Verizon’s FiOS TV and broadband service unveiled faster Internet upload speeds yesterday as a next step in competing with the cable industry while attempting to reverse slowing growth. The company is increasing the bandwidth its customers can use for uploading media, at no additional charge. FiOS will provide the same upload speeds as download speeds that subscribers currently have. FiOS plans to complete the rollout by the fall, with 95 percent of customers receiving it automatically.

“Before, a subscriber to 50 megabits per second download speeds, for example, would receive only 25 Mbps for upload purposes,” reports The Wall Street Journal. “Starting Monday, FiOS will roll out symmetrical upload speeds for its customers, all the way up to those with the top speed of 500 Mbps.”

“With a 50 Mbps connection, a subscriber could upload 200 photos or a five-minute, high definition video to the Web in 40 seconds,” explains the article.

“Where we think we can win unequivocally is the data space,” said Robert Mudge, Verizon’s president of consumer and mass business markets, of the competition with cable. “For some customers, pay TV is still the anchor of the home” but “that is shrinking.”

Until improvements to cable tech make upgrades easier, FiOS may have an advantage over the cable industry since it typically uses fiber optic pipelines to homes. Cable generally uses fiber to local area nodes and coaxial cables into homes.

Upload speeds will likely become more important when more customers music and video files in the cloud and use video chat services.

“Another big future driver of upstream traffic could be the long-discussed ‘Internet of Things,’ a vision for a world of smart gadgets from toothbrushes to ovens that could constantly update consumers via their mobile devices,” notes WSJ. “Verizon said that it expects upload traffic to double by late 2016.”

Related News:
Netflix Earnings Jump but Costs Will Rise: Company Working with Verizon to Improve Streaming Speeds, The Wall Street Journal, 7/21/14