Remember when you first got broadband internet access at home? After years of poking along at 56k, suddenly you had a 1.5M or even a 3M connection. Remember how you went around the Net, searching for the biggest things you could download, just for the hell of it? That 100MB video? No problem. That 350MB demo? Done by the time you finish dinner.

Well, I just got Verizon FiOS installed, and it feels like that all over again, only this time I’m downloading 1GB game demos and 4GB DVD .iso files.

FiOS is the moniker given to Verizon’s new Fiber-to-the-Premises network. It is spending $20bn over ten years to replace its copper phone network with all-Fiber network, which it will use to deliver voice, video and high-speed data to its customers. Most high-speed networks use Fiber as the backbone, but the so-called “last mile” to the customer’s residence uses copper or coaxial. FiOS does away with all that, using an all-Fiber connection which terminates in a box on the customer’s outside wall.

The main draw of this is the promise of practically unlimited bandwidth, through which Verizon can deliver all sorts of bandwidth-intensive services; video on demand, IPTV, tele-conferencing and voice over IP, just to name a few.  But the biggest draw, of course, is internet access. Internet access which is a significant notch faster than current coaxial and copper-based internet access services.

And when I say “significantly faster,” I do mean just that. Here’s the result of a speed test I conducted after getting it installed:

The advertised speed is 20Mbps downstream and 5Mbps upstream. And that’s the slowest speed they offer in New York City.

With this kind of bandwidth, it’s trivial to download HD movie clips in real time or faster, or host multiplayer action games with 30 players or more, or download the latest beta of Windows Vista in 10 minutes or so. All for $60/mo for business, or $50/mo for residences. Verizon says they will be able to up that speed to 100Mbps in the near future, with zero cost increase.

Of course, if you live in central Europe or the Far East, you’re probably already used to speeds like this at dirt cheap prices. But this is the first service of its kind in the US, and Verizon has pledged to roll it out throughout their entire service area (which includes much of the Eastern US and parts of Texas.)

At the very least, it will keep the cable companies on their toes. Calling Time Warner Cable to cancel their overpriced, ten-times-slower internet service will be a moment of pleasure for me.

Now if you will excuse me, I’m off to download a few HiDef movies. Or maybe Windows Vista RC1.

Verizon FiOS [verizonfios.com]