Verizon Offers $20 FiOS Value Plan
Posted by Jesse Ward on Monday, July 18, 2011 · 
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Tech blog Broadband Reports calls our attention to a new Verizon promo, offering select users 3 Mbps downstream and 1 Mbps upstream FiOS service for just $20 a month. The FTTH offer requires that the user also bundle traditional landline phone service, but the price is guaranteed for one year, without a contract, and Verizon is throwing in free installation.
It’s a clever idea designed to motivate legacy DSL users to upgrade their service, and entice “lite” customers to retain their FTTH service.
“We introduced the 3 Mpbs offer in late spring,” Verizon’s Bob Elek said to Broadband Reports. “We’re using the 3 Mbps FiOS Internet offer principally to migrate our 1 Mbps high-speed Internet (DSL) customers and as a retention offer.”
For more, see this online promo.
Texas Telco Launches 80 Mbps Service Tier
Posted by Jesse Ward on Tuesday, May 31, 2011 · ·
GVTC Communications, Texas’s largest telephone cooperative, has just launched a new 80 Mbps downstream, 20 Mbps upstream fiber broadband tier. Although the service won’t appeal to everyone, GVTC is confident that certain users will upgrade from its existing 40 Mbps service, launched back in 2009.
According to the GVTC website, the new 80 Mbps tier is being offered for $210 standalone, $205 as part of a double-play bundle, or $200 as part of a triple-play bundle. The company also offers 20/3 service ($75, $70, $65) and a 40/10 tier ($100, $95, $90). GVTC says that these tiers do not have usage caps.
For more, see the GVTC website.
Google Picks Kansas City for FTTH Network
Posted by Jesse Ward on Monday, April 4, 2011 · (1) ·
Back in February, Google announced it was launching an experimental 1 Gbps FTTH network in a small number of trial locations across the United States. The Internet giant received more than 1,100 applications from communities nationwide and took its time evaluating the contenders.
Last week Google officially announced that it has chosen Kansas City, Kan., as the first place that will get its ultra-fast broadband network. Google signed a development agreement with the city and it plans to work closely with local organizations, businesses and universities to bring a next-generation Web experience to the community. (See the video after the jump.) Read more
Google Begins Fiber Network Trials at Stanford
Posted by Jesse Ward on Monday, October 25, 2010 · ·
Google announced late last week that is moving forward with its plans to build a FTTH broadband network. After conducting experiments of various fiber technologies on its corporate campus, Google reported on its blog that it will create a beta network at nearby Stanford University, the alma matter of the company’s co-founders.
The Internet giant will build an ultra-high speed broadband network for the university’s Residential Subdivision, a group of approximately 850 faculty- and staff-owned homes on campus. Through this trial the company plans to offer Internet speeds up to 1 Gbps, more than 100 times faster than what most people have access to today.
However, James Kelly, a product manager for Google, was quick to point that the Stanford University project is completely separate from its community selection process for Google Fiber, which is still ongoing. Google announced last February that it would build an experimental FTTH network in a small number of trial locations across the United States which will service between 50,000 and potentially up to 500,000 people. Hundreds of communities, many with their own creative gimmicks, launched campaigns to win Google’s attention. Read more
Tennessee Municipal Utility Offers 1 Gbps to the Home
Posted by Jesse Ward on Monday, September 20, 2010 · ·
Chattanooga, Tennessee, now boasts the fastest Internet service in the country.
EPB Fiber Optics announced last week that by the end of this year it will offer ultra-high-speed Internet service of up to 1 Gbps to the end user’s home or business.
EPB, a subsidiary of Chattanooga’s electric utility, operates the largest municipal 100% fiber optic network in the country. Back in 2007, the city council voted 8-0 to approve the $200 million project, and despite two failed legal attempts by the cable industry to derail the project it has moved forward. The company services 170,000 homes and business spread over 600 square miles in Chattanooga, Hamilton County and parts of five other counties in southeast Tennessee and three in North Georgia.
EPB, which began offering high-speed broadband in 2009, provides 30 Mbps service for $58 a month, 50 Mbps for $71 a month, and 100 Mbps for $140 a month (recently reduced from $175). Currently, 15,000 customers subscribe to at least one fiber optic service—television, Internet access or phone service—and 12,000 subscribe to the Internet service. The high-speed Internet service is piggybacked on top of the utility’s smart-grid network, the impetus for the initial fiber-to-the-home network.
According to the New York Times, the utility plans to charge $350 a month for its 1 Gbps service tier, a high-ticket price tag that will likely only appeal to a handful of businesses, even though the service will be offered to every customer in its service area. “We don’t know how to price a gig,” said Harold DePriest, chief executive of EPB told the Times. “We’re experimenting. We’ll learn.”
FTTH Now Available to 20 Million North American Homes
Posted by Jesse Ward on Monday, September 20, 2010 · ·
End-to-end fiber optic networks capable of delivering enormous levels of bandwidth are now available to 20 million North American homes, according to a report released last week by the Fiber-to-the Home (FTTH) Council.
The council also announced that 6.45 million households on the continent now receive Internet, television and/or voice services over FTTH networks, an increase of about 650,000 from six months ago.
The precise number of “homes passed” by FTTH networks when the survey data was compiled is 19,966,000, representing approximately 17.4% of North American households, and up from about 18,250,000 homes passed six months ago.
The survey of broadband providers throughout North America, which is conducted by RVA Market Research, found that FTTH networks are continuing to expand beyond Verizon’s $23 billion deployment of its FiOS fiber to the home network, with hundreds of smaller telecoms across the continent now moving forward with FTTH upgrades. Read more
New Broadband Stimulus Awards Include Satellite, Public Safety Networks
Posted by Jesse Ward on Thursday, August 19, 2010 · ·
Yesterday Vice President Biden announced that as part of the second round of broadband funding through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), the government has awarded $1.8 billion to 94 new broadband projects within 37 states.
This announcement includes 66 grants awarded by the U.S. Department of Commerce National Telecommunications and Information Agency (NTIA) to deploy broadband and connect community anchor institutions, create and upgrade public computer centers, and encourage the sustainable adoption of broadband service. It also includes 28 awards from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Rural Utilities Service (RUS) for broadband infrastructure and satellite projects that will provide rural residents in 16 states and Native American tribal areas access to improved service.
The University of Arkansas received the largest financial award,$102 million, to connect community anchor institutions throughout the state. Other winners include Windstream which received more than $64 million for four new projects; Yadkin Valley Telephone Membership Corp. which received more than $21 million for a FTTH network; and Peoples Telephone Cooperative which was awarded more than $28 million to provide middle-mile broadband service in eastern Texas, connecting 190 community institutions to broadband.
For the first time the stimulus winners include four satellite operators: Read more