Verizon Broadband History
Verizon Broadband Internet is a popular high-speed internet service in the United States. Recently, many of Verizon’s nodes in the western part of the United States were acquired by Frontier Communications, another telecommunications corporation.
Verizon’s award-winning internet service is used by businesses and residential clients across the United States and Canada. Verizon Broadband internet service is used by over 10 million clients in the United States alone. Many of Verizon’s rural clients were moved over to Frontier Communications during the switch, as Verizon wanted to liquidate a number of their rural connections for reasons of cost efficiency.
Some quick facts about Verizon and Verizon Broadband:
• Verizon Broadband service reaches an average speed of 750 kb/s, as compared to advertised download speeds of 1-2mb/s.
• Verizon Broadband has not been involved in any net neutrality cases, and Verizon has only had a limited number of violations in regards to net neutrality.
• Verizon Broadband makes use of the ACTIONTEC series of modems, which are produced and re-assembled in South Korea.
• This service extends out to over 71% of the US population. The rural clients of Verizon were recently transferred over to the control of Frontier Communications, who use the exact same technology as Verizon to maintain their lines.
• Verizon replaced GTE as Washington and California’s exclusive phone company during the mid to late nineties.
A Brief History
Verizon Broadband has run out most of the competition, leaving Comcast as the only major competitor with the internet service. Previously, Qwest, RedSpott, and other services offered similar speed for a similar price.
Verizon continues to compete with Comcast in many telecom services including landline phone service, high-speed internet, and fiber optic television. Comcast’s value bundle deal has reportedly drawn a decent number of customers away from Verizon Broadband’s service.
In 2009, Verizon garnered an award for excellence in high-speed internet service from Consumer Reports. A high level of customer satisfaction propelled Verizon to the top of the list for the year.
Future Service
Technical documents released by the company in 2010 show that Verizon plans to phase out their current broadband service for a faster internet service by the year 2015. Current lines will be “augmented”, says the document, to support fiber-optic technology.
Verizon’s main profits come from their mobile phone division, which rakes in over 60% of the company’s annual revenue.
Do Verizon’s technical manuals give any hint what the future of internet service may look like?
If Comcast follows in Verizon’s footsteps by eliminating their broadband service by 2015, many other prospective companies may follow suit. Who knows when new telecommunications giants will rise up to challenge Verizon and Comcast, the current reigning kings of high-speed internet service.