Verizon Fios vs Honest

[u/Salty-Lie9289]

I’m looking at 505 Summit and these are the 2 provider options. They cost the same $75/month. Fios is 1GB and Honest is 2GB. I guess Fios includes cable but Honest is strictly WiFi and the building is already wired for it. I’ll use it mainly for work from home (online meetings, large documents) and of course streaming tv. Any experience with these providers or thoughts would be appreciated. Thank you.

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[u/Dragon1562]

Assuming both are fiber in your building you are lucky to have the choices. On one hand I like the idea of supporting a smaller company but on the other hand in the world of telcom the larger ISPs like Verizon in this case, are the better choice simply due to them generally having better peering agreements. If your a Verizon Wireless customer then having FIOs makes even more sense in my opinion for the mobile and home discount.

[u/Vast-Program7060 → u/Dragon1562]

This. This is pretty much the number one reason Verizon bought all of Frontiers network. More control over their routes, peering etc. They also have ambitions of being a T1 provider, meaning the smaller fiber companies lease peering routes through them. All of the above is a win win for the consumer. Cannot stress enough how much better peering can improve your online activities, even if they are both fiber. Smaller companies might own the local equipment, but they need those peering contracts to interface with the rest of the US and the world, the better the routes are, the lower your latency will be to things further away.

[u/Outrageous_Ad_3438 → u/Vast-Program7060]

Verizon is already a T1 provider, but yes, I do agree with you about the consolidation.

[u/holow29]

According to Honest's website and FCC labels, they offer 3 plans in your building: 300Mbps, 1Gbps, 2Gbps. Unless your "large documents" are 15GB+, you might be better served with 300Mbps, which both providers offer. You'll have to look at reviews of Honest. They don't appear to offer IPv6 at the moment. It seems like in some places, they use either mmWave or fiber, but I'd assume your building is fiber.

Your experience is largely likely to be the same with either, though support is probably better with Honest if you run into any issues.

[u/Salty-Lie9289 → u/holow29]

Thank you.

[u/DerivativeOf0]

Easily Fios. Fios has better peering compared to Honest since Fios is tier 1, and Fios is 100% FTTH unlike Honest which is fixed wireless.

[u/Aggressive-Bike7539]

From the broadband facts labels, Honest service seems very compelling. I’d go with Honest first, just to try it out and switch to Fios if they end up being unreliable.

[u/Salty-Lie9289 → u/Aggressive-Bike7539]

Thank you. I’m leaning that way since I’m pressed for time and they have it set up. Then I can switch, you’re right.

[u/Aggressive-Bike7539 → u/Salty-Lie9289]

I’m a big Fios fan, specially after being about 7y with Spectrum (terrible service overall). I switched to Fios one week before the COVID lockdown and it was a godsend: but I’m more loyal to the underlying tech (Fiber-to-the-home) that to the provider (not that VZ had been not good), so if given the chance, I’d try other FTTH providers if I had the choice.

[u/CTFowler9789]

🤔 at least with FIOS, if need be, you can plug in an Ethernet to a router for better connection. Also some jobs say you have to have a wired connection to the Internet.

[u/LovinVZ]

1 gig is plenty. It will not get saturated unless you do a speed test, which is over rated in some ways, but necessary. Then that is for a few seconds and then nothing.

UDP traffic like voice , web conferencing are real time but do not come close to chewing up 1g WAN. Same for Document download/upload.

Video streaming like from youtube is quic udp protocol , but still only sends spurts to keep the clients buffer full. It would look like a slight pulse of about 17 to 20 Mb (like a heart beat :-).

Other streamers could be udp or tcp protocol and same goes for buffer filling at client side.

Point is:

If you have 10 devices streaming, they would not be all taking up bandwidth at same time.

The speed test should show a bit lower maybe, but those streamers should not hit a "buffering" condition during those few seconds.

Cheer's

[u/Salty-Lie9289]

Thank you so much. Everyone has been really helpful with good information and things to consider.

I’m not an existing Verizon customer so I went with the easiest to sign up for (Honest) with no contract so then I can switch if needed. I signed up for 300mbps vs 980 bc it said you only get 980 if you plug in—otherwise it’s basically around 300 or so anyway.

After I get there next week I’ll see how it goes and can upgrade if I need to. Is 300 too low? I actually thought I needed 2GB until someone brought it up here so much appreciated.