Verizon Ups DSL Speeds, Closes Gap with Comcast

With analysts claiming that Verizon was focusing on FiOS Internet at the expense of its standalone copper-based DSL service, the company said it will ratchet up DSL speeds in 12 Eastern states and the District of Columbia to 7mbps.

The faster offering comes at a time when use of streaming technology for movie viewing and downloading is climbing as a fast-growing number of content owner ventures, such as Hulu are putting huge libraries of full-length movies and TV series on their sites. Add increasing online gaming and video sharing as additional drivers for fatter pipes.

The 7mbps service, which the telco said can be ordered now by some 1.2 million customers, more than doubles the downstream speed of its current offering. Verizon did not list the maximum upstream speed. It costs as low as $39.99 a month with an annual service plan, but more if acquired otherwise.

The telco said the following locations are part of the 7mbps DSL expansion: Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, D.C., and West Virginia.

Verizon introduced this offering to more than 400,000 home phone lines in the Great Lakes, Southeast, South and West Coast. The telco says it expects the 7mbps service to be available to more than 2 million homes and small businesses in 22 states and the District of Columbia by the end of 2008.

Verizon is engaged in an all-out battle to deliver the highest speed Internet access service with archrivals such as Comcast Corp., which recently upped its speed in the San Francisco Bay Area to 16mbps.

The telco has won much acclaim, and many customers, for its symmetric 20/20 offering which provides up 20mbps of throughout downstream and upstream, with its deployment begun last year. Verizon’s new 7mbps offering is only 1mbps (downstream) slower than Comcast’s top speed in most of the United States.

Cablecos such as Comcast hope to offer higher ‘net access speeds when they deploy DOCSIS 3.0 technology in their networks. The cable colossus claimed at the Consumer Electronics Show in early January that it plans to pass up to 20 percent of its homes by yearend.

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