A few words about.....FIOS (1 Viewer)

[Ronald Epstein]

Fios is something that everybody who
enjoys high-speed Internet in their homes should
be looking out for.

For over the the past year, Verizon has begun
stringing high-speed fiber-optic connections
directly to the home looking to replace cable
or high-speed DSL connections over a phone line.

DSL typically offers a download speed of
256k - 3M for 19.99-49.99 per month. Cable
typically offers a download speed of 1.5M - 6M
for 39.99-59.99 per month.

Fios significantly ups the ante by offering
5-Mbit downloads/2-Mbit uploads for just $39.95 a
month, or $34.95 a month as part of an existing
Verizon plan. The mid-tier upgrade offers a
whopping 15-Mbits/s down and 2-Mbits/s upstream
for just $49.95 a month, or $44.95 a month with
an existing Verizon plan.

To cut to the chase here and give this information
to you in its most simplistic terms....

Cable Internet was costing me $60 per month for
a 5MB connection. Fios gives me 3 times that
speed at $45 per month.

I personally became aware of Fios well
over a year ago when Verizon began introducing it
in California, Texas and Florida. I knew this
fiber-optic technology was something that was
going to shake up the cable industry.

After all, nobody likes the cable companies.
(a little more on that in a second...)

Imagine my excitement when three months ago,
Verizon began stringing fiber optic cable in my
neighborhood. It's a welcoming event that can't
be ignored. There were trucks everywhere, some
closing down portions of road as huge rolls of
cable were unloaded onto poles.

As soon as Verizon had completed their work,
I signed up to be amongst the first in my
neighborhood to have the service installed.
I called the company on a Friday and was
promised an install within 5 days.

The installer who showed up was very polite
and knowledgeable. He hands me a welcome kit,
checks my operating system (XP is a must!)
and goes through a lengthy explanation of the
install process which will take 4 hours to do.

Having Fios installed in the home is
no small matter. Cable has to be strung into
home. A new box must be erected on the side
of the house. Inside, a medium-sized box is
mounted on the wall. This houses a backup
battery about the size of what is used on
boats. Next to it sits a smaller sized power
module. Both of these boxes must sit within
50' of the computer.

I ordered a D-Link 802.11g wireless router
with my setup since I have a laptop I use
throughout the house. Verizon charged me
an extra $60 for the router. I *think* they
supply a basic wired router at no charge with
the installation.

Before Fios was activated, I checked my cable
Internet speed and it averaged just at 5MBPS.
After Fios, I was getting a connection speed
of 15MBPS locally. The speed, however, was not
consistent. A speed test cross country (NJ to
Seattle) garnered much slower results at only
5MB (cable speed). That is scary!

It's only natural to expect that speed greatly
pends on the website you are visiting. Power
websites like YAHOO instantly popped into place.
However, there was still a lag when visiting
HOME THEATER FORUM, a site we know to be slower
than others.

Also, older computers may not benefit from
the boost in speed. My secondary computer,
now 4 years old, did not come close to
producing speeds of my brand-new computer.
I expect that processing speed has a lot to
do with how fast pages will load. Faster
Internet is not going to improve the speed
of a slower computer.

Though cable was always fast, I could see
improved speed. Pages just popped up with
absolutely no hesitation. Downloads that took
12 minutes now were reduced to just under 5.

The Fios installer informed me that
unlike cable, the system will not slow down
as more people in the neighborhood log on.
Each home connection has a direct pipeline
to the central office.

Verizon offers up to 9 email accounts which
is more than any one person needs. Configuring
email for email programs such as Outlook or
Eudora is not difficult, but there is an
extra step where you have to make sure that your
email program authenticates INCOMING and OUTGOING
mail with your login name and password.

If you want to grab your email while on the road
from their webpage, be prepared to be disappointed.
I found their web interface to be very clunky and
not very intuitive. I am still looking for a better
webside interface that lets me combine all my
email accounts from different servers on one site.
The Verizon email is capable of doing this, but I
still have not been able to get it to work, and
I greatly dislike the interface I am forced to work
with. Comcast was far better in this regard.

Overall, I think Fios is the best thing
to come around since the cable companies entered
the broadband market. I am suddenly finding
myself back in the '90s looking at a revolutionary
new product that will enhance my Internet experience.

In Conclusion

There is a noticeably improved difference in
speed when in the 15MB Fios over cable
broadband. Realize, however, speed is not always
consitent as everything pends on the actual speed
of the site you are visiting, though page loads
on slower sites are shortened.

The biggest improvements will be seen in downloads
and uploads. I see a HUGE increase in speed
working within an FTP environment.

Fios is the real deal and I hope
that Verizon continues their aggressive strategy
to get as many people hooked up to the network as
possible.

