As discussed slightly in another article, I've moved into the era of FiOS, Verizon's hi-speed internet service delivered over fiber optic cable (fiber to the premises). I made the move to Verizon mostly over money, but also somewhat over the choice of speed offerings that FiOS offers me.
Competition in the high-speed internet arena is a wonderful thing. It was not that long ago that I was suffering along with some of the worst telephone lines known to man (WWII era phone lines that had been accessed so many times that the brittle copper lines that would be used for making connections would fall apart each time the telco would try to solve a problem for anyone of the tens of phone connections in the same junction box). On those sorry telephone lines I was lucky to get a phone connection in the 33.6k range when trying to use a 56k modem and when I was able to get connected I could pretty much count on the connection being dropped in a short period of time (usually at the absolute worst point in time).
continued in article comments...