I remember my first week of college way back in 1997 and the weird adrenaline rush I got the moment my brand new Pentium 166 (with MMX extensions) first connected to the school’s high speed network. The change from a 33.6 modem to a high speed internet connection was exhilarating. I felt like burning a cigarette into my forearm. I was alive.
Now it’s ten years later and I wonder if a 50 Mbps (20 Mbps up) connection would elicit the same response. That’s how fast you can get Verizon FiOS in some areas now. It’s an insane speed for normal run-of-the-mill browsing. I don’t think I’d be quite as excited as I was back in college because I’ve grown accustomed to about 10 Mbps at home but I might be somewhat amazed at how fast I’d be able to download, say, an entire movie.
Whatever the case, most normal people probably won’t be upgrading in the near future because of the $140-per-month price tag. Early adopters, small businesses, and speed freaks may find the cost to be totally worth it, though. There’s also a 30 Mbps down, 15 Mbps up service tier being rolled out to other areas at $90/month.
All service areas (16 states) are now carrying Verizon’s symmetrical connections (originally launched in limited areas last month), which provide up to 20 Mbps in both directions starting at around $65 per month with a year contract. Here’s some more information from a recent Verizon press release.
"Starting today, Verizon is offering its high-speed symmetrical FiOS Internet services to consumers in 16 states served by its advanced, all-fiber-optic network. The symmetrical services make possible equally fast downstream and upstream connections of up to 15 megabits per second (Mbps) or up to 20 Mbps depending on the state where the service is sold.
At the same time, Verizon also has dramatically increased the upload speed of its fastest FiOS Internet services across its FiOS Internet service areas. These new services offer consumers downstream/upstream connections of either up to 50 Mbps/20 Mbps or up to 30 Mbps/15 Mbps depending on the state where the service is sold."
Verizon Continues to Dramatically Raise Broadband Upload Speeds in FiOS Internet Service Areas [Verizon Press Release] via GigaOM