Should I get Verizon FiOS?

[Unregistered]

Is it that much better than regular cable TV and internet? It's only $10 more a month, but I heard the internet speeds are much faster. What about the cable TV package?

 

[Rickideemus]

I gotta admit, it sounds flipin amazin. 15/5 is faster than a typical cable internet connection, but make sure you're not getting their lowest tier, which 3/1 (3 mbps download and 1 mbps upload). 3/1 would be sub par for internet video, such as NetFlix or even YouTube, but 15/5 should be fast enough for 95+% of consumers.

Your FIOS TV package will vary, based on location. You can enter your zip code, and see what's included in your Prime package here:
Digital TV Channels - FiOS TV Channels

There's a good overview of Verizon FIOS here:
Verizon FiOS - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Not available in my area. :doh:
Rick

 

[O-O]

With FiOS, I think internet speeds of 50/25 Mbps are possible. Much quicker than cable internet, and like 5x faster with upload speeds.

 

[Rickideemus]

With FiOS, I think internet speeds of 50/25 Mbps are possible. Much quicker than cable internet, and like 5x faster with upload speeds.

I wouldn't pay extra for 50/25. Their popular "Prime" package has 15/5, which should be very adequate.

Not that long ago, a 10/10 T1 connection was considered a direct, top-of-line scenario. Very few individuals could even dream to scream at that rate. I remember going to the library and witnessing multiple pages coming up instantaneously with their T1 -- on 386 computers, no less! That was before flash videos came along and ruined it for everyone.

Sometimes you want video, and flash is a truly amazing program. But 90+% of the time, they are just ads, or video on some topic unrelated to your search. They could fix this easily -- just make the flash data load only when end user presses the start button. But nooooooo... can't have users wait 5 extra seconds for the $^%! ads!

Sorry for off-topic rant. :director:

Rick

 

[n2rj]

Well, a T1 is only 1.544Mbps, not 10MBps.

In GPON areas I believe that FiOS offers up to 300Mbps but that is mostly a marketing gimmick to allow them to say that they are faster than cable.

I would get 75Mbps if I could to be honest. I can use it to remote into work and get on the LAN almost as if I were in the office. I currently have 50Mbps with my cable co and I do absolutely make use of it.

FiOS TV is the best cable TV service out there and the network is all passive meaning that it will work during a power outage, provided you can power your ONT from your backup power source.

 

[Jason Fritz]

<-- Just upgraded to 50mb "Ultimate" package with Cox.

 

[Fringe Reception]

<-- Just upgraded to 50mb "Ultimate" package with Cox.

"Hoot Cap-n ... we ar brakin warp factur nine and the ship canna tak it!" Donna Yu kno Yu are taxin me engines an me dilithiam crystals?"

 

[dkreichen1968]

I would get 75Mbps if I could to be honest. I can use it to remote into work and get on the LAN almost as if I were in the office. I currently have 50Mbps with my cable co and I do absolutely make use of it.

My work has a 1.5 by 1.5 T1 line. I really doubt that anything over 1.5 up would help me work remotely. At this point I don't work remotely, but if I did, 1.5 up would be the most that would benefit me.

 

[Rickideemus]

My work has a 1.5 by 1.5 T1 line. I really doubt that anything over 1.5 up would help me work remotely.

Is there something about a T1 connection that makes it seem faster than the bit rate would suggest? Something about the way it handles multiple streams maybe? I'll never forget how cool it was watching web pages pop up in under a second on a 386 PC. But now that I know it was just 1.54 Mbps, I can't quite ... collate?

I get 15 Mbps downstream on a bad day (pays to make friends with the cable guy), but it seems pretty kludgy compared to that T1. And I have complete command of all the processes running on my PC ... I doubt it can be tweaked much tighter.

Still, 1.54 Mbps is 30 times faster than 56 Kbps on dialup, which worked reasonably well back when dinosaurs roamed the earth. :drinks:

R.

 

[n2rj]

My work has a 1.5 by 1.5 T1 line. I really doubt that anything over 1.5 up would help me work remotely. At this point I don't work remotely, but if I did, 1.5 up would be the most that would benefit me.

We have 300Mbps burstable to gigabit for the office and 2GBit to the datacenter. Yeah, you won't notice the better speed but I certainly will.

 

[n2rj]

Is there something about a T1 connection that makes it seem faster than the bit rate would suggest? Something about the way it handles multiple streams maybe? I'll never forget how cool it was watching web pages pop up in under a second on a 386 PC. But now that I know it was just 1.54 Mbps, I can't quite ... collate?

I get 15 Mbps downstream on a bad day (pays to make friends with the cable guy), but it seems pretty kludgy compared to that T1. And I have complete command of all the processes running on my PC ... I doubt it can be tweaked much tighter.

