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The Internet

Verizon Announces FTTP Prices 384

Posted by simoniker from the extra-t-for-your-money dept.
ffejie writes "C|NET News.com is reporting that Verizon has announced its pricing on Fiber-to-the-Premises - it 'will cost $35 a month if purchased along with Verizon's local and long-distance telephone service', and more if bought on its own. The high speed internet service, dubbed Verizon Fios, brings speeds up to 30 Mbps to the home. FTTP could lead to a sweeping change, especially in the television industry. According to News.com: 'Verizon is considered the furthest along with its fiber plans. It reiterated on Monday its goal of reaching 1 million homes and offices by the end of the year...' It looks as if FTTP is coming to the masses."
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Verizon Announces FTTP Prices More

Verizon Announces FTTP Prices

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  • Can the backbones handle it? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by digitalvengeance ( 722523 ) * on Monday July 19, 2004 @04:33PM (#9740967)
    From the article:

    A 2mbps to 5mbps Fios connection will cost $35 a month if purchased along with Verizon's local and long-distance telephone service. The service will cost $40 if purchased alone. A connection of up to 15mbps is available for $45 a month if purchased as part of the same telephone service bundle, or $50 alone. The company did not reveal pricing for the 30mbps plans.

    That is subsantially less than the $210 I currently pay for my 3Mbps/1Mbps small business connection. I wonder how many of these will roll out as people like me jump to them before the major internet infrastructure starts to suffer? I mean, think of it: end point capacity could literally be upgraded by a factor of 10 in some areas. Will the backbones and their major tributaries be able to handle it?

    Either way, I am looking forward to it.

    Josh.
    • Very good point. Let's hope that their infrastructure is robust enough to handle the swarms of consumers and businesses who are going to sign up for this. It would be a shame for this venture to fail because they didn't think things through. Best of luck to them though, I for one will sign up!

      • Re:Can the backbones handle it? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Martin Blank ( 154261 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @05:09PM (#9741356) Homepage Journal
        What about all the dark fiber that was laid down in the late 90's in anticipation of the big boom? Was that all a myth, or is it just waiting to be used by the creditors that took possession after the crash?

        • Re:Can the backbones handle it? (Score:5, Interesting)

          by dmayle ( 200765 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @06:26PM (#9742227) Homepage Journal

          Um... Yeah... Dark Fiber... That's a bunch of fiber optic lines running along railroads (mostly), that doesn't have equipment on either end. The backbone isn't the problem. If one of the major provider's is low on bandwidth, they can just upgrade the current equipment they've got. (Fiber has so much available capacity, that when you want to upgrade, you normally just replace the sender/receiver, and the repeaters, and you suddenly have more available.) It's cheaper to upgrade the equipment than to lay new lines/

          As to the dark lines in place? Backbone isn't the problem. It's the fact that no one can afford more than a single twisted pair to the office/home since laying fiber is so expensive. I've got a friend who works at an office where the building is lit up (which means fiber is run to the building and in use), and each company has 100Mbit ethernet to the fiber equipment, and a guarantee that the company has at least that much bandwidth (per customer) to all of it's peering points.

          That's the power available with fiber. Once everyone's got that kind of connection, we'll see a sudden leap, from 256Kbps or 1Mbit up to 15, 30, 50, 100. Look at how far we've stretched copper already, and we're at the extreme end of what it can do. We're only at the beginning of fiber, and once you get it to your home, the service levels will increase much faster than lines do today.

          Kinda makes me want to move back to the U.S... (though not if I have to live in Texas... ;)

    • Re:Can the backbones handle it? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by G27 Radio ( 78394 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @04:39PM (#9741032)
      People bring this up everytime some company announces a large-scale rollout of high-speed like this. My guess is the same thing will happen this time. Their customers will have 30Mbps to the home, but will only see that kind of speed on things cached close by, and get the same speed as the rest of us broadband users on everything else. That is, until the backbones are upgraded. I don't think we'll see the backbones "suffer" though.

      • Re:Can the backbones handle it? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by peragrin ( 659227 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @04:46PM (#9741119)
        That's like saying the entire internet runs at 56k just cause that's the speed the majority of us connect at.

