Residential FiOS

[James Bond]

Being in networking I know about fiber technology and all of that, but I had no idea that it was already being distributed residentially.

I was recently looking at the FiOS page on wikipedia and it showed a long listing of all of the available areas that Verizon offers it.

It is only being offered in one area of Washington (strangely enough its not even too close to Seattle), but I constantly hear people talking about how they "are going to be getting fiber wiring to their house soon".

Are these people confused about fiber, and just getting the wiring itself even though the ISP won't be able to use most of the bandwidth?

How fast is the 'fiber revolution' growing? I feel out of the loop.

Thanks for the info, sorry my question is vague, reply however you want.

 

[Nocturnal]

Well considering the fact that DSL tops out this day and age (not theoretically) at around 3-4mbps, going from that and even cable being 5-10mbps to 15mbps/1mbps is amazing.

 

[spidey07]

they actually bring fiber to your house brining speeds of 100 meg ethernet to your home.

And why wouldn't they be able to use all the bandwidth?

 

[Madwand1]

AT&T is currently making this argument, that residential users cannot benefit from this bandwidth because the rest of the Internet doesn't. They're using this argument to put fiber to local nodes, but not to homes. Sounds a bit fishy to me, as earlier AT&T's Lightspeed talked about fiber to homes, now there's talk of "finite capital".

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060402-6506.html

http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6303693.html?display=Breaking+News

 

[spidey07]

AT&T is just ticked that they aren't doing it.

however advancesments in hybrid fiber coax networks (what cable companies use) could catch up to FIOS.

 

[Madwand1]

To answer the OP's questions somewhat more directly, I think my previous links also show that fibre to the home is a part of a video/media play, and that such service providers are likely to go beyond just the internet to try sell video services, etc. This is a natural evolution IMO, consistent with what Bill Gates and others are imagining in volume high quality media distribution without ownership, of course at odds with various sides who would like to control this better themselves.

Suckers like me probably would buy into the hi-def video play unless it cost a lot (and you should see my cable bills -- ouch), and would pay a relatively significant premium for the internet bandwidth without thinking twice if it was available, even if we really took advantage of the bandwidth just a fraction of the time.