The expanded network will be available to 10 million consumers beginning next week and will reach 18 million people by 2010, Verizon said. FiOS will be available in various configurations ranging from 50 megabits per second downstream and 20 Mbps upstream to 10 Mbps downstream and two Mbps upstream.

The expansion upgrades FiOS customers in parts of California, Delaware, Indiana, Maryland, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia and Washington. Those customers previously were limited to a range of 30 Mbps downstream and 15 Mbps upstream to five Mbps downstream and two Mbps upstream.

Ever-Growing Demand

Verizon sees ever-increasing demand for bandwidth as users download and upload large media files like video and high-resolution photos. "As our customers shoot and send their own photos and movies, work at home more often, and expand their home networks, they love the faster speeds FiOS delivers," President and CEO Denny Strigl said.

The announcement came as Comcast announced a slowdown in rolling out its faster cable network, based on DOCSIS. That network will offer 80 Mbps downstream and 30 Mbps upstream.

Verizon's announcement doesn't reflect any new investments in the network. "This is not an infrastructure upgrade; it's a loosening of the speed caps by Verizon," said George Ou, senior analyst at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, in an e-mail. "Verizon fundamentally has a lot more bandwidth than any DOCSIS 1.1 or 3.0 network," the technology on which cable networks are based. "We're talking many times more bandwidth," Ou added.

Impressive Infrastructure

"The first DOCSIS 3.0 implementations are 76/27 Mbps down/up shared amongst a cable node consisting of anywhere between 200 and 400 users," Ou said. "So in an absolute worst case situation where 200 users are using their cable broadband service at full throttle at the same time, you get .380/.135 Mbps per user, or 380/135 Kbps per user."

By comparison, the first implementations in Verizon's FiOS service is 622/155 Mbps down/up shared between fewer than 32 homes, Ou said. Worst case: 19.4/4.8 Mbps per FiOS customer if everyone tries to use their FiOS service at full throttle at the same time, which isn't likely to happen. And, Ou said, Verizon can upgrade over the existing fiber to 2488/1244 Mbps speeds. (continued...)

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