Verizon rolls out "super-fast" 20/20 FiOS internet service

Well, it looks like Verizon might be out to put those rumors of it running out of bandwidth to rest, with it today announcing its new symmetrical 20/20 FiOS service that it says "redefines fast." While we're normally skeptical of such hyperbole, Verizon does look to have a case for itself in this instance, as that 20/20 stands for 20 Mbps download speeds and 20 Mbps upload speeds. As Verizon points out, that should let you upload or download a 3GB file in 20 minutes flat. Unfortunately (for some), only those in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut will be able to take advantage of all that bandwidth for the time being, where it'll run "as low as" $65 a month, although Verizon says it expects to roll out "similar symmetrical services" in the 13 other states where it currently offers FiOS internet service "soon."

[john bluemke @ Oct 23rd 2007 5:06PM]

anyone know when Florida is going to see FIOS anytime soon?? Spring Hill/Hernando County (gulf coast)

[Frankenstein Black @ Oct 23rd 2007 5:29PM]

Um, no time soon since you are in Bell South er AT&T Territory. Their thought? "We don't need no stinking curbside fiber" at least not yet. Hey at least you have quad stream (i.e. quad digital tuner stream) U-verse. That's something to really be jealous of :^)...

[Maestro @ Oct 23rd 2007 6:58PM]

Im in Tampa and have FIOS...just a county or two south of you...

All I can say is that if I get 20/20, I will have the most popular Team Fortress 2 server on the net...

[aido2002 @ Oct 23rd 2007 5:09PM]

I'm in NJ, and they are laying dpwn fiber right now... Hope they offer this to me!

[Stephen Armbruster @ Oct 23rd 2007 5:09PM]

NY/NJ/CT probably means NYC area. :(

[max andrews @ Oct 24th 2007 12:26AM]

Nope, urban areas will be among the last to get the service, because they've yet to solve the issue of routing fiber up and into tall buildings. This is from the east coast VP of FIOS BTW, whom I managed to reach a few years ago when the service was first announced.

[thecybernerd @ Oct 23rd 2007 5:11PM]

I already have it and i am in Virginia. I am testing it for Verizon. It is going to deployed in Northern Virginia later this year or early next year since the market is so competitive.

[OGrizzle @ Oct 23rd 2007 5:21PM]

I'm in Northern Va and I can't even get FIOS yet. WTF? I guess Verizon hates Alexandria. :(

[MoeenD @ Oct 23rd 2007 7:44PM]

I am in N. VA and I have fios, the 30/5 plan, for $50 a mo, recently it was upped to $60 a month... dunno where you are getting your info, but its wrong.

[MoeenD @ Oct 23rd 2007 7:48PM]

Sorry forgot that its not available everywhere in N. VA, im in Herndon.

[In Alexandria @ Oct 23rd 2007 11:32PM]

quote:

OGrizzle @ Oct 23rd 2007 5:21PM
I'm in Northern Va and I can't even get FIOS yet. WTF? I guess Verizon hates Alexandria. :(

=======================================

I'm in Alexandria and FIOS is currently an option that's available for me. So I guess they may work their way over to your part of Alexandria soon enough.

[sitruc @ Oct 24th 2007 2:47AM]

City of Alexandria or Fairfax?

[In Alexandria @ Oct 24th 2007 6:31AM]

Good point. Forgot about the confusion between City of Alexandria and a different neighboring Alexandria that's part of Fairfax County.

I meant the Alexandria of Fairfax County.

[skant @ Oct 23rd 2007 5:13PM]

i guess i'm upgrading my already glorious bandwidth. mint

[Crazylink @ Oct 23rd 2007 5:16PM]

They should be busy putting it around the rest of the country. My cable connection is starting to feel mighty slow.

[andy @ Oct 23rd 2007 5:29PM]

My charter cable connection feels slow too. Of course, at 100+ms of latency and "blazing fast always on speeds" of 300kbps download and 300kbps upload, I'm thinking it is kind of slow.

Especially when my ATT TILT tethered to my laptop will do 1.2MBps down and 500kBps up at about 200ms latency.

[Dino.Radio @ Oct 23rd 2007 5:22PM]

So when am I going to get more HD channels?!?!?!

[Alex @ Oct 23rd 2007 5:28PM]

As someone who doesn't even get the option to try FiOS, I wish they'd roll out nationwide before they start doing extra cool stuff like this.

