[telecom] Found: prices behind Verizon's 300Mbps FiOS upgrades

Found: prices behind Verizon's 300Mbps FiOS upgrades

At $204.99 per month is a little pricey, but come June 17 there'll be takers.

by Megan Geuss June 2 2012

An employee at Verizon revealed the price tiers and release date of its new FiOS structuring to The Verge today, saying that the service-which currently tops out at speeds faster than any other ISP at 300 Mbps-will be available on June 17.

Ars reported earlier this week that the fastest level of service that Verizon is planning to offer (300 mbps download, 65 mbps up) will be equivalent to the limits of many dual-band routers. Today we learned that matching your router's maximum speed will cost only $5 more than what many of those who had Verizon's former fastest service (which topped out at 150 Mbps down) were paying. That service will cost $204.99 per month plus a $100 equipment upgrade unless you either sign a two-year contract, are a new customer to Verizon, or you already have the current 150Mbps Internet service.

The second-fastest tier (75 Mbps down, 35 up) will cost $84.99 and will also require a $100 equipment upgrade unless you meet one of those three conditions above.

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***** Moderator's Note *****

ISTM that $204 a month will only appeal to frat houses, hotels, or SOHO users who are willing to share bandwidth - and costs - with their neighbors.

Does anyone know what the practical limit to cable modem speed is? I doubt it's in the 300 Mbps range, and whatever speed it /is/, that effectively limits the speed of the whole system: after all, content providers aren't likely to risk stranding a major portion of their audience by publishing things that require the new, improved higher bandwidth Verizontal is touting. That's not even considering the bandwidth limits of 3G or 4G cellular data plans, which appeal to younger consumers with more money to spend.

Bill Horne Moderator

Reply to
Monty Solomon
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:***** Moderator's Note *****

:ISTM that $204 a month will only appeal to frat houses, hotels, or :SOHO users who are willing to share bandwidth - and costs - with their :neighbors.

You might be surrpised. $200 a month is a lot, but high speed network access makes working from home a lot more practical for many people.

:Does anyone know what the practical limit to cable modem speed is? I :doubt it's in the 300 Mbps range, and whatever speed it /is/, that

DOCISS 3 provides about 38 Mb/s per configured channel. How many channels are configued is an operator choice. Eight channels down, four up gives 304 up, 108 down. That's an availabe option with hardware that's deployed in some cable systems. I don't think it's being sold yet, though.

Reply to
David Scheidt

And, of course, that bandwidth is (dynamically) shared among all users on the given cable 'run' from the head-end. 4 subscribers on the same run, trying to use that 300 mbit/sec at the same time, will only get about 75mbit each.

The big, _unanswered_, question is how much Verizon 'oversubscribes'/'over- sells' the uplink capacity from the concentrator/router that those 300mbit end users are connected to. I would be _seriously_ surprised to find a 10gig connection to their core for every 32 such end-users.

I would also question how many such 300mbit users their external connectivity can handle. At the price for the bandwidth, I could see people using it for on-line replication of terabyte+ databases. At 'wire speed' on this circuit, one can move a terabyte in around 8 hours. This makes for 'interesting' possibilities.

Reply to
Robert Bonomi

No, it is shared on the FIBER run to your local HFC, hanging midspan somewhere in your neighborhood. But true, it is shared with your neighbors. (and it is Megabits, not millibit per second....)

BTW, HFC's are hung midspan because when first deployed, the cable co's lost many to theft. Seems they were being resold to Central/South America. Midspan locations required a bucket truck to steal same, not just a ladder.

Reply to
David Lesher

Cable modem speed limitations are well below the available bandwidth on any particular node. Nodes are fed with fiber; go figger.

Many DOCSYS 3.0 users with fast service on the same coax node can be downloading at the same time without any penalty in speed.

If the total node starts degrading, the cable company should rearrange the plant or upgrade their facilities. That involves corporate decisions and politics, both inappropriate for this technical discussion.

Reply to
John

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