Verizon's Fios Service Moves U.S. Internet Beyond a Snail's Pace

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Marc <marcaniballi () hotmail com>
Date: September 19, 2005 10:47:28 AM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Subject: RE: [IP] Verizon's Fios Service Moves U.S. Internet Beyond a  
Snail's Pace


Hi Dave;

Just by way of comparison;

Here in France only the national telco still offers DSL with  
different speed
options - all the competitors offer only 1 speed, the fastest  
possible. As
of this week, in most major population areas you get 25 MB/s DSL for  
$18.00
per month (roughly converted from EUR). For the same price and  
depending on
where you are, your connection speed will be somewhat less than that,  
with
the slowest being in the 5 MB/s range. Also, many of these providers  
are now
introducing free national calling and VOIP-level pricing for  
international
calls over the same line. Now, if only they could do this with  
European gas
prices!

Marc

-----Original Message-----
From: David Farber [mailto:dave () farber net]
Sent: Monday, September 19, 2005 7:11 AM
To: Ip Ip
Subject: [IP] Verizon's Fios Service Moves U.S. Internet Beyond a  
Snail's
Pace


Verizon's Fios Service Moves U.S. Internet Beyond a Snail's Pace

By WALTER S. MOSSBERG
September 15, 2005

High-speed Internet connections have finally gone mainstream in the
U.S. But there's a problem: What passes for high speed in this
country is pathetically slow compared with Internet service in some
other countries.

For instance, Verizon's entry-level DSL service, at 768 kilobits per
second for downloads and 128 kilobits per second for uploads, is
considered high-speed here. But in Japan and Korea, families can buy
moderately priced Internet service measured in the tens of megabits
per second. They get a race car, while Americans are stuck with a
bicycle.

A megabit per second (mbps) connection moves about 1,000 times as
much data every second as a kilobit per second (kbps) connection. A
service running at 10 megabits per second is more than 13 times as
fast as Verizon's base DSL service. All such services have two modes:
downstream, for downloading Web pages, email and files; and upstream,
for uploading email or files. Generally, Internet providers offer
much faster downstream speeds than upstream speeds.

Even the faster common U.S. broadband offerings, like Comcast's
$42.95 a month basic cable-modem service, which delivers 6 mbps
downstream and 384 kbps upstream, are ridiculously slow compared with
the Asian offerings.

But now, Verizon is offering Americans in certain parts of the
country a new, much faster Internet service for only a little more
than Comcast charges for its basic service. This new product, called
Fios, offers 15 mbps downstream and 2 mbps upstream for $50 a month,
or $45 a month if you use Verizon for your telephone service.

There are also two other Fios plans: 5 mbps downstream and 2 mbps
upstream for $40 a month; and 30 mbps downstream and 5 mbps upstream
for $200 a month. Both also are discounted if you also use Verizon
phone service.

I had Fios installed in my house in July, and I've been comparing it
with Comcast's basic cable-modem service. I have been pleased with
Fios's speed and reliability, which are true to Verizon's claims. On
some tasks, it is markedly faster than Comcast. And on my laptops
connected via a Wi-Fi wireless network, which tends to degrade
Internet speeds, the speed increase has been especially noticeable.

..

http://ptech.wsj.com/archive/ptech-20050915.html




-------------------------------------
You are subscribed as marcaniballi () hotmail com
To manage your subscription, go to
  http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip

Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting- 
people/


-------------------------------------
You are subscribed as lists-ip () insecure org
To manage your subscription, go to
 http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip

Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/