[Hooterman @ Oct 23rd 2007 5:31PM]

Maybe they should put more effort into offering FiOS to more people, rather than upgrading the lucky sob's that already have it

My town is laying fiber right now, its the local internet/cable company that is doing it, but does this help my chances of getting Verizon to come in and offer FiOS at all?

[Philometalist @ Oct 23rd 2007 5:33PM]

NJ my ass. South Jersey is still Comcast or nothing when it comes to highspeed... Comcast has a serious monopoly here... I would love to know who I could report them too :)

[Reginald @ Oct 23rd 2007 6:24PM]

Odd because I have FiOS here in Philly and my colleague has it in neighboring Buck's County (PA).

I have the 15/2 plan for $49 but due to a monopoly by Comcast in Philly as well, we can't get the FiOS TV service, whereas Buck's County has FiOS TV.

I wish I knew who to take this issue up with as well. Comcast is Craptastic!

[HineyWipe @ Oct 23rd 2007 7:05PM]

Reginald-you are screwed. Most of Comcrapstic's execs live in Philadelphia and the last thing they want are happy neighbors!

[Jeremy K. @ Oct 23rd 2007 7:17PM]

Hrmm... I don't know where you live. I'm in South Jersey and have had FiOS for over a year now. It's GREAT. 20/5 and my gaming ping is really low, even on wifi.

[Philometalist @ Oct 23rd 2007 8:12PM]

I live in Delran and there is absolutely NO FIOS service in my community's location. They didn't even offer their old pre-FIOS DSL, nothing, zero, nada.

[Ellis D. @ Oct 23rd 2007 8:57PM]

Not all South NJ is Comcast or nothing...I'm in South NJ and I've had FiOS for a long time now, and we just got FiOS TV a few months ago.

From what I can remember, they're trying to do all the townships with overhead lines first, then underground later.

[toolboxnj @ Oct 23rd 2007 10:25PM]

Yea, but south NJ Comcast had cable internet years before us poor Cablevision customers. We only had cable internet starting 2002 when the town over had it from 1998.

[Gianni @ Oct 23rd 2007 5:36PM]

"Verizon... Bringing a new dimension to streaming porn!"

[CATBERTZ @ Oct 23rd 2007 5:37PM]

FIOS has been available one block away from my house for six months now, but won't be available to me until "sometime in '08". #%@#&$@#%!!1!

[Deven @ Oct 23rd 2007 8:58PM]

At least you have a visual on the FiOS getting to you...
Other people like me have not seen or heard of any FiOS deployment in their neighborhood or even city...

[Mojo_Yugen @ Oct 24th 2007 9:27AM]

...or state (Colorado)

[ImFerst @ Oct 23rd 2007 5:41PM]

FIRST!

[Kilton @ Oct 23rd 2007 6:40PM]

not even close... so dumb...

[David @ Oct 23rd 2007 6:07PM]

My girlfriend just got hooked up with 100/100 service in her apartment in San Francisco, and for only $40. www.web-pass.com (I know it says 45/45 but if you read the news release for 250 King St. it is 100/100).

It is definitely fast as hell. (Couldn't test the maximum because I only have a 802.11g and it tapped out at around 48Mbps on the cnet speed test.

[giedrys @ Oct 23rd 2007 6:56PM]

100/100! I can't even imagine how fast that is. Stuck on 6/0.5 DSL in Chicago and dreaming that someday I'll have the same speeds here.

[Duey Cheatham & Howe @ Oct 23rd 2007 7:16PM]

They may be doing Metro Area Ethernet. She won't see those 100 Mb speeds unless she has at least a Gigabit NIC.

[BizReporter @ Oct 23rd 2007 6:20PM]

As a FIOS customer in NJ, I can say FIOS isn't all its cracked up to be. I had it installed over a week ago, and Verizon still can't figure out why the FIOS phone line suffers from crossed wires and clicking. They've replaced the ONT, and even rewired all the phone jacks in the house, and still clicking.

Additionally, FIOS's 20/5 Internet service is only nominally faster than Comcast's service. Interestingly, the tech used coax rather than Cat 5 to connect the Actiontec router to the ONT. I'm suspect that this Actiontec router is leading to subpar Internet speeds.

The bright spot is FIOS TV. All I can say is WOW! The number of SD channels is staggering, and the quality of both HD and SD is far superior to Comcast or even DirecTV. This reason alone is enough to make me pause when I consider returning to Comcast because of the phone line trouble.