        No If you have a 30Mbps net connection you will rarely use it to it's full strength for some time. Possibly if you are doing Video communications will you use it up. It's more than enough for a small business website. It's more than enough current tasks.

        As such ISP's will have time to upgrade the backbones to Internet II when it is needed.

        In the future though I see a single communication line coming into your home. Off of abox installed in your house will come TV, Internet, and video Phone. Possibly using interchanged monitors.

        • Re:Can the backbones handle it? (Score:4, Informative)

          by tekiegreg ( 674773 ) * <tekieg1-slashdot@yahoo.com> on Monday July 19, 2004 @04:49PM (#9741153) Homepage Journal
          Ummmm from my understanding the Internet II project is only a university funded gig...you'll never surf the Internet II unless you are involved with a major university in some way...
          • My college is quite small (~1000 students) and still had Internet II. We dropped it for another connection a few months ago, though... Nobody actually used the InetII features (though had I known we had it, I might have).

        • Thats not the future, thats the present. (Score:4, Informative)

          by tgd ( 2822 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @05:03PM (#9741303)
          My parents have had that in their development in Scottsdale, AZ, since the day the development opened.

          And it sucks. Badly. Its a fiberoptic line running into their house. Phone, TV and internet come off it.

          There's no option for any service other than that, nothing else was installed there. The problem is the telco they use is bankrupt, and hasn't upgraded anything in five years, so they've got horrid picture quality on TV since its all poorly compressed, comparably low bitrate digital, the internet is spotty, and they have the honor of paying for it all even if they choose to get satellite.

        • Re:Can the backbones handle it? (Score:5, Insightful)

          by cmacb ( 547347 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @05:17PM (#9741433) Homepage Journal
          "In the future though I see a single communication line coming into your home. Off of abox installed in your house will come TV, Internet, and video Phone. Possibly using interchanged monitors."

          Right!

          And the game to watch is which of your existing services falls by the wayside. The DSL/Cable battle is just the first round. First company to put fiber in my house wins!

          Next phase will be to eliminate current ridiculous bandwidth restrictions on servers because it will be more trouble to measure than the accounting costs are worth. Everyone can finally host their own unrestricted internet server. A lot of the smaller hosting companies will be put out of our misery by this and the only companies remaining will be those that need a room full of equipment to handle the demands of the large, popular domains, Google, MS, Yahoo and the like.

          Net-centric computing will have finally arrived, and it will no longer be worth saving video, music, or even your own spreadsheet and text files on your local hard drive as they can be instantly downloaded from a server somewhere that is getting backed up regularly. In other words, current hosting companies will have the chance to transition from points of presence to storage, archiving, and application server facilities.

          This will all demand an end to the nonsense of operating systems which can be easily hacked into. Microsoft will replace the Windows underpinnings transparently with something that is standards based (probably BSD variant), but Linux will continue to thrive for those who want to have complete control over what they do with their own hardware.

          As the rest of the world tries to copy the connectivity nirvana achieved here in the US the world will enter a new era of peace and prosperity, except that all help-desk call centers the world over will still transfer to someplace in India...

          And then I woke up.

          • Re:Can the backbones handle it? (Score:4, Funny)

            by Ian Wolf ( 171633 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @06:45PM (#9742434) Homepage
            I swear I heard trumpets, harps, and the Angels singing. I got all glassy eyed and was begining to think the Messiah had returned and cmacb was his name.

            And then I woke up.

            Not since my sister uttered the words, "There is no Santa Claus" had five words crushed my hopes and dreams so utterly.
          • Net-centric computing will have finally arrived, and it will no longer be worth saving video, music, or even your own spreadsheet and text files on your local hard drive as they can be instantly downloaded from a server somewhere that is getting backed up regularly. In other words, current hosting companies will have the chance to transition from points of presence to storage, archiving, and application server facilities.

            This will all demand an end to the nonsense of operating systems which can be easily h
        • At least Comcast does. Evil as some people think they are, you can get a pretty good deal on their services in my area. One line into the house, to a box at the demarc which gives cable TV, broadband internet, and phone jacks. It works great in my house. YMMV of course.
        • What he (the parent poster above yours) was trying to say is what I've seen a million times already. Basically, there's a critical mass speed that the majority of 'big sites' have preset. I was on an unlimited wireless connection before, and could pull down well over 10MB/sec at any given time, with unlimited throughput for uploading as well.