 

[Kevin T]

sounds promising. since i live in mobile, alabama, maybe i'll be able to jump on board around 2010.

kevin t

 

[_alex_]

I was just as excited when I first got my FIOS a couple of months ago.
What gets me just as excited is the FIOS TV that is supposed to come out soon. It is going to have 20 HD channels, 60 music channels and 100 other cable channels.
It is supposed to start in my area (central florida) in early spring.
It cost $40 a month plus $10 a month for a HD box or$13 a month for the HD box plus DVR. ( I think the standard box was $4 a month)

 

[Sami Kallio]

I have both FIOS internet (for about a year now) and FIOS TV (for a few months) and they both are great services. Only minus is that the IP address is dynamic (I don't know if you can request a static address). Great PQ on FIOS TV over satellite, and most of all 2mbits UPLOAD on my web connection!

No mention of disallowing servers on the service agreement but they do block port 80 so I had to reroute to different port. Large files give out ~240KB/s download speeds from work.

If you haven't seen this one, it's a must: http://skylinegtr.go.dyndns.org/sami...i_Vatanen.mpeg

 

[Tekara]

waiting for fios here, I live about 400ft from the main link up (can see it out my kitchen window. So I know the service would truely kick some butt!!!

 

[Kimmo Jaskari]

Actually, while that doesn't exactly sound bad, it sounds pretty darn lame.

The fiber should be able to carry amounts like 1000 mbits in both directions. That's the whole point of having optical fiber - massive bandwidth.

Of course, no company could offer that kind of bandwidth for humane amounts of money since bandwidth from the company elsewhere costs a lot, but 15 mbits is just not enough, and 2 mbits up is an insult. It should at least be a symmetrical 15 mbits both ways - shouldn't be any technical hurdles for having the same speed, if it is built on fiber optics.

I'm on a rock-solid ADSL2+ line myself as I type this, and my downlink is currently 21.9 mbits. Uplink is limited to 1.3 mbits for technical reasons though which is a bit annoying but even so.

If they're going to sell you fiber links, they should give you some real speeds too, not just 15 mbits. IMHO, of course.

 

[ChristopherDAC]

Of course, the capacity of the fiber itself is not the primary factor in determining connexion speed. Think for a moment, and you'll see that it is the upstream network which sets the cap: if the fiber to your house has the same data capacity as the trunk line, you can only get a speed equivalent to the quotient of the trunk line capacity by the number of subscribers, multiplied by the inverse of the duty factor [portion of the time you are actually using full-speed download capacity] -- and it may fall below that during peak usage. Upload/download asymmetry is likewise mostly a function of the switching equipment.
As "backbone" networks and routing systems are upgraded, which is a capital-intensive process, those datarates will creep upward. Finland, to be blunt, has a rather different situation with regard to telecommunications infrastructure and public-utilities organisation than the United States, so the realms of the "possible, practical, and likely" are different in the two countries.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Kimmo,

Verizon does offer 30mbps of download speed for
$179 a month. That's far too much money for a home
user, but probably perfect for a business.

This is still new technology for the consumer
market. The installer told me that he expects
more competitive packages and speed increases as
the cable companies try to catch up.

It has been rumored that the cable companies may
attempt to go head-to-head with Fios by offering
MORE bandwidth and increased speeds. Thing is, can
cable speeds actually go as high as fiber optics?

 

[SethH]

Others have made some good points. Also, Verizon does not want lots of people running web servers on their consumer lines. They want people to have to purhcase business services to run high-volume web servers. If they were offering 15mbps upload lots more people would want to run web servers on them.

 

[Kimmo Jaskari]

No, fiber optics are pretty much the holy grail of connectivity at the moment. DSL and cable are stopgap methods of getting decent data rates using the older equipment already in place.

You can pump truly stupendous amounts of data through fiber. For experimental techniques, I've seen numbers like a terabit mentioned (though nothing like that exists to date as far as I know.)

Getting a real fiber hookup at home should take care of data needs for the foreseeable future. All one needs to do is turn on more speed later on.

As for my message above... of course you're right, Cristopher. Getting the fast hookup at home doesn't mean the entire network could handle thousands of homes with unfettered access.

I think I was a bit more grouchy than usual when I wrote my post. It was valid but perhaps a bit overly negative and I didn't pause to consider market realities as much as I probably should have.

People who can get a fiber hookup definitely should go for it. Future upgrades should be accomplished fairly easily that way too.

 

[Craig S]

All this talk about 15 mbits not being enough makes me laugh. You're spoiled. Many of us are still suffering with dial-up. F***in' Verizon STILL hasn't enabled DSL for my neighborhood (and yes, I'm well within the maximum distance from the CO) almost a year after it was first promised.

 

[Tekara]

Internet is becomming an integral part of society. I even make use of it on my cell phone, which when EVDO hits my area will be great since it'll have low-end broadband speeds.