch, but a few days later I noticed a huge increase in my speeds. Ever since then I've been getting down speeds in the range of 12~13 MBps or so and up speeds at about 2~3 MBps. My connection very rarely ever drops and when it does it's only for a few seconds.

If that's the effect that a single competitor has I can't help but wonder what sort of service we'd be seeing if we all had half a dozen or more broadband choices.

Ok, so much the theory. Now, how about reality?

[Opportunist]

The transfer speed is by definition the minimum of all the different speeds between you and your partner. That I have a 100mbit local network means jack with a 1mbit link to my provider.

So I'm connected with 20mbit to Verizon, which sounds nice. But what after that? How much of those 20mbit can I reliably really use? I've seen already incredible speed hits during prime time hours in our 4mbit network here, because the provider simply can't handle a few 1000 people trying to use 4mbit simultanously. Does Ver

Now If Only They Weren't Dicks

[internic]

I would jump on this in a second (FIOS is available in my area) if only it were a true internet connection offered by a real ISP. But (at least if this is a residential plan) if you look at the TOS you will see that it contains weasel words that you can get kicked for, you know, actually using the bandwidth you're ostensibly buying or for running any type of "server", which is really not clearly defined and certainly could include P2P apps (like maybe Skype). So, when you think about it, what you're getting is not really a true internet connection but some limited internet service package that only allows you to do a certain (ill-defined) subset of what can be done with an internet connection.

Finally, in my experience with Verizon (as a phone company) they treat their customers like dirt and their techs are incompetent. At one point they even screwed up our phones then came back to fix that and screwed it up worse. Eventually we had to draw them a damned diagram of how to do it correctly. I also talked to one of the FIOS guys at a kiosk they had in the mall. He couldn't give a straight answer about whether they do traffic shaping, have data transfer caps, or block certain protocols. As a test, I asked him about running a server on a residential connection, and he lied to me and told me it's permitted, which is directly contradicted by the TOS.

I'd love to get a cable or fiber connection that's much faster than my current DSL, if only there were a provider I could tolerate giving my money to.

Wow! This'll make for great botnets!

[Wdomburg]

Not that I don't appreciate the potential, but as a mail service provider I have to cringe at the prospect of infected machines with fat upstream pipes.

Wasn't Verizon blocking outgoing email?

[Xthlc]

A few years ago I dumped Verizon DSL when they switched to a policy of blocking all outgoing SMTP traffic, except that which went to Verizon's servers. And Verizon's servers didn't accept a FROM that wasn't a verizon.net email address. Goodbye personal domain! I went to Speakeasy and never looked back.

Does FiOS have similar ridiculous restrictions? If not, you can bet that they will soon. All that speed is useless if your ISP has a proven track record of screwing over their technically savvy customers.

Upgraded this morning. Speed test results

[EVil Lawyer]

20918 kb/s up, 8181 kb/s down [speedtest.net]

Re:

[SScorpio]

Unfortunately no, they generally don't release roll out schedules. This supposedly prevents the competition from planning around their plans. This does screw the consumer thought since we're stuck in limbo dreaming of the fast cheap web access.

Re:

[Andy Dodd]

Megabits, not megabytes.

Sort of recall that it took 30 minutes or so to transfer a CD over a 10BaseT (10 Mb) network back in college. So MAYBE 20-25 minutes for a gig if you could saturate your connection, which you probably won't be able to do because of bandwidth overselling.

Re:

[gEvil (beta)]

No, I think he's got it right. I have a 3Mbps connection and I can pull in a GB in under an hour.

Re:

[PsychoSlashDot]

I don't live in the US so why has this advert been posted on the front page of an international web site? It should have been posted to Google Ads where it would have to be paid for.

So you're saying that Slashdot can only post stories about things that impact everyone at once? Well, we can skip copyright law changes in France or Canada. We can skip censorship in China. We don't have to know what's going on Sweden when police paid for by non-Swede cartels raid colocation facilities. We can skip news stories about any IT cybercrimes that are homed in Russia.

I don't know where you're from, but in my world, hearing about things like this offering is useful. While I'm NOT in the US,

Re:

[Yetihehe]

If you don't live in US why are you here? It's most US-centric news here.

Re:

[virtual_mps]

The one thing holding me off FIOS is I heard they block inbound connections. Is this true? If I can't SSH into my box from the road when traveling then I'd rather not use the service.

Not true. They block inbound 80/tcp to be obnoxious pricks, and 25/tcp in some areas, but 22/tcp should be fine. Some people get confused by the fact that the provided firewall blocked incoming connections, but that can be changed.