          The problem I saw time and time again was that nobody could feed me enough bandwidth to max out my connection. I never knew what top speed it was capable of because

    • Re:Can the backbones handle it? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Vellmont ( 569020 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @04:45PM (#9741099) Homepage
      I think the key is that useage of the added capacity will grow more slowly. Sure some people will have p2p apps that soak up a lot of bandwidth, but the majority of people won't use up all that capacity right away. It'll take time for people to find uses for all the extra capacity. So at least in theory the growth of the backbones can happen more slowly.
      • Yeah, because, you know, all those universities don't have any problems with students finding ways to use all of their bandwidth. Especially on a private computer, people will find a way. P2P apps are agressive enough to do it, and the big fat pipe will make running those nonstop all the more appealing. Unless they start out with budgets for 60-70% usage/bandwidth sold they are going to have problems.
      • I'm sure that no viruses will cause problems with that kind of bandwith to spew out copies of themselves.

    • Not any time soon... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by SuperBanana ( 662181 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @04:59PM (#9741255)
      Either way, I am looking forward to it.

      Don't get too excited. It's only coming to one town in Texas, then California, then Florida- and "2005" was in there somewhere- and rarely do those dates, especially when given that vaguely- mean anything. It most likely won't hit most major population centers until several years later, if at all; fiber gear is even more expensive than DSL gear, and with the US's low population density, even less likely to be profitable.

      This is what I like to call a Trophy Rollout. DSL was the same way for me; I live about 25 minutes west of Boston, next to one of the richest communities in the state(thanks to all the execs, doctors, lawyers etc from Boston living there), but because AT&T Cable is in town, Verizon didn't want to compete against them, or they had a gentleman's agreement- but our CO has been wired for at least 4 years for DSL. We also don't have a choice in cable companies- it's cable, or satellite.

      Within the last year or two, Verizon is finally offering service- but ONE plan, and no other ISPs save Verizon are offering service. 1.2Mbps/128kBit. Yes, 128kBit upload. Ie, useless for "sharing photos" or "sending files to work" etc. All this costs MORE than 3Mbit/384kBit offered by AT&T, which Verizon makes up for by marketing as "a line you don't share with all your neighbors." Sorry, but AT&T actually has plenty of capacity now, and I routinely get things like OS X software updates -at- 3Mbit/sec, on the dot(a friend and I theorize they set the cap a teensy bit over 3Mbit to account for protocol overhead). Yay, wonderful- except AT&T is draconian with their acceptable use policy, and can't keep their mail servers up worth a damn.

      If I lived ONE town over, Framingham, for example- I could have my choice among about 5 different major providers/subproviders, including Speakeasy, Covad, Megapath, and a couple of Worcester based ISPs..and about 10 different residential and business rates.

      How sad is it that I live right next door to the technology center of the east, but I have next to no choice in high speed internet access?

      • It's coming to Keller TX . As we speak they are pushing conduit down my street.
      • What photos are you sharing (or perhaps i should ask in what quantity) that 128Kbit up isnt fast enough?
      • On Friday morning, I was leaving my house, headed to work. I noticed that some contractors were digging up the phone pedestal on my lawn next to the sidewalk. I stopped to interrogate them, being a good paranoid Slashdotter.

        They said they were prepping the street for Verizon to come in and lay fiber. Now I live in North Reading, and this guy claimed that mine is the first town in the state to be getting Fiber to the home. He claimed that they would be offering service in my area before the end of the y

      • Re:Not any time soon... (Score:3, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        It's only coming to one town in Texas, then California, then Florida

        YEAAAAAAAAAAARGH!

    • Re:Can the backbones handle it? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by homer_ca ( 144738 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @05:01PM (#9741280)
      "$210 I currently pay for my 3Mbps/1Mbps small business connection"

      Are there any restrictions on your small business service like running servers or reselling service? Residential broadband service has those restrictions plus upstream bandwidth is shared with other customers. You know it's shared and oversubscribed because they reserve the right to disconnect bandwidth hogs. That $210 is a third the price of a T1. With that you usually get a block of 15 IPs and no restrictions on servers, reselling service, or monthly usage caps.
      • It has very few restrictions. No bandwidth caps, no prohibition on servers or the like, just the usual anti-spam policies (if I spam, they reserve the right to block port 25) etc.

