I really wish they start the service in the D.C Metro/VA regions too. We have FIOS but they charge ridiculous prices (i.e. ridiculous compared to G Fiber prices :-))
Suburbs of DC (at least NOVA) has a decent number of places that have FiOS.
Also the cable situation isn't that bad if you have Cox rather than Time Warner.
But the dominating factor of what determines where people live in the suburbs seems to be schools more so than internet. Google fiber here would be more of a novelty.
Alexandria, VA seems perfect for FiOS: highly educated people in the middle to upper class, living in dense suburbs. The city government even asked Verizon to bring FiOS. We never got it.
Verizon does not even offer DSL to my address anymore, despite the fact that I already have DSL over Verizon lines via an old independent CLEC.
It's ridiculous, and the city is stuck with a Comcast broadband monopoly that underperforms. As a result the city council is now looking at municipal fiber.
I think that NYC and DC already have Verizon FIOS, as do the suburbs of Boston, but not Boston proper. Why compete with an existing and decent fiber service when you can stick it to Time Warner- sorry, Comcast and AT&T instead?
Even here in Northern Virginia, it's spotty. Alexandria is still a FiOS-free zone, for example. Verizon was planning on it for a couple of years, but then changed their mind. Their statement said, essentially, that they already had enough FiOS customers and didn't need any more, thanks but no thanks.
That would be nice. My local fiber option is Verizon or nothing. Verizon's tech works very well, but their customer service is terrible. Many people think that Verizon only pushed FiOS as hard as they did because it gave them a way to push out the competitors they had on DSL. Once DSL died off so did their drive to deploy FiOS.
I live in South Philadelphia (7th and Oregon), and while I have neither Comcast nor Verizon service, it seems like I can get either. They both mail me at least once a week, and occasionally come to my door, asking me to sign up. I investigated signing up for FIOS, but the cost was $90/month, and it just isn't worth that much to me. I have FIOS at work and it's fantastic, but my employer only pays $25/month for it.
From what I understand, Verizon is not expanding their FIOS service area anymore, because so many people are like me, and don't want to pay much for it.
DC is one of the only places that has competitive FTTH in the country - the same place all the regulators are saying there isn't a problem. Surely no coincidence?
As a North Carolinian, I am all for more competition. Just today I found out I can order Wideband Internet from Time Warner Cable (50Mbps down) for only $99. This is after languishing for over a decade at 5-7Mbps. I'm theorizing that the muni-backed broadband initiatives are spurring the existing monopolies to "step their game up" so to speak.
Verizon has been promising this for quite a while now. From what I've heard, the third and highest tier of FiOS can only get up to 50mbps (if you're lucky). http://www.newnetworks.com/tellthetruthverizon.htm
"We estimate that nationwide, through tax cuts and overcharging, customers have paid an estimated $70 billion dollars for non-existent broadband services. In Pennsylvania alone, we estimate that Verizon already collected $785 per household for services customers never received."
What's so frustrating is that only some sections of some large metro areas (like Los Angeles and Dallas) can get it. Looking at the FIOS map from broadbandreports[1], there's no FIOS availability within the 635 ring east of I-35, which is most (all?) of Dallas proper.
The main places with solid FIOS coverage are in the northeast: most major metro areas in the VA Beach-DC-NYC-Boston corridor. And Pittsburgh. And Ft. Wayne, IN. Because Ft. Wayne clearly needs FTTP more than Indianapolis.
Most other municipalities in the rest of the country are either locked into exclusivity contracts with other providers, or can't be bothered to give their residents real choice of good providers, or Verizon doesn't want the initial outlay for infrastructure costs for more deployment at this time, or some combination.
Washington DC - my neighborhood has Comcast, RCN, and Verizon. Our neighbors report better service on all three — and when you go a couple blocks south where the FIOS rollout stopped, regression to normal sets in for Comcast.
We also have municipal fiber but they’ve chosen not to make that available for residential service which is really disappointing but … politics.
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