Verizon Inc. is apparently upping the ante in the broadband speed wars, announcing that starting next week it will make available its 50 Megabit-per-second FiOS data service throughout its entire FiOS network footprint passing more than 10 million homes and businesses.

Up to now, the 50 Mbps downstream, 20 Mbps upstream data service has been available only in FiOS markets in Connecticut, Florida, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Rhode Island. Starting next week that will expand to select markets in California, Delaware, Indiana, Maryland, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia and Washington.

The 50 Mbps/20 Mbps service will replace 30 Mbps/15 Mbps and 15 Mbps/15 Mbps services in those markets. As a result, Verizon will essentially standardize the FiOS data tiers across its footprint to 50 Mbps/20 Mbps, 20 Mbps symmetric, 20 Mbps/5 Mbps and 10 Mbps/2 Mbps.

Verizon President and Chief Operating Officer Denny Strigl announced the new speed tier structure today at the NXTcomm telco trade show in Las Vegas. He noted that the Bell operator is already at work on the next big speed tier goal.

"The appetite for bandwidth shows no signs of slowing down,” he said, “Neither will we. We've already had successful trials of the 100-megabit home, which will be a reality faster than anybody thinks."