        All in all, I think its worth the cost, but I might feel differently if it were coming out of my paycheck.

        Josh.

    • Re:Can the backbones handle it? (Score:4, Funny)

      by secret agent ( 798361 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @05:29PM (#9741537)
      FIOS spelled backwards is SOIF, which in french means THIRST. And we know that when the french are thirsty they drink EVIAN, which spelled backwards is NAIVE, which is what you are if you think FIOS will be coming to your home anytime soon, leaving you THIRSTY for bandwidth. .,.By the way FIOS is portuguese for WIRES, which is the wrong name for a fiber network.

  • Bandwidth / byte charges (Score:5, Interesting)

    by suckfish ( 129773 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @04:33PM (#9740971)
    What terms & conditions?

    Is this flat rate, or are there extra costs?

    Are you allowed to run servers at home?
    • I would imagine the restrictions would be similar to typical cable and DSL offerings. Otherwise it would start to cut into their higher-priced business offerings. Also, wouldn't allowing everyone to run their own server eventually start to chip away at backbone capacity (which, admittedly, I have little sense of)?
    • These would be the same questions I would want to see answered. I have 1.5mb/384kb for $60 a month from speakeasy, but as long as what I do isn't illegal they let me do whatever, including selling my service via wifi to my neighbors.

    • Re:Bandwidth / byte charges (Score:5, Insightful)

      by the_bahua ( 411625 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @04:47PM (#9741135) Homepage Journal
      Yeah, I am always skeptical when I see deals like this. On the surface, it looks wonderful, except that I live in SBC territory. What I wonder is what kind of contracts there will be. I wonder if the service will require some kind of privacy outrage. I wonder if the service will have any kind of SLA, considering they seem to be aiming this at business and home office.

      I will watch this very closely, as I would love these kind of numbers, but I unfortunately don't think it'll be without more cost than the purported amount.

  • 30mbps down.... (Score:3, Funny)

    by redhat421 ( 620779 ) * on Monday July 19, 2004 @04:34PM (#9740975)
    ....and a whole 128k up!! :)

    • Re:30mbps down.... (Score:5, Informative)

      by ffejie ( 779512 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @05:00PM (#9741274)
      Actually, it's 2 Mbps up for the 15 Mbps and 5 Mbps up for the 30 Mbps. According to this article. [x-changemag.com]

  • Business class... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by NeoSkandranon ( 515696 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @04:34PM (#9740986)
    I wonder how badly they'll rape businesses for the same class of service? ( thought triggered by another poster's mention of 210$ for business DSL)

    • Re:Business class... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Ath ( 643782 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @04:39PM (#9741037)
      They may "rape" one part of their business (i.e. the $210/mo subscriber) but if they get an additional 10 people who were not going to sign up because of the pricing, then they are way ahead. Excess bandwidth generates $0.
      • In the same vein, 20 small businesses might opt for DSL instead of FTTP if business class DSL is cheaper; performance notwithstanding they may simply not be able to afford that kind of price gouging.

  • Not $35 for 30mbps (Score:5, Informative)

    by AsnFkr ( 545033 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @04:34PM (#9740987) Homepage Journal
    quoth the artical:

    A 2mbps to 5mbps Fios connection will cost $35 a month if purchased along with Verizon's local and long-distance telephone service. The service will cost $40 if purchased alone. A connection of up to 15mbps is available for $45 a month if purchased as part of the same telephone service bundle, or $50 alone. The company did not reveal pricing for the 30mbps plans. ...misleading headlines. *sigh*

  • Humbug (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Jahf ( 21968 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @04:35PM (#9740991) Journal
    I can't get *DSL capabilities from Qwest or Cable modems where I live ... and Verizon isn't anywhere near my area ... I would guess that for most people FTTP is WAY far out in the future, if it happens at all.

    I'd definitely pay for it ... hell I'd double that ... but I don't presume to see it.

  • "FTT"P sounds like... (Score:4, Funny)

    by JessLeah ( 625838 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @04:36PM (#9741004)
    ...the bastard child of FTP and HTTP.

