US broadband speeds have been trailing behind those available in Europe and Asia for a long time. Verizon is the largest provider of fiber service in the US, via FiOS broadband service, and yesterday the company set the bar higher by announcing 20mbps download and upload speeds.
The new service is available right now, and at $64.99 per month it includes 1GB of online storage space; however, it is currently only available in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. Damn.
Verizon has been working on it since it announced the FiOS service in 2004 to expand the service from the original East and West coast offerings to nearly 2,000 communities spread over 16 states. Over 1 million people are subscribed to Verizon’s FiOS broadband service, and over half a million people use the TV service offered over the same FiOS lines.
Perhaps the most amazing part of this announcement is the insane upload speed. Even with national cable providers offering download speeds of 10mbps and beyond, upload speeds often stay capped at under 1mbps.
Sharing your own data has always been the intent of the Internet, and with sharing large user-created media files like video clips and music, upload speeds are meaning more to the Average Joe. Even with download speeds of 10mbps, maxing out a 512kbps upload generally means download speeds suffer greatly too. Higher upload speeds mean more easily sharing your birthday video, or that great song you recorded in the basement with your mates.
It also means that P2P and torrent users can share data as quickly as they can obtain it, which could be one of the prods that legal filesharing methods, such as the service the BBC has employed. With speeds greatly exceeding the competition, the only question left of Verizon is how quickly they can get fiber installed in the rest of the US.
Are you one of the few that is actually lucky enough to get Verizon FIOS, or are you in the same boat as me - wishing you had higher internet speeds? Share your thoughts over in the forums.
The new service is available right now, and at $64.99 per month it includes 1GB of online storage space; however, it is currently only available in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. Damn.
Verizon has been working on it since it announced the FiOS service in 2004 to expand the service from the original East and West coast offerings to nearly 2,000 communities spread over 16 states. Over 1 million people are subscribed to Verizon’s FiOS broadband service, and over half a million people use the TV service offered over the same FiOS lines.
Perhaps the most amazing part of this announcement is the insane upload speed. Even with national cable providers offering download speeds of 10mbps and beyond, upload speeds often stay capped at under 1mbps.
Sharing your own data has always been the intent of the Internet, and with sharing large user-created media files like video clips and music, upload speeds are meaning more to the Average Joe. Even with download speeds of 10mbps, maxing out a 512kbps upload generally means download speeds suffer greatly too. Higher upload speeds mean more easily sharing your birthday video, or that great song you recorded in the basement with your mates.
It also means that P2P and torrent users can share data as quickly as they can obtain it, which could be one of the prods that legal filesharing methods, such as the service the BBC has employed. With speeds greatly exceeding the competition, the only question left of Verizon is how quickly they can get fiber installed in the rest of the US.
Are you one of the few that is actually lucky enough to get Verizon FIOS, or are you in the same boat as me - wishing you had higher internet speeds? Share your thoughts over in the forums.
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