Is there anyone who is familiar with this? How does it compare with Comcast TV/Internet/phone? Or Dish Network?

Here is a link: http://www.fioscentral.com/article/fios-in-oregon-224-1.html

Friends I know who have FIOS love it. Very fast. I can't get it where I live (Qwest terrority, Multnomah County; Verizon only offers FIOS in their own territory). Actually, I probably wouldn't anyway - I wouldn't be able to run my web server off of it the way I do with my Qwest DSL line. But I digress.

One advantage of FIOS: upload speed. It's 2Mbps which is at least 2X faster than either DSL or cable or anything else out there. Most people care more about download speed, but if you are ever uploading stuff (e.g. pictures) to a website, the quick upload speed of FIOS would speed things along significantly.

I think I read that if Verizon hooks up FIOS for you, they will then DISCONNECT any possibly connection to DSL, so you can't switch back. Not sure why that is, but I'm not sure why you would want to switch back.

Andrew

My dad had it in his old apartment in Beaverton.
It rocked! Very fast!

Then I got a 6Meg DSL line here,from Qwerst.
It's a close call.
I think the latency on the FiOS was lower,Page loads were *instant*.

At a certain point the speed limiter becomes not your internet connection but the connection speed of the backbone you are connected to and of the internet itself. If a website is hosted on a 1.5Mbps connection, having a 6Mbps connection to the internet won't allow it to load faster. It's like having a car that can go 300 mph - you won't be able to drive it that fast through the Terwilliger curves...

Andrew

I currently have Comcast for cable TV and Internet and may be interested in switching when both are available in my area. I knew that fiber was installed in my neighborhood, but I wasn't sure what was availiable or how it compares with Comcast. I have heard good things about it though. Here is and article from yesterday's O that answers many of my questions.

Verizon closes in on Comcast

Pete

FIOS came to my neck of the woods, and Verizon has taken every opportunity to try to get me to switch from DSL. Having a faster connection would be great, but I am in the same situation as Andrew in that I want the availability to operate a server. Does Verizon's introduction of FIOS into an area carry with it a plan to completely replace all the copper lines in that area at some specific date?

I'm sure EVENTUALLY Verizon will want to stop using the copper (not actually replace it most likely) but the DSL itself is probably more expensive for them to operate vs. FIOS. Plus they can sell you TV over FIOS, something they presumably can't do over copper.

Out of curiosity, does Verizon let you run a server today off of their residental DSL circuits? Somehow I thought they blocked some ports but I could be wrong; it might be simply the ISP that would block them. Even so you can use other ports to run a server if it's not a public server (so visit for example 123.456.789.123:5000 to use port 5000, as long as you now to use that port).

Andrew