Verizon FiOS Drastically Increases Upload Speed
Living in the Tampa Bay Area does have it’s advantages – not many for tech enthusiasts, but there is a company that’s been giving me a high fiber diet for the past 5 years, Verizon FiOS. The moment the service was available in the area, I got signed up on the most reasonable package available at the time, 25/15. This was 3 times faster download and 10-15 times faster upload speeds as the crappy DSL and eventually cable service I had when I lived in Celebration.
I immediately started uploading files to my webserver and downloading totally legal movies and tv shows. My download and upload speeds were always higher than their advertised speeds, so I was content. After several months, I saw an email from them saying they were automatically increased the upload speeds to match the download speed — great!
This was back in 2009 – the service was just rolling out to homes. Over the next few years, the internet service has increased, as have my expectations. I’ve had my customer service issues here and there — one interesting one where a billing dispute caused them to stop billing us for 6 months while they “resolved” the issues — but all in all, it’s the only service in the area that provides solid internet speeds at a semi reasonable cost. The only way to keep costs down is unfortunate, though, as you have to be a “new” customer to take advantage of the discounted rates. With this, I’ve bounced service between my name and others every time the discounts go away in order to keep the costs down. A recent storm knocked out my service and a rep wasn’t available for a week — a perfect opportunity to get the new rate.
With all of that.. I just had FiOS come out and install “new” service at the beginning of the month — 75/35 internet, just like last time. New package, lower rate – I’m set. I wasn’t here during the installation, but when I got home and service was back up and running, so I went ahead and ran a Speedtest. 83 Megabits down… great, 8Mbps over, like always. Then the upload test began. 20, 30, 40, 50 – my eyes light up – 60, 70, 80 – holy crap – 90… 91… 92.. 93.87Mbps.
At this point I was blown away, “It must be a fluke”. I went ahead and ran another test, getting nearly identical results. I figured I wouldn’t say anything. I don’t really need the extra upload speed, but I certainly don’t want to draw any attention (you know, except for some Facebook bragging). After running the test every few days and continuing to get similar results, I knew something was up – but nothing was showing up online.
Now, it seems they are doing yet another data service upgrade. I just got an email from Verizon about their new promotion – “Now you can upload as fast as you download.” – or in my case, “upload faster than you download.”.