  • Monthly Bandwidth Limit (Score:5, Interesting)

    by umrgregg ( 192838 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @04:36PM (#9741006) Homepage
    Does Verizon throttle your connection if you use a certain ammount of bandwidth a month? I ask because I can see subscribers hitting any limits fairly quickly with 15Mbit/s. pr0n servers beware.

  • A note to everyone: (Score:5, Insightful)

    by l33t-gu3lph1t3 ( 567059 ) <arch_angel16.hotmail@com> on Monday July 19, 2004 @04:38PM (#9741022) Homepage
    This FTTP setup sounds great - but realise they're talking about fiber to the *HOME*. You want business usage? Static IP? Be prepared to pay out the @$$ for it just like with any other business ISP.

  • going to smoke cable (Score:5, Interesting)

    by havaloc ( 50551 ) * on Monday July 19, 2004 @04:39PM (#9741040) Homepage
    Let's face it, cable companies can offer one thing that the phone companies can't, and that's television. If this FTTP thing works out, things are going to be great. More choices is always a good thing. If they build their own fiber, they won't have to share, which I think is one of the things that are holding things back. I realize that regulation got us into this mess, but it's time that the phone companies grow up and do something about it, instead of whining about it.

  • How much for a static IP? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by sonofagunn ( 659927 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @04:40PM (#9741044)
    As a Tampa-area resident I am stoked. I just hope they can offer static IPs for a price competitive with RoadRunner's cable-modem static IP ($60).

  • Too Bad Verizon is Evil (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anomalous Canard ( 137695 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @04:40PM (#9741047)
    First, I don't like this bundling of services. I want lockin in one area to constrain my choice.

    Verizon already restricts people using Verison DSL. SMTP traffic is filtered unless it goes through their server and if it does go through their server, you can only use a verison.net email address.

    Plus Verizon is the local telephone monopoly in this area, I don't want to voluntarially give additionnal business to any monopoly. They've sucessfully challanged the law which requires them to share their wires with competitors.

    So, while FTTH is an excellent idea, bundling it with a lot of services I don;t need isn't.

    We need a regulated monopoly to bring IP to the home and then allow companies to compete in providing services over that wire. The regulated monopoly *must not* be allowed to compete in ancillary services.

    • Re:Too Bad Verizon is Evil (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Mistah Blue ( 519779 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @05:00PM (#9741268)
      My personal opinion is that deregulating any sort of utility is bad. This includes the breakup of AT&T, electric deregulation, airline deregulation, etc. All of these companies price to the point where they are eating their young, so to speak. Are we really any better off? And before you go ranting about airline deregulation, my point of view is the weekly business traveler. I don't care about discount rates (although my company does to an extent) because all of my travel is to customer premises where I have to be there at a specific time (so I normally book full fare). I would rather have airelines that are financially healthy, and not cutting service to the bone.
      • So as long as your needs are being met, the rest of us can go fuck off?

        I would rather have airlines that have to compete in a marketplace, evolving their business models to the most efficient ones possible. That's what a free market is for.

        Airlines aren't de-regulated. You're not allowed to fly from Love Field on Southwest to a state not contiguous with Texas, because of a thirty year old law against healthy airline competition.

        I say if American Airlines is in such bad financial straits, let Southwest

      • long distance (Score:3, Interesting)

        by zogger ( 617870 )
        why break them up? Because when they were monopolies they got to be price gougers and slowed way down on the innovations and upgrades and just wallowed around in profit slop for years, and masses of people complained about it, and finally they got broken up. I remember paying at and t LD rates , sheesh o rama, you didn't talk long to grandma, tell ya whut... you didn't own your own phone either, you leased it from your telco, and paid it off over and over again for years. Electric deregulation, no idea, I n

    • Too Bad Verizon is Evil? You pay for the fiber! (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Saeed al-Sahaf ( 665390 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @05:05PM (#9741324) Homepage
      First, I don't like this bundling of services. I want lockin in one area to constrain my choice.

      Yes of course. This is obvious. But remember that Verizon is out there as a publicly traded company to make money. So while "lockin" may not be so hot for you if you like to shop a la carte, it is a necessary evil if you want to big for-profit company to pay for the infrastructure.

