For the longest time, Verizon’s FIOS service was considered the fastest in the land and everyone oogled over living in an area that offered Verizon FIOS. It also had some of the best upload speeds available at the time, which would make anyone looking to upload their own content an incredibly happy camper. However, Verizon’s FIOS service was an assymetrical fiber optic service which meant that users were getting services like 50 Mbps download and 25 Mbps upload, and 100 Mbps download and 50 Mbps upload. However, in some other countries their fiber services are symmetrical, meaning that 100 Mbps download also has a 100 Mbps upload and this was illustrated by when Google launched Google Fiber and offered 1 Gbps up and 1 Gbps down.

Yes, Google’s own Google Fiber did take away some of the luster away from Verizon’s highly held FIOS service, but the real reason for Verizon’s move today has more to do with Comcast and Time Warner Cable and a bit AT&T. The fact is that in many areas Comcast and Time Warner Cable are offering speeds upwards of 100 Mbps with Time Warner Cable and AT&T delivering 300 Mbps to some customers in the Austin, TX area. Because these companies are finally starting to offer download speeds that actually compete with what Verizon has to offer, Verizon has decided that Verizon FIOS needs to set itself apart and the easiest way to do that is to have an upload speed that’s in some cases 10 to 20 times faster than their competitors’.

A good example is Time Warner Cable’s 100 Mbps down and 5 Mbps up service, which would be 20 times slower upload than what Verizon would offer their customers, making Time Warner Cable’s offering look much worse and to make Verizon’s marketing for Verizion FIOS incredible easy. Having more upload will ultimately not really cost Verizon much more money in terms of network capacity since most consumers barely use upload on a daily basis and the most network intensive thing they’ll do is upload photos to Facebook. However, there will be users that upload large images to their Flickr accounts or videos to Vimeo and YouTube. What will be interesting is to see how the increase in upload speeds will encourage users to start using online backup services and cloud storage more often now that it will take virtually no time to back things up anymore.

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In one of the most depressing rumor squashings I have ever had to personally experience, I am reporting to you today that Time Warner Cable’s rumored 300 Mbps, 200 Mbps services are not rolling out on July 7th. In fact, after speaking with Time Warner Cable’s representative for the San Diego area we got some even more depressing news.

According to Bret Picciolo of Time Warner Cable, the company will not be rolling out their 300 and 200 Mbps services in the San Diego area. This is in spite of multiple CSRs indicating to myself and other people that such services would be available starting July 7th. Bret made it clear that there was no hard date for any such services and that they were mostly intended for the Los Angeles and New York areas. He said that any such roll outs would be done by hub and not city-wide, which would take time to do rather than doing all at once.

What’s even more depressing about this rumor squashing is that not only is Time Warner Cable neglecting a clear desire for their customers to get 300 and 200 Mbps speeds, but they are also not bringing 100 Mbps speeds to San Diego. That’s right, San Diegans are STILL going to be stuck with 50/5 Mbps service unless they are blessed by the gods and Webpass is available in their building (or Webpass is willing to install).

As if all of that horrible news wasn’t depressing enough, Bret gave absolutely no indication of ANY plans to expand their 100, 200 or 300 Mbps services anywhere or any time in San Diego. He said that if the company were to do so, they would make a public announcement like they had for Los Angeles, New York and Austin. If you read our original article about the rumor you can see what kind of competition (there’s basically none) that exists within the San Diego area. This means that San Diego customers are basically stuck between Time Warner Cable, AT&T Uverse or possible Cox cable if they’re not in a Time Warner Cable service area. Either way, its a disgusting duopoly and this rumor squashing is a perfect example of that.

If anything, this confirms my belief that San Diego should start its own municipal broadband or municipal fiber network in order to keep the city competitive with places that will get Google Fiber or already have fiber.

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