Based on a comment in anaother message here I Googled "FIOS Buildout cancelled" and found these 2 articles interesting and disturbing:
http://www.neowin.net/news/verizon-to-stop-building-out-its-fios-infrastructure
My take on these is that Verizon feels FIOS is no longer a viable long term strategy and is instead shifting its focus to 4G LTE. Apparently it plans to use frequencies bought from satellite companies as new 4G LTE broadcast/brioadband bands.
Overall I find this news disturbing. I've been a very satisified FIOS customer since the service became available in my area, and it did seem to me that FIOS was a good way to get the US into the broadband era. I recently ready that overall, the US is 16th in the world in terms of broadband availablilty and speed.
Does 4G LTE have the ability to compete with FIOS in terms of avaialability and speed? It's not at all clear to me that it does. I understand that setting up cell towers is lots cheaper than installing fiber optic cable, but in the long run what will be better for the bulk of the end user community?
I guess this explains why it is virtually impossible to get Wireless N FIOS routers. And why you never read about new areas getting FIOS service.
This is all very disappointing indeed.
I wouldn't say it's dying, it's just starting to become something that Verizon doesn't seem to want to expand further so they can retire the copper network once FiOS becomes fully matured. Verizon mainly stopped FiOS expansion due to shareholders complaining about the amount of money the network was costing, in addition to the wasteful spending on other things within the company and finally, a lack of uptake on the network. I hope that the FiOS network continues to be expanded in it's current Fiber-optic to the Home form, and not to something like Fixed LTE or Fiber to the Hub which turns it into an AT&T U-Verse product which is horrible in comparison to FTTH for both TV and Internet service. I just hope they don't start treating FiOS like the copper network is treated. DSL's been falling apart for ages, and the copper network is getting old and not being repaired as it should.
As far as LTE having the capacity as FiOS? Wake me up when a single home can receive a sustained 10Gbps on such a connection without much jitter. LTE is a joke of a connection to be replacing Fiber with. Doesn't matter to me how much it's improved over the past few years. VDSL2+ with Pair Gain is a better choice but still costs as much as a FTTH install anyways. Heck, Ethernet runs which can go for 300 feet can hit 10Gbps on some good copper. Right now the highest I've seen Verizon's LTE network go is 50Mbps per tower/radio. TV alone would require at least 15Mbps for it to look halfway decent with MPEG4 encoding. H.264 encoding (superior to MPEG4) looks good at around 10Mbps. Verizon will try to say they'll build mini-stations for homes but that won't work out too well when everyone's DVRs are constantly streaming data.
Good point about the bandwidth required for showing HD (Blu-Ray) video. I have a PS3 and it has a screen that shows what the current real-time bandwdith is for both audio & video. When playing Blu-Ray movies the video bandwidth varies from about 12Mbps to 20 Mbps, depending on what's happening on the screen. The audio bandwidth is separate from and in addition to this.
I am aware of the limitations copper cable has (I used to subscribe to Cox cable) and I was happy to switrch to FIOS when it became available in my area. Cell service in my area is a problem due to hilly terrain and I don't see how even the best 4G service (which I currently can't get at all) would work. Satellites suffer from tranmission delay times so FIOS seems like the best option for me.
The name of the game is bandwidth, yes? It's starting to seem like another major US company is heading in the wrong direction simply due to the pressure to make short term profits. How short-sighted can CEO's be? and how can shareholders continue to allow their huge salaries and bonuses?
To tell the truth, both FiOS TV and Cable TV are delivered via Satellate at some point in the transmission. I have yet to see a station who transmits their information over a Fiber connection to the destinations yet. Many of Verizon's Video Hubs often have large satellite dishes which are used to receive stations. Cable companies often have the same setup. Now, unless something has changed since I last saw such a setup, this is actually how FiOS TV is also delivered. Just, Verizon doesn't re-compress what they receive from XYZ station.
Now if FiOS were to simply take a step backyards to the point where nothing comes in as Fiber, Verizon has a trial going on the last I checked with DirecTV to deliver Television service via Satellite Dishes on people's homes, while on the dish itself, a Fixed LTE antenna is present to deliver Data and Voice, too. It's a replacement for DSL, but it isn't a replacement for Fiber. If it replaces Fiber, then I won't be getting it. Simple as that 🙂
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