    • Re:Too Bad Verizon is Evil (Score:5, Informative)

      by athakur999 ( 44340 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @05:13PM (#9741397) Journal
      I have Verizon DSL in Dallas, and I have no such restriction on outgoing SMTP, so that seems to be a regional thing. I also use DHCP instead of PPPoE.

    • I'm in verizon country and I have MCI for local phone service instead. I also have DSL through MCI. Both have been excellent despite Verizon being responsible for the line.

    • Re:Too Bad Verizon is Evil (Score:4, Interesting)

      by renehollan ( 138013 ) <rhollan@@@clearwire...net> on Monday July 19, 2004 @05:24PM (#9741498) Homepage Journal
      Verizon already restricts people using Verison DSL. SMTP traffic is filtered unless it goes through their server and if it does go through their server, you can only use a verison.net email address.

      This is misleading. I have Verizon service (POTS and DSL) in Monroe, WA, and they don't touch my traffic and don't give a fig about what servers I run.

      See I have DSL service from Verizon, but they are not my ISP, so I don't have to put up with assanine ToS. I get my internet connectivity from blarg.net [blarg.net]. Verizon just provides the backhaul from the DSLAM to Blarg! And, to their credit, Blarg! doesn't use MTU-mangling PPPoE. Just one long virtual circuit private "electonic highway" onramp for me (well, a dedicated lane on that onramp, if you really want to push the analogy -- work with me here :-)). My "always on" connection is very much always on.

      Verizon sucks rotten eggs, as far as serivce is concerned (took 'em forever to acknowledge that, yes, I had an international long distance plan, and no, my calls to Canuckistan were not to be billed at $0.75/minute), but I'm stuck with them as a telco. So, I subscribe to what little I can. In this case, that means just the data pipe from me to my ISP.

      There is a bit of a downside, of course, and that is price. But, it is not unreasonable: instead of some $30 a month for neutered dynamic IP access, I pay them closer to $40 a month just for the pipe and another $35 a month or so to Blarg!. Static IP? No problem (well, it costs a bit extra, included in the above price). NATed hosts? No problem. Inbound SMTP? No problem (but don't relay please: the IP address is ours and we like to keep a clean anti-SPAM reputation). Inbound telnet? Hey, it's your security, do what you want. Sure. Inbound HTTP? It's your box you're Slashdotting, not ours.

      Now, of course, there are a few things I shouldn't do that'd hurt Blarg!, like run a busy site at the end of a DSL link, but those kinds of things would be bad to me too. Still, no one is going to cut me off for opening up port 80 for a day or two of private testing.

      So, yeah, sure, sell me a fatter cheaper pipe Verizon. If all you can do with a modest degree of competence is sell pipes, do that.

  • sounds good... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by aberant ( 631526 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @04:40PM (#9741050) Homepage Journal
    Having done tech support for ADSL i'm always hesitant about phone companies offering new technology. I wonder how long after someone gets it, that they realize all the hidden fees and other random charges making it much more then advertised. But then again, with all that dark fiber lying around allready, who knows? I'll still prolly sign up for it if i can to avoid that silly upstream cap on cable modems.. 8)

  • they could add p2p... (Score:5, Funny)

    by jpellino ( 202698 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @04:43PM (#9741075)
    so you could use p2p with ftp and http and call it "pffft"!
  • Why is it that Cable and Telcos always luanch these things in the middle of No place...

    Wouldn't make more sense to launch it in MA where nearly the entire Easteren half of the state is sreaming for this kind of thing... or in the Valley In CA...

    Tech savay places that could really take advanage of things like this...

    • Re:Why does stuff go to middle of Noplace first? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Fulcrum of Evil ( 560260 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @04:48PM (#9741140)

      Why is it that Cable and Telcos always luanch these things in the middle of No place...

      When the inevitable FUBARs happen, there are less pissed off people and less stuff to fix. Then when they've worked out the deployment bugs, they can try a larger market.

    • Just FYI, Keller is not in the middle of nowhere. It's a pretty nice suburb in the D/FW (Dallas/Fort Worth) metroplex. Based upon the average income of the area, I'd say it's a pretty good idea to try it there.

      There's a lot of tech types who live out there (who work in Dallas, etc.), so they probably figured that makes it a nice place to start as well due to demand.
    • Noplace?

