Verizon To Pump $18B Into FiOS 215
larytet writes, "LightReading reports that Verizon will invest $18B into FTTH. The company says its fiber-based service will become profitable after four years, and expects by then to have 7 million customers using FiOS for Internet access." For perspective, have a look at Bruce Kushnick's book $200 Billion Broadband Scandal. His site has a page detailing phone company promises of fiber since 1993. We have been paying for these undelivered promises for years. By now we should have 86 million homes wired with FTTH at 100 Mbits/sec.
FiOS more real than many of those broken promises (Score:5, Interesting)
Fine, there have been plenty of broken promises from phone companies (and, I believe, cable providers, satellite providers, and others) over the years. 7 million homes also might be a little optimistic. But FiOS is really, exists in plenty of homes already, and is much more real than many of those other technologies were at the times the promises were made.
I'm in New York and have FiOS. It's a very nice service. Happily, in New York, the slowest speed tier is 10 down / 2 up, and it's quite affordable compared to cable modem service. I'm looking forward to the FiOS TV service, and the day I'll be completely rid of Time Warner (not that Verizon itself is such a wonderful company).
Believe it when you see it (Score:3, Interesting)
I'll take two. (Score:4, Interesting)
Speaking of DSL, I talked to Speakeasy (my dsl provider) and asked them if they'd ever be able to offer their open hosting policies over FiOS. Speakeasy said no because FiOS is regulated differently than your POTS lines. So this really put a damper on things because I won't get port 80 etc over blazing optics. Unless they strike a deal (unlikely?) or an act of congress happens (lobbying?). I'd love to know exactly why fiber is treated differently.
The difference is it's already here (Score:2, Interesting)
Here's a blog with lots of details on how the installation is done: http://www.bricklin.com/fiosinstall.htm [bricklin.com].
Re:Better late than never? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Better late than never? (Score:3, Interesting)
About time... glad I got it. (Score:3, Interesting)
Public privatization (Score:4, Interesting)
What say you to publically owned, but privately serviced network infrastructure? For example, a city, town, or borough pays to have its own network system (cable, dsl, ftth, whatever) installed, and then has an outside company (Adelphia, Comcast, Verizon, etc.) provide the bandwidth and support. The city retains control of the lines, so in the event the denizens of the city are unhappy with the provider company, they could vote to terminate (or simply not renew) the contract with the company and seek other bids for service.
Re:A couple friends have Fios (Score:3, Interesting)
Are you kidding me? Are you freaking kidding me? Those are communications companies and not dot-bomb companies. If anything we should have had a faster rollout of telecommunications equipment because the labor and supplies would have been a bit cheaper without the dot-com folks around. I hated the dot-com era and allowing the telecomms to use the dot-com collapse as an excuse for something that they should have had rolled out before the dot-com era really started is a huge cop out. In some respects you can blame the dot-com collapse on the telecoms for not having the nation wired up with fiber at 100 Mbits/sec up and down in the mid 90s! The dot-com era was from the mid to late 90s. The telecoms should have been finishing up wiring the country with fiber before the dot-com era really picked up!
Re:I'll take two. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Better late than never? (Score:3, Interesting)
I do think broadband should be available everywhere as well. I guess my point was that we should have never waited for the telcos to do this; we should have gotten municipalities to do it for us a while ago.
Snail pace deployment (Score:3, Interesting)
Since my move, I haven't had any broadband service for over two (2) years. I've more or less lost all interest in computers, my Sun boxes sit idle with no Internet connection. All the time I have been mucking around with Linux have been confined to my IBM A31p laptop, and what ever connection I can get at Starbucks, work or open access point.
Re:Public privatization (Score:2, Interesting)
I think that how it should work is this: