Verizon has condemned rival Cablevision’s promise of a 101Mbps broadband package as nothing more than “a parlor trick.” It says there’s little hope of customers getting the promised speed given the way Cablevision operates.

Cablevision hit the headlines earlier this week by announcing a new US record speed for  broadband, a $99.95 monthly package with a top speed of 101Mbps and no monthly download limits. The odd-looking figure appears to be a cheeky way to upstage Verizon’s own testing of 100Mbps services. (Sounds like Spinal Tap’s Nigel Tufnel would be the ideal pitchman.)

But Verizon claims this is an outlandish promise and argues that it’s unsustainable because of the way cable customers share connections. In a blog post it quotes an unsourced estimate as saying that a single users taking advantage of the 101MBps speed would use 60 percent  of the capacity for an entire neighborhood.

Verizon also notes that its own broadband service, which runs on fiber optic lines direct to the household, is capable of 400Mbps. It doesn’t offer such a service however, limiting its top package to 50Mbps. The firm says there are several reasons for this, notably a lack of demand and the fact that many website servers are on much slower connections, so the home user wouldn’t always benefit from their higher maximum speed.

While there’s certainly some truth to Verizon’s arguments, it doesn’t seem that unfeasible that Cablevision can cope with delivering up to 101Mbps. Yes, if a large proportion of a neighborhood wanted such a speed at once there’d be problems, but at a hundred bucks a month, it’s unlikely to be more than a niche product. In fact the chances are it will be mainly taken up by business users rather than residential customers.

The row could be good news for customers, however, as the two firms have already demonstrated the importance of competition in broadband provision. Verizon’s top-end 50Mbps normally costs $140 a month, but is reduced to $90 in the New York area where the firm competes with Cablevision.

Related:

Entry was posted on Thursday, April 30th, 2009 at 3:27 pm under Internet, Technology.

Read more entries by John Lister.
Stumble It!