By WALTER S. MOSSBERG
High-speed Internet connections have finally gone mainstream in the
U.S. But there's a problem: What passes for high speed in this country
is pathetically slow compared with Internet service in some other
countries.
For instance, Verizon's entry-level DSL service, at 768 kilobits per
second for downloads and 128 kilobits per second for uploads, is
considered high-speed here. But in Japan and Korea, families can buy
moderately priced Internet service measured in the tens of megabits
per second. They get a race car, while Americans are stuck with a
bicycle.
A megabit per second (mbps) connection moves about 1,000 times as much
data every second as a kilobit per second (kbps) connection. A service
running at 10 megabits per second is more than 13 times as fast as
Verizon's base DSL service. All such services have two modes:
downstream, for downloading Web pages, email and files; and upstream,
for uploading email or files. Generally, Internet providers offer much
faster downstream speeds than upstream speeds.
Even the faster common U.S. broadband offerings, like Comcast's $42.95
a month basic cable-modem service, which delivers 6 mbps downstream
and 384 kbps upstream, are ridiculously slow compared with the Asian
offerings.
But now, Verizon is offering Americans in certain parts of the country
a new, much faster Internet service for only a little more than
Comcast charges for its basic service. This new product, called Fios,
offers 15 mbps downstream and 2 mbps upstream for $50 a month, or $45
a month if you use Verizon for your telephone service.
There are also two other Fios plans: 5 mbps downstream and 2 mbps
upstream for $40 a month; and 30 mbps downstream and 5 mbps upstream
for $200 a month. Both also are discounted if you also use Verizon
phone service.
I had Fios installed in my house in July, and I've been comparing it
with Comcast's basic cable-modem service. I have been pleased with
Fios's speed and reliability, which are true to Verizon's claims. On
some tasks, it is markedly faster than Comcast. And on my laptops
connected via a Wi-Fi wireless network, which tends to degrade
Internet speeds, the speed increase has been especially noticeable.
http://ptech.wsj.com/archive/ptech-20050915.html
Monty Solomon (monty@roscom.com)