Free Speed upgrades during COVID 19

SB521

I would like to suggest that during these troubled times in a national emergency, when a LOT of folks are working at home, that Verizon FIOS offer free speed upgrades for a 3-6 month period. Verizon Wireless just upgraded my plan in a similar fashion

smith6612

From which plan? The problem FiOS has will be any customer under 100Mbps without an Ethernet connection to their router, or running something older than the Rev. I ActionTec. Coax from the ONT can't carry more than 100Mbps reliably, and a Rev. I ActionTec is the first router Verizon offered with Gigabit Ethernet ports.

The other element is for BPON customers and VDSL customers. 75Mbps/75Mbps is the max BPON customers can get, and those with ancient VDSL setups likely aren't getting more than 30Mbps/5Mbps. They require a technician visit, which, Verizon isn't going to prioritize right now for the sake of their techs' health.

DSL Customers are in a similar boat. Even if a line could take more bandwidth, some DSLAMs are limited in backhaul. Especially in rural areas, you might be looking at an 8xT1 backhaul (12Mbps) which is being shared up to 48 customers. A lot of this stems from a lack of investment in the network, mostly because Verizon is trying to phase it out in favor of 5G and FiOS.

Cable companies are also in a similar boat. Many have to be careful that they don't set the speed on a modem too high, because it may just lead to further congestion on a node. For example, an 8x4 cable modem may be capable of taking in 344Mbps of bandwidth... but if you provision it to 200Mbps now that customer is more likely to cause problems for others on the node using the same channels, versus a DOCSIS 3.1 customer that can take in 2+Gbps of bandwidth at once. Some customers require truck rolls to remove TV Traps from their lines in order to access more DOCSIS 3.0 or 3.1 channels, and some customers need not only a new modem, but a new router to boot. They can't force anyone to rent a router or modem.

It's easy for Verizon Wireless to "give more" when their entire network cost structure was originally built around data caps rather than delivering an open pipe set at a hard speed. Tossing more Gigabytes at peoples' phones and hotspots is a positive thing, but, I would argue that A: Few people know what a Gigabyte is and how much it can really give you, and B: it would be better if Verizon actually just speed limited the hotspot and LTE Installed customers to a speed like 5Mbps, something capable of 720p video minimum, and provided TRUE Unlimited on them rather than the slowdown to 600kbps or less after so many Gigabytes.