      Tampa bay has very high population density (Pinellas county being one of the most densly populated areas in the country). A small geographic rollout will be able to service a very large population of people.

      I am sure that Tampa has lower regulatory overhead than other large population centers like New York, etc.

      We were one of the first areas to get cable modems as well (Road runner) for this reason.

    • Re:Why does stuff go to middle of Noplace first? (Score:5, Informative)

      by ffejie ( 779512 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @05:11PM (#9741371)
      Verizon had to roll this out in "nowhere" Keller TX because of regulation laws. They wanted their first roll out to be out of their landline footprint so they wouldn't get tangled up with the FCC too much. However, Hopkinton MA (eastern MA - home of EMC [emc.com]) is one of the top 10 towns on the list (also, in VZ Footprint), and so is most of So Cal. Expect it in the 150 biggest markets in 8~12 months, or so says the buzz.
  • With fiber will there still be a lower Upstream speed like Cable/DSL? (And why is that exactly)
  • I live in a town of 6200 (Madison, SD) and highly doubt such a service would be available anywhere near me... let alone in the state.

    Now the choice... the peace and quiet of small town life... or an uber fast internet connection... I think I'll stick with the small town life, stray bullets [zwire.com] and not too bright criminals [brendangrant.com]

  • FTTP (Score:2, Funny)

    by vxvxvxvx ( 745287 )
    2x the transport of FTP
  • For all the press Washington and the Seattle area get for being a center of technology, we never get any of the cool technologies. Damn you, California!

  • Bandwidth is unnecessary for 1 way connections (Score:3, Interesting)

    by vijayiyer ( 728590 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @04:49PM (#9741154)
    I'm sure that they'll have clauses that it's for entertainment only and give you a dynamic IP with most ports blocked. What's the use of that kind of bandwidth then? I'd rather get 1.5 mbps from a place like Speakeasy which allows me to get work done. (Note: Not a plug, not even a happy customer - more of a customer-to-be)

  • Fine Print.. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by asdfasdfasdfasdf ( 211581 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @04:51PM (#9741172)
    It's all well and good until you read
    A 2mbps to 5mbps Fios connection will cost $35
    towards the end of the article. It's not exactly $1 per mbps.

    Still, exciting.. More competition is good. Lets hope the upstream capabilites are very good as well.

  • Pricing (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Mistah Blue ( 519779 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @04:54PM (#9741213)
    I'd be curious what the uplink speed is. I pay about $50/month for Comcast cable. This price includes all taxes and a fee for a separate bill (from my cable) so I can expense it. My speed is 3Mbps/256Kbps. So, it is definitely competitve if it is an async type connection, and very competitive if it a sync type connection.
  • The idiots at Verizon can't even get my DSL working right, and now they're going to give me fiber? This is just ludicrous.
  • It's all well and good that Verizon is offering Yet Another last-mile solution, but for us insensitive clods out in the rural areas, we'll still never see any of it in our lifetimes. I live right on the border of two counties, which do not share some sort of necessary agreement to share cable providers. (I don't know the details other than Comcast telling me "We can't cross that line.") But all my other lines (Power, phone) come in from the adjacent county because there is no right-of-way cut alongside t

  • Some more details (Score:5, Informative)

    by spludge ( 99050 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @04:59PM (#9741265)
    http://newscenter.verizon.com/proactive/newsroom/r elease.vtml?id=86053&PROACTIVE_ID=cecdcacdc7cdcbc6 cdc5cecfcfcfc5cececacccccac9c8cfc8c5cf [verizon.com]

    5 Mbps down /2 Mbps up for $34.95 a month as part of a calling package or $39.95 a month stand-alone.

    15 Mbps down/2 Mbps up for $44.95 a month as part of a calling package or $49.95 a month stand-alone.

    30 Mbps down/5 Mbps up , pricing will be announced at a later date.

    Next stops on the rollout after Keller, TX (which is already rolled out) are Huntington beach, CA and Tampa, FL.

  • Finally.... (Score:2, Funny)

    by Tree131 ( 643930 )
    I've been waiting for this for so long and it's finally here!!!

