Despite claiming that the government's definition of "broadband" shouldn't have been increased to 25Mbps,Verizon is now phasing out its 25Mbps fiber service and making 50Mbps the default minimum.

A year ago, the Federal Communications Commission voted to boost the definition of broadband from 4Mbps downstream/1Mbps upstream to 25Mbps/3Mbps. The definition affects policy decisions and the FCC's annual assessment of whether broadband is being deployed to all Americans quickly enough. Verizon unsuccessfully lobbied the FCC to keep the old definition, saying that "a higher benchmark would serve no purpose in accurately assessing the availability of broadband."

Verizon still offers speeds as low as 512kbps downloads and 384kbps uploads in areas where it hasn't upgraded copper DSL lines to fiber. Verizon DSL goes up to 15Mbps/1Mbps, if you're close enough to Verizon Internet facilities. Mayors in 14 East Coast cities including New York City recently criticized Verizon for leaving many customers with copper only.

But where its FiOS fiber network has been deployed, Verizon offers upload and download speeds of 50Mbps to 500Mbps.

Verizon CFO Fran Shammo explained in an earnings call last week that the FiOS 25Mbps tier is on its way out. "The increasing importance of the Internet is evident as customers are requesting higher data speeds," Shammo said. "At the end of the quarter, more than 70 percent of our consumer FiOS Internet customers subscribed to data speeds of 50Mbps or higher and we have shifted our introductory offers to 50 megabits. We are also seeing an increasing number of customers opting for higher speeds."

Existing customers can keep their 25Mbps package and, at least for now, can still downgrade to 25Mbps to save some money.

Both Verizon's 25Mbps and 75Mbps tiers were eliminated for new customers, but there are options for 100Mbps, 150Mbps, 300Mbps, and 500Mbps.

Verizon told Ars that the prices for the 50, 100, and 150Mbps tiers are the same as the prices for the old 25, 50, and 75Mbps tiers. Customers who are no longer under contract can upgrade to the new speeds, the company said.

Verizon's comments about what speeds customers really need are a study in contrasts. When Verizon was urging the FCC to keep the old definition of broadband in September 2014, the company said that "the current 4Mbps/1Mbps threshold is still meaningful to a majority of consumers because it enables them to access virtually all content on the Internet." Verizon argued that broadband is being deployed fast enough, even to rural areas that still lag far behind urban ones.

Even a 10Mbps threshold would have been too high for Verizon, which said that 10Mbps can "support a user watching a high-definition movie online (requiring around 7Mbps) with capacity still available to support two or three others simultaneously involved in other online activities."

As recently as September 2015, Verizon complained that the new 25Mbps minimum is a "restrictive definition."

When the FCC took its vote on the new broadband definition in January 2015, Chairman Tom Wheeler pointed out that Verizon's marketing materials told a different story than Verizon's government filings. Verizon told FiOS customers that 25Mbps speeds were "best for one to three devices at the same time, great for surfing, e-mail, online shopping and social networking, [and] streaming two HD videos simultaneously," while 50Mbps was "best for three to five devices at the same time, more speed for families or individuals with multiple Internet devices, stream up to five HD videos simultaneously." Today, Verizon's FiOS marketing is claiming that 50Mbps is "great for 1-3 devices," while you really need 100Mbps if you connect up to seven devices.

The FCC is scheduled to vote tomorrow on the latest annual broadband progress report. Despite Verizon's new position that 25Mbps isn't fast enough for fiber customers, it looks like the FCC will keep its broadband definition at 25Mbps for at least another year.