The Fastest Net Yet

Worth the Wait

Analyst Rob Enderle, founder of The Enderle Group, uses DSL but is eagerly awaiting the pumped-up bandwidth. "At the price points they are talking about, I'd grab it in a minute," he says.

For example, Verizon's basic Fios service, which offers speeds of 5 megabits per second downstream and 2 mbps upstream, costs $40 a month; $50 per month boosts downstream rates to 15 mbps. The high-end $200 monthly package delivers 30 mbps downstream and 5 mbps upstream. (Subscribers to Verizon phone service plans receive discounts of $5 to $20 a month.)

Verizon attains these speeds by replacing copper cables with fiber-optic lines. Like DSL and cable ISPs, providers of fiber-based services generally offer asymmetric data rates (downstream throughput that's two to six times higher than upstream), because the majority of residential customers download more than they upload.

Even so, upstream rates have increased greatly, and customers notice. "With more and more people sharing pictures on the Internet...the 2-megabits-per-second upload can really help move things along," Dektor says.

The other nationwide fiber rollout is SBC's $4 billion Project Lightspeed, slated to reach 18 million households by the end of 2007. (Meanwhile, SBC has sped up its Yahoo DSL Pro service.) Cable companies such as Comcast, Cox, and Time Warner/Road Runner have also announced big hikes in downstream data rates (see chart for plan details). Cox, for example, has raised downstream rates for its basic service from 1 mbps to 4 or 5 mbps. Even if you don't opt to buy these new services, you might benefit as prices drop for slower broadband, says Michael Arden, broadband analyst with ABI Research.