I live in an area, that for whatever reason, always receives the latest and greatest technology well before most people in the United States. Back in 2005, a Verizon representative showed up at my door wanting to know if I’d like to switch my Internet access to something called “Fios”. As this fiber-optic technology was new at the time (which means I had never heard of it), I politely declined and stuck with who I was using for broadband Internet access; Comcast.
Fast-forward four years…to today. As in literally today. You see, today I finally switched my Internet access over to Fios. Why? Well, I’ve always had a “premium business account” with Comcast. And for a long time that was the bees-knees of Internet access. Today, not so much.
I’ve been paying Comcast $80 a month for my “premium” Internet access. In return, I received 10mbps download speeds and 2mbps upload speeds. With Fios, I elected for 20mbps download speeds and 20mbps upload speeds. For those of you keeping score, that’s downloads twice as fast and uploads 10 times as fast.
And oh yea. Verizon only wanted $65 a month for this. $15 less than I was paying Comcast (by the way, I could have gotten 50mbps download speeds through Fios, but elected not to).
But how did this switch to Fios go? And did I really get the download and upload speeds promised?
Well, the installation took 8 hours. Now to be fair, I was getting more than just Internet access installed…and…I have some unusual technical requirements. But the install went off, more or less, without a hitch.
I also got the full 20mbps download and upload speeds I was promised. Things started out below those numbers, but after a few hours, I had full speed.
Now for the download speeds, I really don’t notice much of a difference between Comcast and Fios. But with the upload speeds, it’s night and day. And it was the upload speeds that I was really after.
Why? Well, if you work with web video a lot, one of the things you’ll quickly learn is that it’s a very time-consuming process. It takes time to shoot the video, to edit the video, to render the video, to upload the video and so on. And anything you can do to speed up the workflow is like a gift from heaven.
For me, I wanted to dramatically decrease the time it took to upload my videos. And really for anyone that does web video, this is one area that can shave hours off your workflow.
For example, under my old Comcast Internet connection, it took around 15 minutes to upload a single 75MB video file. And by upload, I mean submitting your video to a sharing site or hosting service.
By comparison, with Fios it takes 52 seconds to upload that same video. That means to upload 10 videos at once (which is pretty common for me), it takes around 9 minutes. The same process took around two and a half hours on my old Comcast connection.
That’s like flying from Chicago to Orlando in under 10 minutes.
Sure, Comcast (as well as other broadband providers) offer faster connections than what I had previously been using. But they can’t match Fios upload speeds. And more often than not, they can’t touch it on price either.
So my recommendation is, if you work with web video, if Fios is available in your area, and they offer upload speeds above 5mbps, get it. You won’t regret it. The speed is remarkable.
Welcome to the FIOS club, Dave! I also love it… especially the upload speeds you describe.
Dear Dave,
Welcome to the real internet! I am a certified AT&T Fiber optics tech in the Chicagoland area. I have been installing the fiber optic services to homes and business’ for over 4 years. I can say with absolute certainty that if any of your followers were to buy into a fiber neighborhood, any and all internet services outside of the fiber service will be deplorable in comparison for several reasons.
One of the main reasons is that all DSL type services run over copper and not fiber, which means the average speed is around 1000 miles per second and is electrical based. Whereas Fiber, which is light based, travels at the speed of light (186,000 miles per second). Huge difference!! Plus, when you hook up to the Fiber service, normally you are actually tapped directly into the main backbone of the internet, which means the access speeds are dramatically reduced.
I have proved to my fiber customers how truly faster the service is in direct competition with the cable providers. Fiber blows them out of the water. Not only is it the fastest service (right now we can produce terra bit speeds over fiber), it is also the most reliable. Copper systems will ground out, short out, and plain wear with time needing repair. Once a fiber system is in place, rarely will the system need repair. Dramatic impact on up and down time for internet access.
Just thought I would share with your great decision on moving to fiber. Enjoy it.
Jim
The time saving component sounds like a winner! I am now going to check out the U.K’s equivalent?
Just to clarify, the difference between fiber optics and copper is that the former gives you a much higher bandwith. The electrical signal in a copper wire also travels as the speed of light, as do all electromagnetic waves is these media. The 1000 miles/sec is nonsense.
Glad to know you noticed the difference and that you loved it…like I do…download and upload speed is just great…