Verizon now offering 150Mbps FiOS service

[Jos]

Verizon today added a new 150/35 Mbps tier to its FiOS broadband access service, effectively bumping by three times the previous 50Mbps peak and almost doubling the previous upload speed of 20Mbps. According to the company, the new plan’s downstream speed is fast enough to download a 1GB file in roughly a minute, is three times faster than Time Warner's fastest Internet offering and as much as 50 percent faster than Comcast and Cablevision.

Upstream rates are also 30 percent faster than Cablevision and Comcast and a whopping seven times faster than Time Warner. Of course all this speed comes at a premium – between $195 and $215 per month, depending the length of the contract and whether the subscriber buys Verizon's phone service as well. But while the majority of users probably won't be able to afford this new service, at least some previous customers will get a speed bump with no change in price: the 50/20 Mbps tier can now handle 60 Mbps down 35 Mbps up.

Back in August the company completed a real-world field test in which it pumped data at nearly 1Gbps speeds, while more recently Verizon hit another milestone, delivering 10 Gbps through a trial run of advanced XG-PON2 technology.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/41237-verizon-now-offering-150mbps-fios-service.html

 

[TeamworkGuy2]

Wow, fast, but still not useful for the average user.
$195/month (~$2300/yr)!!! I don't think the average user can afford that.
Call me back when it is down to like $40 or $50 a month.

 

[madboyv1]

I'd much rather see increased service coverage, lower costs, and faster upstream (I hate grossly asynchronous transmission speeds with a passion, but I am forced to live with it) come first before a 150Mbps downstream tier. But I guess the 50/20 bump to 60/35 for no additional cost is pretty nice. I don't remember if Verizon has a bandwidth cap like Comcast does, but here's to hoping that Verizon does not because of this new tier.

Fun fact: at the "up to a maximum of 150Mbps" downloads speed, you're looking at around 46TB of data if you were to download 24/7 uninterrupted for a month.

 

[lawfer]

That's pretty amazing, but the price? Really?

I once told myself that when the Internet bill got more expensive than the light bill, I would kill a puppy.

Sorry, puppy, but you gotta go. *bam bam*

 

[gobbybobby]

you would need a pretty fast computer and large harddrive to be downloading 46Tb of data... Upload be great for torrents.

 

[Guest]

Nice.. but will never see it.

Verizon sold all the lines and dumped phone / dsl, (NO FIOS option) to a company called Frontier in our area.

 

[gwailo247]

Just in time to stream full resolution IMAX movies. Now I just need a few dozen 580s and I'm good to go.

 

[Leeky]

Wow, fast, but still not useful for the average user.
$195/month (~$2300/yr)!!! I don't think the average user can afford that.
Call me back when it is down to like $40 or $50 a month.

It surprises me that the cost is so varied across your country. I swear I've heard some people are paying around $60+ a month for even a 2Mbps connection.

I'm currently waiting on hearing back on trials for 100Mbps fibre-optic connections in my area. I'm currently paying approx $65 a month (when converted from UK Pounds) for a 50Mbps connection. I doubt I'd even consider 100Mbps, but I don't mind abusing it for trials! :haha:

 

[Decimae]

Wow, that's expensive. I just saw an ad for 120/10 mbps with digital television and phone for 62 euros/month.

Of course, that's in Holland.

 

[madboyv1]

gobbybobby said:
you would need a pretty fast computer and large harddrive to be downloading 46Tb of data... Upload be great for torrents.

You don't need a fast computer OR a fast hard drive, even a good USB drive (even a flash drive) can do ~19MB/s (sustained for a month though, unlikely). Just LOTS and LOTS of space. And maybe a BD burner with a ton of blanks.

 

[gwailo247]

madboyv1 said: Just LOTS and LOTS of space. And maybe a BD burner with a ton of blanks.

I think even with one BD drive you'd fall behind. Takes about 40 minutes to burn a 25 GB disk, and if you're downloading data at 1 GB per minute, you'd never catch up. Probably would need 2 BD drives, and a lot coffee.

 

[madboyv1]

gwailo247 said:
I think even with one BD drive you'd fall behind. Takes about 40 minutes to burn a 25 GB disk, and if you're downloading data at 1 GB per minute, you'd never catch up. Probably would need 2 BD drives, and a lot coffee.

Ha ha I didn't realize it took that long to burn BD. In that case better yet, one of those Multi-Drive Autoloaders with custom software to allow automated burning rather than automatic duplication. That way you don't have to stockpile as much coffee.