Still, 1.54 Mbps is 30 times faster than 56 Kbps on dialup, which worked reasonably well back when dinosaurs roamed the earth. :drinks:

R.

I used T1s and they seemed pretty slow compared to my cable connection. Maybe you have some bottleneck like your home router, most of which don't have much processing power built into them.

 

[n2rj]

Speed test on my private line at the office:

 

[dkreichen1968]

Or, it's been so long since Rick has actually used a T1 that he doesn't remember how slow it was. Kind of like me and dial up. Going from dial up to a T1 would be a big improvement. Back in the day a T1 line was the best connection you could get. Kind of like the guy setting up our network at my first professional job in 1994 bragging about having a 1 Gig hard drive for the server and how that would be more memory than we could ever use. That just sounds silly now!

 

[n2rj]

We had a fractional T1 at 128k when I worked at Fujitsu. This was shared with the whole office. There was no home broadband available at the time and it was nice to use it to download files, stream video and VOIP. There was no YouTube and bittorrent back then but there was realvideo and napster.

 

[Rickideemus]

I used T1s and they seemed pretty slow compared to my cable connection. Maybe you have some bottleneck like your home router, most of which don't have much processing power built into them.

No, no router. See, I'm comparing the T1 back then -- before "multimedia" was a buzzword -- to ~20 Mbps downstream now. There was no video anywhere that I remember. No flash.

After flash came out, there was a program that suppressed flash videos so pages would load quicker. It was a necessity on my 486 with a 56K modem (which was really ~50K).

I'm not complaining, really, about my connection speed. Big pages with lots of flash -- YouTube, Amazon, Hotmail, aol ... load in a few seconds. OK, just tested: Amazon 4 seconds, Hotmail 5 seconds for first page, then 2 seconds to inbox, aol.com 2 seconds, YouTube 4 seconds til it will scroll, then another 5 seconds til IE8 reports "done." All of these will come up faster the second time, since they are now cached. They also come up faster in Google Chrome, but most of the time I use IE cause page layout looks nicer.

I really had the impression web pages on those old library computers popped up in 2 or 3 seconds at most. Another thing that occurs to me is they were physically set up to make downloads impossible, therefore no need for any virus protection.

I do use an older XP computer with single core 1.6 ghz processor. I don't think that becomes a bottleneck except when I have multiple pages open with flash running on every page.

I also use Adfender, which takes a little processing power, but it's well worth it. Cuts down ads by > 90% and makes pages load faster as a result. I should write up a little article on Adfender. It's pretty much a necessity for users of iTV, as opposed to IPTV, or even for YouTube.

Anyone remember when the internet was called Darpanet? No search engines, no world wide web (www). There was a guy at UW in Milwaukee that had a feed, and he would send tons of data via Fidonet to all the BBS's in southeast Wisconsin. You could see all this great info there, but completely cattywampus. Impossible to make any use of it.

I fought hooking up to the internet for a few years after it got its act together. COLOR! Why would anyone want COLOR on their computer??

Hey, I tell ya what. All the local BBS's came up on my C64 computer in less than a second! It was all text, and something called ascii -- you could get a few colors, italics, flashing text, whatever. We played games ... gabbed away for hours like old women. Progress, ha!

Rick

 

[n2rj]

Well, I remember "multimedia" since the early 90s, including the MPC standard. However, "multimedia" back then was CD-ROM based primarily.

Anyway, yes, the web wasn't as heavy back then. Today even text only websites load up megabytes of data on each page load.

Now we have videos, multimedia ads, large, hi-res images and web 2.0 where some websites are constantly polling for data via AJAX calls etc. But that has been enabled by increased connection speeds being available.

"Build it and they will come" as they say.

 

[Rickideemus]

Well, I remember "multimedia" since the early 90s, including the MPC standard. However, "multimedia" back then was CD-ROM based primarily.

Yup. I'm not sure how many 386 computers had CD players. I know my 286 didn't, my 486 did. You could have a dozen windows playing the CD simultaneously. No bottleneck.

My first personal computer was in 1974 -- an HP-65 programmable calculator. U.S. customs called it a computer, and hp called it a "small computer." Shortly after that, PC stood for "Pocket Computer." I had a raft of those, then a TS-1000, C64, Atari 800, then my first 16 bit IBM compatible. I wrote programs in GWBasic, which I then compiled with BASCOM. Compiled Basic existed (along with C, of course) years before there was such a thing as Windows. :hippie:

Anyway, yes, the web wasn't as heavy back then. ... "Build it and they will come" as they say.

Here's the thing: they "build it" primarily with web advertisers in mine. The whole purpose of an operating system should be to bring "Computer power to the people," as Ted Nelson once proclaimed. To channel maximum power to the end user -- the guy(al) that bought the computer in the first place.

