It was 3 months ago that I switched from Comcast high speed Internet to Verizon Fios.  Comcast wasn’t terrible, but I wanted more upstream bandwidth than the tiny 384k they provided standard.  I switched to the Verizon Fios 15/2 package, which gives me 15Mb downstream and 2Mb upstream.  I knew going in that 2Mb upstream really meant 1.8Mb but it was such a huge difference over what I had before that it really didn’t matter.

So far I can report that Fios has worked out really, really well.  Verizon was excellent to deal with every step of the way and the installation went smoothly.  The work done in my yard was barely noticeable in March, even though it was Winter.  A month ago they came back out and reseeded any areas that needed it without me making a single phone call.

Here is the result of the speed test I just took:

Download Speed: 15446 kbps (1930.8 KB/sec transfer rate)
Upload Speed: 1800 kbps (225 KB/sec transfer rate)

As you can see, Verizon is still delivering on the bandwidth rates they advertised.  Is it noticeable?  Yes.  For regular web browsing web pages load a little quicker.  Nothing huge, but a little quicker.  Downloads are a different story.  I buy a lot of music at iTunes so when I would buy a song before it would download in 30 seconds or so.  Not bad at all.  Those same songs now download in approximately 3-4 seconds.  Albums are downloading in 5 minutes or less.  I watch a bunch of video podcasts and they download in minutes.  Full screen streaming of Lost from the ABC web site (ABC is really kicking everyone’s behind when it comes to providing content) is flawless.  Even my Skype and Vonage calls (now that Vonage seems to have their stuff together again) are a little better.

For me it was the right decision and I’d make it again.  I was never a big fan of Verizon and their customer service, but my experience with Fios so far is definitely changing my opinion.