Also, VZ's customer support is as poor as Comcast's. On the other hand, the VZ techs are far more professional than Comcast techs. However, we have convinced VZ customer service to not only give us the first month free for our troubles, but throw in the free Sharp 19 inch LCD TV (model LC19SB24U) that is the current promotion for new customers, who sign up after Oct. 15. We signed up at the beginning of the month, so initially they refused. VZ lists it as a $250 value, but the TV is $399 at Circuit City, so it does ease some of the pain associated with their poor customer service.

[Duey Cheatham & Howe @ Oct 23rd 2007 6:39PM]

I work for an ISP (EATEL) in Ascension Parish Louisiana and the issues we had with the Voice portion of the circuit were due to software issues on our Alcatel ONTs as well as some signal tweaking that needed to be done in the phone switch (General Bandwidth G6).

[Torben @ Oct 23rd 2007 7:06PM]

I have had FIOS data for over two years and it is nothing but awesome. Currently running 4 websites, FTPs, VOIP(non VZ) and 3 heavy users over a 20/5 pipe.
I have had 100% uptime. something that BHN/RR could not even come close to matching, not to mention the latency. Back in the RR days, we had to throttle uploads when everyone was home, just so I could get on VPN to work.
Their billing department may be lacking in excellence but honestly, I'd rather dispute a bill here and there than have my connection sucking for weeks or being down for days.

BizReporter: dump the actiontec for a dedicated router. get your local FIOS tech to get you a stand alone NIM and install a linksys or whatever to use as a router. (just make sure the WAN side is 100mbps and not 10)


As far as TV, the SD signal quality is mind blowing compared to cable. HD is better since they don't compress anything from the source but it wasn't as massive of a change compared to BHN. We were ready to dump all our remaining SD TVs to get the HD quality pic in every room, after Fios video was available we kept all the SD TVs. It was like we bought all new sets. SD is still SD but now I can watch both without cringing at every SD TV. I have not seen a grainy picture since we got FIOS. I don't know how often we called the cable co to bitch about some channel being grainy.

Support: Once you get to a FSC (fiber solution center), the support is excellent. google around to get some 800 numbers to will circumvent all the automated voice commands.

billing and ordering still stinks typical VZ style but the actual product makes up for it, IMHO.

[gwynethh @ Oct 23rd 2007 6:29PM]

How about the promised FIOS TV in New England?

[gibber9583 @ Oct 23rd 2007 6:39PM]

Yeah, I live in MA and we have FiOS TV service.

Last time I checked MA was in New England.

[gwynethh @ Oct 23rd 2007 6:50PM]

Sorry MORE of NE. I went to FIOS on the promise of Internet(got it) and TV (who knows if or when).

[Stormy @ Oct 23rd 2007 6:56PM]

I live in NYC, and cant get Fios. Still stuck with timewarner crappy service.

[wickedpheonix @ Oct 23rd 2007 6:58PM]

All I can say is, I live in one of the counties that's lucky enough to be wired all up to hell with fiber and FiOS. Unfortunately, the central office that services me is in the one frigging municipality that's in bed with Comcast, and want like $2 a foot from VZ to wire the city. Worst thing is, I don't live in the city, the lines from the CO cross the city limit, so I can't even vote for a different city council to reverse those ridiculous charges.

All you guys who don't have FiOS yet, at least you guys have a chance of getting it soon. Me, I'm probably NEVER going to get it, AND the houses just 3 blocks over are on the other CO which does have FiOS.

[SpeedRacer @ Oct 23rd 2007 7:52PM]

Move.

Sell your freaking house and move three blocks. Life's too short, man.

[DarkAardvark @ Oct 23rd 2007 9:49PM]

do they have wifi? try bridging their network.... ar ar ar

[Randomness @ Oct 23rd 2007 7:23PM]

When I move, internet service is going to be one of the top factors. What a change in priorities compared to years past when people looked at crime rates and school quality lol.

[Steve C @ Oct 24th 2007 1:01AM]

I was seriously just thinking this same thing. Damn I wish I had FiOS. The wife and I are moving soon, and that's one of the main reasons I won't live in an apartment again!

[Luigi193 @ Oct 23rd 2007 7:29PM]

It will freaking take 10 YEARS before this gets to vermont...

Dang I wish I had those upload speeds...

[UnnDunn @ Oct 23rd 2007 7:51PM]

I already called to order this. :)

20/20 Mbps broadband + unlimited local and long distance for $80/mo. Couldn't pass that up.

[d @ Oct 23rd 2007 7:56PM]

Anyone know what's keeping verizon out of northern california?