From the moment the first resident of Keller Texas posted pictures of his Verizon Fios fiber install, he received adoration (and even one marriage proposal) from many of our site regulars. Users all around the country aren't waiting for Santa Clause, they're waiting for Verizon vans carrying spools of un-laid fiber optic cable.

Users in deployment areas have offered us the brochures they're receiving (zipped pdf) as well as local advertisements (pdf 1, pdf2). The skinny for those who don't know: 5Mbps can be had for between $34.95 and $39.95 depending on the services you bundle. 15Mbps can be had for between $44.95 to $49.95. 30Mbps is currently being offered as a business service for $200 a month.



Verizon has announced that there are nine states in which deployment is currently underway:

•Parts of Huntington Beach and Murrieta, as well as portions of Riverside, Orange and San Bernardino counties in California
•Parts of Delaware
•Parts of North Tampa (if they can stop rupturing lines), as well as Hillsborough and Pasco counties in Florida
•Parts of Montgomery County in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area in Maryland
•Parts of Essex and Middlesex counties in Massachusetts
•Parts of Nassau, Rockland and Westchester counties in New York
•Parts of Bucks and Chester counties in Pennsylvania
•Parts of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex in Texas, as well as Colleyville, Grapevine and Southlake
•Parts of Arlington, Fairfax and Loudoun counties, as well as the communities of Falls Church, Leesburg and Herndon in Virginia

The company is warming up users in other locations to the idea of a 2005 launch.

Users in upstate New York are being told they could see fiber next year, but Verizon is "not at a point where we can identify what those communities are because those plans could change", according to an executive. One local Union leader confirms both the work, and that the service "will blow the doors off anything else, and I'm glad we're a part of it. I'm glad it's coming up here."

While there should be enthusiasm, especially surrounding the 3-5,000 new jobs Verizon says the project will bring, said enthusiasm does need some tempering. The project could consume more than half a decade, and as it stands now, there are only a few scattered Texas suburbs that actually have the service up and running.

Each install in Keller Texas is estimated to have cost in excess of $1,000 a pop. Those prices will make it financially necessary to cherry pick the most dense and lucrative neighborhoods over the next few years. Users currently struggling to get DSL shouldn't hold their breath for Fios.

For some global perspective, the NTT Group in Japan will spend $47 billion on expanding fiber to the home for nearly half the Japanese population. Compare that to Verizon's effort: $800,000 to be spent this year, and $3 billion to be spent by the end of 2005. It's also very important to note that Verizon promises tend to be fickle mistresses.

NTT's plan covers some 30 million homes and apartments, in a country where double digit megabit per second speeds can be had for the same price many Americans are paying for dial-up AOL. Verizon's plan hopes to pass (not necessarily serve) a million U.S. homes this year.

Granted Japan has 336 people per mile to every 29.5 in the United States, but we've also been much less bullish on getting fiber deployed. While the United States was the birthplace of the Internet, it now ranks thirteenth globally in broadband adoption behind countries like Belgium and Iceland.

As of this year, 146,500 American homes are connected to fiber. With the bells finally embracing inevitable upgrades, hopefully that number will quickly rise and speed tests like the following (from Keller, Texas) will become more commonplace:

2004-08-25 13:48:32 EST: 14679 / 1794
Your download speed : 15031536 bps, or 14679 kbps.
A 1834.9 KB/sec transfer rate.
Your upload speed : 1837109 bps, or 1794 kbps.

For those interested on keeping tabs on Fios deployment in your area, keep an eye on this thread in our Verizon forum.