I made that suggestion once on a forum for Linux developers. They seemed to think it was a terrific idea, but nobody could think of an OS that did anything like that -- not even a Linux distro!

If most users just realized how much difference this would make, and how far we've gone astray, the backlash would force Ms and Apple to start working on an operating system that actually, well, operates! Linux doesn't have the man power, absent a profit motive. You just have to make the big boys realize their profits will depend on end user satisfaction. Doesn't work that way, right now.

Maybe in a hundred years.

R.

 

[n2rj]

Here's the thing: they "build it" primarily with web advertisers in mine.

Well, I work for a large web property and yes, web advertisers are one way we make money. But that is assuming we're talking about web users only (and we are not). Web advertising pays the bills but there are new revenue streams like TV Everywhere, subscription and syndicated content.

And it is content like TVE (which you pay for indirectly through your cable or internet bill) is exactly what I am talking about when I say, "build it and they will come."

Speaking of which, one of the heaviest generators of Internet traffic in the US today does not make their money from ads. They make it from subscription content.

The whole purpose of an operating system should be to bring "Computer power to the people," as Ted Nelson once proclaimed. To channel maximum power to the end user -- the guy(al) that bought the computer in the first place.

I made that suggestion once on a forum for Linux developers. They seemed to think it was a terrific idea, but nobody could think of an OS that did anything like that -- not even a Linux distro!

Computing power should be transparent to most users. Apple, the most valuable company in the world, has embraced this.

People need their computers to do useful things. Few computer users are power users. Most of them use the computer like an appliance, which is why appliance type computers like the iPad are so popular.

If most users just realized how much difference this would make, and how far we've gone astray, the backlash would force Ms and Apple to start working on an operating system that actually, well, operates! Linux doesn't have the man power, absent a profit motive. You just have to make the big boys realize their profits will depend on end user satisfaction. Doesn't work that way, right now.

Maybe in a hundred years.

R.

Oh, Linux has plenty of money behind it. Red Hat, IBM, Oracle and many others. Much of GNU/Linux today was developed by professional developers and not strictly hobbyists.

 

[Rickideemus]

Well, I work for a large web property and yes, web advertisers are one way we make money. But that is assuming we're talking about web users only (and we are not). Web advertising pays the bills but there are new revenue streams like TV Everywhere, subscription and syndicated content.

And it is content like TVE (which you pay for indirectly through your cable or internet bill) is exactly what I am talking about when I say, "build it and they will come."

I'm talking strictly about operating system design, nothing else.

A few simple examples:

- How many times have you seen a loading web page take over a computer, such that hitting the X in upper right corner -- or ANY procedure -- refuses to abort and return Power To The User? The user (aka computer owner) should have top priority at all times over all processes. Simplest thing in the world. Just do it.

- Virtually infinite programming power (transparent, to use your term) could be available right now to every user. Visual Basic comes close. It's very simple to go one small extra step and write out the UI for this capability. Thanks to Turing, we know if you can write the UI (and a couple other criteria, which are all met), you can program it. But they won't do it, because they can't live without the programming suite sales. Programming must remain some sort of black art.

- Every software upgrade, by definition, should make older hardware work better, not the reverse. Why don't they do this? Because OS sellers are in bed with hardware sellers ("Wintel"), and because people don't know this is even possible. Trust me, it's possible.

- Instead, every software upgrade, by definition, is a scam that allows the software co. yet another opportunity to take a thorough inventory of your hard drive.

- Each new upgrade has the potential to disrupt functionality in other programs or processes, and often does. Yet people blindly follow this practice, grateful to brag they are first on the block with the latest tweaks and features, instead of asking, simply, WHEN ARE THEY GOING TO GET IT RIGHT??

Computers are a universally frustrating experience for all end users. It doesn't have to be that way. Moore's law applies to hardware speed, not software efficiency. You could turn the hardware clock back ten years, and people would be happier with the whole experience, if they just allowed owners to keep some semblance of control over their own hardware.

Computing power should be transparent to most users. Apple, the most valuable company in the world, has embraced this.

Sorry, you've drunk so deeply from the kool-aid, communication may be a :deadhorse:

Rick

 

[n2rj]

No, actually I have an intimate knowledge of iOS, OSX, Linux, UNIX and other systems. This is not "kool aid drinking." I have written software for consumer and professional operating systems, mobile devices, and other things, programmed in a lot of high and low level languages.

The Apple way wins for the end user, except in a very few cases where it's Apple's way or the highway. But for the most part, Apple products win over everything else in terms of usability. They have a set of guidelines for iOS that they enforce when approving apps for the app store. It is this manual review process that keeps a lot of junk out of the app store.

Trust me, I used to be rabidly anti-Apple until I started working with Apple products. There are so many little things that they get right.

As for legacy hardware, you are not going to be able to provide new features AND make older hardware work well. There comes a point of diminishing returns.