Need for Speed

The FCC (the U.S. Federal Communications Commission) announced that by 2020, it expects to require Internet providers to offer minimum home connection speeds up to 100 Mbps (megabits per second).  

While AT&T and Qwest think it is unrealistic, Verizon already offers speeds up to 50 Mbps and Google is on the brink of offering up high speed to millions of people in the U.S.  Once again proving innovation wins over regulation. 

Verizon’s spokesman was quite optimistic in the FCC’s announcement stating, “(One gigabit per second) as discussed in current news reports is a lot of signal; typically enough for many massive business operations,” Verizon said in a statement that referred to Google’s plan to test a network with those speeds. “But we could make it happen over the FiOS network without much trouble, should a market for it develop.”  Verizon is the third-largest provider of Internet services and actually has a more advanced network than either AT&T or Qwest.  Verizon’s spokesman said that they have already completed testing  the 100 Mbps speeds through its fiber-optic FiOS network. 

When Alltel split in Montana, half of its customers went to Verizon and half went to AT&T due to anti-trust concerns.  I’m sure the AT&T half of Alltel customers will be bemoaning their fate at this juncture when Verizon speeds ahead and AT&T is left in the dust of this technology race.  On the other hand, the race is not over.  May the best and fastest Internet connection win! 

You can read the full article here.