Quebec City residents are enjoying the benefits of an Internet speed race between incumbent cable operator Vidéotron Ltée and telephone company Bell, with both bringing some of Canada’s fastest Internet speeds to the provincial capital.

Vidéotron Ltée announced it will introduce 200Mbps service in the city after completing a network upgrade. The company was undoubtedly responding to increasing competition from Bell, which is installing fiber optic upgrades in the city and selling speeds up to 175Mbps to area consumers and businesses.

The cable company has faced Bell’s Fibe TV service and has lost customers as a result. Now, Vidéotron is trying to regain its footing with upgrades of its own, including the introduction of Illico, which expands on-demand options and provides flexible access to recorded shows on computers, phones, and tablet devices.

Bell’s personal video recorder (PVR) set top box lets customers watch recorded programs on any television in the home, and can also record multiple concurrent shows. Vidéotron hopes Illico will help expand viewing options further for their customers.

Verizon FiOS standalone broadband customers choosing the company’s standard service will see rate increases of $10 a month starting June 17, but those upgraded to the company’s premium speed tiers, which are getting much faster, may not see any rate hike at all.

The Verge received word from an anonymous Verizon employee who passed along the rate hike information that will apply to broadband-only customers:

• Standard 15/5Mbps service: (Was $54.99/mo) now up $10 to $64.99
• 50/25Mbps service: (Was $74.99/mo for 25/25Mbps) remains $74.99
• 75/35Mbps service: (New offer) $84.99
• 150/65Mbps service: (Was $94.99/mo for 50/20Mbps) remains $94.99
• 300/65Mbps service: (Was $199.99/mo for 150/35Mbps) now $204.99

All new pricing requires a two-year contract (month-to-month service costs $5/mo more) and home phone service with Verizon (or pay a $5/mo surcharge). Speeds of 150 or 300Mbps require a 2-4 hour service call and upgrade fee of $100 for new equipment unless you are on a two-year contract, are a new customer, or already have Verizon’s 150Mbps service. Customers living in multi-dwelling units served by VDSL and not fiber-to-the-apartment will pay the new higher price for standard service, but cannot receive the new enhanced speed tiers.

With the majority of Verizon customers paying only for standard speed service, Verizon will pocket significantly higher revenue for broadband. But customers need not pay for more expensive a-la-carte broadband. Verizon offers significant discounts for customers who sign up for triple play packages on phone, Internet, and television service. Bundled customers continue to get the most bang for the buck, but not if you don’t use the services Verizon wants to sell.

Jonathan Takiff, a columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News says he isn’t buying at the prices Verizon is charging.

I also was disappointed with the announcement that Verizon will continue to offer entry level FiOS Internet running at  15/5 Mbps. If the operation has such superior technology and capacity, why not flaunt it and give us casual users more headroom?  Even with its old school coaxial cable network, Xfinity service starts at 20 Mbps down.

Clearly, Verizon hopes  to up-sell customers to a higher, more profitable tier. And they’re using that grandiose 300 Mbps offering as an attention getter, to get folks thinking more aspirationally. Kinda like the way a car company throws a high powered, ridiculously priced, super flashy sports car into the showroom mix. Makes you go for the bigger engine in the econobox.

[…] What’s a good deal for Internet service on a global basis? In front-running Japan, the  average service runs at 61 Mbps and costs 27 cents per megabit, per month. While not quite as dramatic,  Internet services in South Korea, Finland and France also make U.S. providers look like stingy bastards.

Despite claims from some of their competitors that customers don’t want or need super-fast broadband, Verizon Communications is taking broadband speeds to the new level, upgrading service to as high as 300Mbps in selected areas.

Our friends at Broadband Reports had the scoop on this a few weeks ago, but now it’s official: speed -and- price increases for Verizon are on the way for the company’s fiber optic network FiOS.

Many customers will see their broadband speeds double or more in June. At the same time, the company has been sending out letters informing customers of price increases, often $5 a month for those not locked into service contracts.

Verizon's Speed Upgrade Chart (Courtesy: Broadband Reports)

Verizon’s new top tier of 300/65Mbps will be introduced in areas that have Verizon’s Gigabit Passive Optical Network (GPON). Pricing has not yet been announced.

The company is targeting its speed upgrades to premium broadband customers who subscribe to faster tiers. Customers on Verizon’s standard 15/5Mbps tier will see no changes in service.

[flv]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/CNBC Business Booming in Chattanooga 5-29-12.flv[/flv]

While telecom industry-backed groups dismiss community broadband as a waste of taxpayer dollars and an excuse for customers to watch illicit videos and steal content, CNBC reports Chattanooga’s infrastructure improvements, including their gigabit fiber network owned by public utility EPB are contributing to the city’s enormous economic growth and falling unemployment rate. Private companies are pouring into Chattanooga and find a city ready to welcome them and meet their digital needs. Community broadband: a waste of taxpayer money or exactly the right fuel to power American cities into the 21st century digital economy?  (2 minutes)

Northern Minnesota's Paul Bunyan Communications is threatened by FCC reforms that they claim favor larger phone companies.

Northern Minnesotans will have to wait longer for broadband after a telephone co-op announced it was suspending its $19 million broadband expansion project because funding is being diverted to more powerful phone companies like AT&T and Verizon — neither of which have any concrete plans to improve rural wired broadband.

Bemidji-based Paul Bunyan Communications, which serves 28,000 hearty Minnesota customers, has been working on broadband expansion for several years, bringing broadband to customers who have known nothing except dial-up since the Internet age began. Only now the project is threatened because of well-intentioned plans by the Federal Communications Commission to expand rural broadband, but in ways that cater primarily to larger phone companies that lobbied heavily for the changes.

At issue is Universal Service Fund reform, which plans to divert an increasing share of the surcharge all telephone customers pay away from rural basic phone service and towards broadband expansion in rural America.

Paul Bunyan used their share of USF funding to scrap the company’s existing, antiquated copper-wire network in favor of fiber optics. Other phone companies have traditionally used the money to keep their existing networks running. Now the independent phone company says large phone companies like Verizon and AT&T have successfully changed the rules in their favor, and will now benefit from a larger share of those funds, ostensibly to expand broadband to their rural customers.

Bissonette (Courtesy: MPR)

But neither AT&T or Verizon have shown much interest in rural broadband upgrades. AT&T, which recently announced it concluded its U-verse rollout in larger cities, has also thrown up its hands about how to deal with the “rural broadband problem” and plans no substantial expansion of the company’s DSL service.

Verizon also announced it had largely completed the expansion of FiOS, a fiber to the home service. Verizon has also been discouraging customers from considering its DSL service by limiting it only to customers who also subscribe to landline phone service.

Verizon Wireless has introduced a wireless home broadband replacement that costs considerably more than traditional DSL, starting at $60 a month for up to 10GB of usage.

As a result of the funding changes, Paul Bunyan is reconsidering plans to expand its broadband, phone and television services to Kjenaas and about 4,000 other residents in rural Park Rapids and a township near Grand Rapids.

It may also have to cut workers.

“It’s kind of ironic,” Paul Bunyan’s Brian Bissonette tells Minnesota Public Radio. “The mantra of these changes is to create jobs. It’s killing jobs.”

Minnesota Public Radio explores how rural Minnesota broadband is being threatened by a telecom industry-influenced plan to divert funding to larger companies like AT&T and Verizon for rural broadband expansion those companies have no plans to deliver. (May 23, 2012) (4 minutes)
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