    Pr()n at the speed of light... literally!!!
  • Does anyone know whether this thing is a symmetric or asymmetric IP service? There's a big difference :) I have a 3 Mbps ADSL service, but despite this it has limited functionality because my upstream bandwidth is so little (200 Kbps) which limits both upstream bandwidth and also limits downstream TCP/IP speed, because of the occasional ACKs required by TCP/IP.

  • FTTP vs. FTTH (Score:4, Informative)

    by Doc Ruby ( 173196 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @05:09PM (#9741353) Homepage Journal
    Verizon promises Fiber to the Premises, while many in the broadband biz talk about Fiber to the Home. The difference is unclear. But here in New York City, the literal premises could be one of our millions of multihome premises, some of which house thousands of homes. FTTP of 30Mbps shared by more than 10 homes, which is common even in the ubiquitous 5-storey apartment buildings, would offer the same bandwidth per home as the current cablemodem service of 3Mbps. Some premises might get a fiber bundle, but there's no guarantee. So cablemodem service seems likely to remain competitive, at least for a while.

    • Re:FTTP vs. FTTH (Score:3, Interesting)

      by ffejie ( 779512 )
      Well the truth is that FTTP does about 625 Mbps but VZ is splitting it over 10 homes or so. As a result, everyone can get up to 60 Mbps (when they need to roll out that service). In New York where there are large scale apartment buildings, expect a ton of fiber to be laid to the building, to keep the ratio correct. Verizon's dream here is to do television offerings, not match current cable bandwidth. If they want to stream HD Feeds (which they do) then they're going to need at least 10 Mbps to that one TV,
    • "FTTP" used to mean Fiber To The Pedestal - the local distribution point for a community or apartment building. That was an architectural offshoot from things like SLC huts and buried distribution vaults. The "pedestal" architecture ties in to the Hybrid Fiber Coax (HFC) [iec.org] cost optimization. They run the expensive fiber to a distribution pedestal, then coax or twisted pair for the customer connection.

      Granted, "premesis" makes it sound like it's coming right up to your doorstep. I'll bet there's a greasy

  • How do you spell "NO!" ??? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Sparkle ( 131911 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @05:14PM (#9741404) Homepage
    I have only been trying for 4 or 5 years to get something better than POTS from Verizon. Live in service area of a CO that is one outside of Austin metro. Answer?

    No, no, no! No DSL, no ISDN, just forget it. I will be taking my eternal dirt nap before Verizon brings me any fiber.
  • I wonder how stable or redundant FTTP will actually be? For example, a month or two ago, we had a major storm blow through the city. Lots of power outages everywhere. Happily, the cable company has battery backups built into their signal distribution units way up on some of the poles in the field. Result? No instant Internet outage.

    Then, sometime later, the batteries WERE exhausted. What did the cable company do? They got their trucks with generators and parked them by the distribution nodes and fed them p

  • Just called (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jarito030507 ( 537910 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @05:36PM (#9741618) Homepage
    I just called my local Verizon office and they really had very little idea of what I was talking about. The manager told me that it would be available in a month or two and put me on a waiting list to be called when the order was available. This is in Bethlehem, PA. No more information about the pricing or upload or anything, though.

  • To put it in more useful units... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by LesPaul75 ( 571752 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @05:58PM (#9741885) Journal
    30 Mbps is like having a hundred thousand 300 baud modems!

    Hmmm... You know, that's actually an interesting milestone. It doesn't seem that long ago that I was actually using a 300 baud modem. This is a five-orders-of-magnitude increase in something like a decade and a half.

  • Cynical point of view (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Captain Spam ( 66120 ) * on Monday July 19, 2004 @06:29PM (#9742262) Homepage
    Cute press release. I'm waiting for the press release stating their equally enticing terms of service. Like stating you can't host any sorts of servers, they'll cut you off if you're downloading too much, all your privacy are belong to Verizon, etc...

    In this case, I take the cynical point of view that, for the power user or system administrator (so, most of the reading audience at Slashdot), it'll turn out to be little more than a speed benchmark. I'd rather hear what you're allowed to do with this line rather than just a speed and cost figure.

  • And the upstream will still be 300kbit.. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by cbreaker ( 561297 ) on Monday July 19, 2004 @09:48PM (#9744045) Journal
    Can't be running SERVERS now! That would be a bad little web surfer, yes it would. And make sure you renew your DHCP lease once every 10 minutes!

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