Verizon DSL Speed Upgrade

[the Sandman]

Verizon has been advertising that they are doubling their basic DSL download speed to 3.0 Mbps (with 768 Kbps uploads) without a price increase. Yay!

However, if you have Verizon DSL, don't expect them to surprise you with the goodness - existing users must call Verizon billing and request the free upgrade. FYI...

[KW802]

You must also be within so many feet of your local CO (Central Office). The 3mb package used to be a higher priced option but is now being offered as the base package to all customers who qualify. For those customers who can get DSL but aren't close enough to their CO they will continue to get the 1.5mb package and for those customers who are really far out will get the 768K package.

All new customers will be automatically receiving the 3mb package based upon if they qualify and if not they'll be cascaded down. All existing customers will need to call VZ support to speak to a rep to see if they qualify. As Sandman said, though, you will not be automatically upgraded -- you have to explicitly ask if you qualify and can be upgraded.

[ManagerJosh]

Adelphia is giving us 6Mbps/768kbps...though I'm able to score about 7.2Mbps/900kbps

[bahawolf]

This plan was out months ago for the NY Metro area..
I got it already.

[AWS]

Verizon has been advertising that they are doubling their basic DSL download speed to 3.0 Mbps (with 768 Kbps uploads) without a price increase. Yay!

However, if you have Verizon DSL, don't expect them to surprise you with the goodness - existing users must call Verizon billing and request the free upgrade. FYI...

Tampa is on the list for Verizon FTTH with speeds up to 45/2. You should check into it. I thought Tampa was already lit.

[the Sandman]

The fiber is in the ground for FIOS, AKA FTTP (fiber to the premises), but it's not online yet. AFAIK, the max speeds at launch will be 30/5.

[JPT62089]

my dad has comcast that is 4mb/s so I am good , although, that 6mb/s one sounds appetizing

[Neocorteqz]

I got a 5/384 Line in central Florida. Although I was told they are rolling out the 8/512 lines now, But I have yet to see pricing info for it.

Road Runner btw. Wonder if my area will be getting FIOS?

[Quillz]

Sigh... I wish RoadRunner would offer speed increases. I only get 11.0 Mbps, whereas the next plan up is around 3 MB/downstream.

[ManagerJosh]

Sigh... I wish RoadRunner would offer speed increases. I only get 11.0 Mbps, whereas the next plan up is around 3 MB/downstream.

what are you complaining about....11Mbps is awesome!

[Guest]

I think that user is giving wrong numbers, but I could be wrong....but I have never seen cable offered at that speed with roadrunner.

Also, road runner just did speed upgrades (free) not to long ago, basic plan wen't from 3mbps to 5mbps downstream, the higher package shot up to 8mbps downstrem.

Here are the local prices where I live:

Basic Service:
Speeds: 5mbps downstream/384kbps upstream
Montly bill: $44.95, $40.00 with cable tv or digital phone service

Premium Service:
Speeds: 8mbps downstream/512kbps upstream
Monthly bill: $84.95 a month, $64.95 a month with cable tv of digital phone service.

Upload is still poor, I would like to see this improve. But rr is still better then sprint dsl locally, which is only up to 512kbps downstream/128kbps upstream with a much small footprint, and what little footprint they have resides in an area that rr has been in for 5 years now.

It think cable is still going to be the way most get broadband, at least in america. FTTH deployments are hopeful, but will take some time before they are in place. It will be some time before we see higher speeds in the USA, our friends overseas have smaller area's where a FTTH run to the entire country or at least the area where most of the population live can be done is a short peroid of time and at a responible cost. In the USA you have people living over a large area, sure you see large populations in some places, but most people live in rural places.

In the USA we spend more time retro fitting what we already have to provide us with broadband. Cable, power, and telephone lines are very widespread and common, and most places require a home to be at least wired for power.

This leaves us with 3 possible wired broadband sources, DSL which is limited by the distance one is from the CO or RT, meaning many fall outside the footprint or at the edge of it where speeds are not as good. Then we have BPL or broadband over powerline, which is known to polute the airwaves, and has yet to make it past trails.

Last but not least cable, not limited by distance, and at this point mainly limited by DOCSIS (Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification). Currently most places use DOCSIS 2.0 which can do 40mbps/30mbps, you will never see this speed (at least in the next few years) simply because the cable company can sell you 3-5mbps downstream because no one else can deliver even that. DOCSIS 3.0 is rumored to do 100-200mbps/50-100mbps but will likely require hardware changes at the customer end, again that is just rumor.

The cable network does have its own set of flaws, mostly bandwidth sharing at the node, but such things will not be a problem in a properly maintained system. Alot of people avoid cable and jump to DSL because cable is 'shared bandwidth', but in reailty all consumer bandwidth is shared, dsl just shares it at the CO or RT instead of the node.

Wireless access is also a good option, but not as widespread as cable or dsl at this point. The best thing about wireless is often times small companys will run them, these guys like to cherry pick rural communitys overlooked by the big guys, and are generally kind to their customers. That is a double edged sword however, because the local WISP could always be run by a guy that has no idea what he is doing. Broadband over wireless requires alot of planning to be done properly.

[AWS]

Roadrunner, when they were still owned by Cablevision, used to give somewhere near 10/10 service. I remember when Napster was going strong Roadrunner users were the fastest to download from.
I don't know if it's still the same, but, it used to be the fastest broadband you could get.

Currently most places use DOCSIS 2.0

No cable company uses docsis 2 yet. They all are still using 1.1. In fact the cable consortium at their yearly meeting said that docsis 3 is in development. Many people questioned this since they haven't yet rolled out 2. The Bells fiber projects just put a scare in them.