FiOS: Sort of Fast 20Mbps Symmetric

Verizon is starting to sell sort of fast symmetrical access, that is, 20Mbps in both directions. The price is $64.99/month, which is only about twice what you pay in Japan for more than twice the bandwidth. Also only in New Jersey, Connecticut, and New York.

In an apparent reference to the ongoing Comcast stifling or perhaps even to Verizon's own admission of deceptive marketing of "unlimited" wireless telephone access:

Many FTTH providers also cap their symmetrical service, and whether the 20/20 tier would be capped was the first question fired at Verizon on the conference call.

"We don't impose caps upon our subscribers," insisted Susan Retta, Vice President of broadband solutions for Verizon. "We expect customers who order this 20/20 service will want to use it frequently, and we intend to give them the bandwidth that they ordered and they expect."

— Verizon Unveils Symmetrical 20Mbps FiOS, So far only in NY, NJ and CT... by Karl, BroadbandReports.com, 02:34PM Tuesday Oct 23 2007

Well, the bandwidth people expect in Japan is 50 to 100 Mbps, and only 30Mbps and above is considered actually fast, as in ultra-highspeed broadband. Here in the U.S., where the media don't report on other countries much, perhaps expectations are lower.

Interesting admission here:

Paul Tassinari, Verizon VP of National Engineering, insists the new tier highlights the "future proof" nature of the FiOS network, given that very little was done on the networking end to accommodate the faster upstream speeds. "We've heard our customers," he says. "They want to receive data as fast as they send it."

What happened to all the claims by the telcos that they had to do massive engineering to get faster, and that would cost a lot, so they couldn't have competition?

Verizon is planning faster speeds. The graphic with the article shows a 50Mbps down 5Mbps up High-Speed Tier. Hm, only one of the four tiers shown is symmetric. However:

Tassinari also touched on the company's planned GPON upgrades, which could potentially allow Verizon to offer speeds up to 400Mbps. We know the company is currently testing a 100Mbps tier among Verizon employees, but Tassinari says the GPON upgrades will start hitting customers before the year's end. "We're going to quadruple our downstream speeds and increase our upstream by over eight times," he says.

Well, that would be good; at 100Mbps they'd be up to local provision what's been widely available in Japan since 2003. Will they also increase their prices by a similar amount, as they have done with this 20-20 offering?

OK, who else? We hear from the chairs of the FCC and the FTC that the U.S. has a competitive broadband market. Where are the 100Mbps or even 20Mbps offerings from Comcast, AT&T, Time Warner Qwest, and all the others? Oh, well, there aren't many others, but how about from those ones?

-jsq