 

[captaincranky]

What would be the point of downloading all that data anyway?

If you could download 1GB a minute, then a DVD would take no more than 8 minutes. So that would be maybe 8 DVDs an hour, or a 192 DVDs a day.

So then, after a few months of doing this, you'd have the back bedroom full of HDDs, all containing stolen movies you couldn't watch in a lifetime, music you couldn't listen to in decades, but perhaps most importantly, nothing much to look forward to downloading in the future.

It surprises me that the cost is so varied across your country. I swear I've heard some people are paying around $60+ a month for even a 2Mbps connection.

Being every bit as cheap as my attitude is bad, I'm, "locked in for life" with Verizon, @ $17.99 month, 1Mbs down.

Or a bit more than 11 Pounds Sterling. (I figured I'd return the favor on that one).

 

[madboyv1]

you mean Dual layer DVDs, as normal DVDs would only take about 5 minutes to download (and burn in 8ish). BD burning seems to be the more efficient method anyways (though significantly more expensive). And I think you mean decades of movies, lifetime of music.

And you forget, new media (music, video, images) are created (copied sometimes, whatever) every day, so there will ALWAYS be something to look forward to downloading, the person would just have to wait a little bit. =p

Ouch @ 1Mbps down, though for regular surfing that is more than plenty.

 

[captaincranky]

you mean Dual layer DVDs, as normal DVDs would only take about 5 minutes. And I think you mean decades of movies, lifetime of music.

So then, 12 DVDs an hour, 288 DVDs a day.

And you forget, new media (music, video, images) are created (copied sometimes, whatever) every day, so there will ALWAYS be something to look forward to downloading, the person would just have to wait a little bit. =p

Tru dat, but generally speaking 288 movies aren't released very often, even on Tuesdays. So, at some point it becomes hurry up and wait......, or maybe wait and then hurry up.

 

[KG363]

Dang that's fast. And I was excited when AT&T bumped me up from 10 to 18mbps for free, lol

 

[Tomcaster68]

I changed over to FIOS about three years ago after watching Verizon install their fiber optic lines on my street. With all the TV advertizing etc. I fell for it here in New Hampshire. They offered their HDTV in Mass., but not in NH. so I had their phone service and internet. Then they soldout to Fairpoint, who during their bankruptcy totally discredited all promises and my expectations. I changed back to a Comcast 3-way bundle and can only complain about the costs and minimal service interuptions. Now that I think of it, I'm going to dump my TV and phone service also from them as its cost has recently jumped and I get tired of the repeats and unused programming.

 

[madboyv1]

captaincranky said:
Tru dat, but generally speaking 288 movies aren't released very often, even on Tuesdays. So, at some point it becomes hurry up and wait......, or maybe wait and then hurry up.

Ha ha it would first be hurry up then wait, since there is a wealth of material already online (2-3 decades of relatively available movies, spanning beyond just Hollywood to other countries, half a century+ of music at the same scope). So depending on how someone downloads (ie how picky they are), it could potentially take a LONG time to catch up. If and/or once they catch up though, it'll be wait and then hurry up.

 

[windmill007]

Come on Verizon do something with your pathetic DSL. I mean I've been on 3mb for years with no increase as far as I can see. I see some companies testing faster DSL. You would think Verizon would jump on that. Most people will never ever get FIOS and most have DSL...but it's like Verizon abandoned DSL...my friend signed out and it has to be the worst service....Took for ever to get...then forever for them to turn it on..and forever and getting no where with customer service. Sorry Verizon but your starting to sux!

 

[captaincranky]

Come on Verizon do something with your pathetic DSL. I mean I've been on 3mb for years with no increase as far as I can see. I see some companies testing faster DSL. You would think Verizon would jump on that. Most people will never ever get FIOS and most have DSL...but it's like Verizon abandoned DSL...my friend signed out and it has to be the worst service....Took for ever to get...then forever for them to turn it on..and forever and getting no where with customer service. Sorry Verizon but your starting to sux!

Well, Verizon is a business, not an NPO.

FIOS requires considerable investment in infrastructure, as does DSL. So it's unrealistic to expect that they would advance both technologies simultaneously. We can hope, since many areas aren't getting FIOS for decades.

 

[Guest]

You can get residential speed at 200 mbps for 6800 yen in Japan (approx $81 to $82). I wish there was more competition on pricing in the US.