Verizon Expands High-Speed Internet Access in Illinois, Pigs Fly, & Cure for Cancer Announced.

Verizon announced this month that, "Verizon Expands High-Speed Internet Access in Illinois: Company Upgrades Network to Make Super-Fast DSL Service More Available." I kid you not -- "super-fast."

I read the press release excitedly -- certainly this is very good news for the rural communities that have been systematically discriminated against in terms of broadband services. Then I read the rest of the press release -- not to sound too harsh, but what Verizon is offering is unbelievably slow and outdated service, it's crap:

Verizon will offer two high-speed DSL Internet service plans to qualifying consumers, one with maximum connection speeds of up to 768 Kbps (kilobits per second) downstream and 128 Kbps upstream and another with maximum connection speeds of up to 3.0 Mbps (megabits per second) downstream and 768 kbps upstream... NOTE: Actual (throughput) speeds will vary.

128Kbps upstream speed is their standard package, with premium service at just half-a-meg (768Kbps) upload speed. And that's the maximum speed, which means that actual rates may be substantially less. What Verizon is doing is offering just about the most limited service possible that would still be considered "broadband" by the inane definition utilized by the FCC -- which would, in essence obfuscate the fact that most of rural Illinois is actually receiving extremely bad broadband connectivity or none at all.

Long-term, this will lead to the continuing digital divide and undermine efforts to eliminate the substantial discrimination faced by rural populations across the United States. I see Verizon's initiative as the crumbs thrown to hush an increasingly displeased public.

What is perhaps the most dispicable part of the press release is the actual headline and the fact that the actual service speeds are in the second-to-last paragraph of the 3-page press release (the version I received). As all reporters know, you lead with information that informs the headline -- this press release was purposefully constructed to place connectivity speed as far away from their claim of "super-fast DSL service" as possible.

Read the full press release here.