FiOS users who get annoyed over how long it takes to upload your stuff to YouTube, rejoice! Verizon announced today that they’re upping their upload speeds to match their download speeds. It’ll take a few months, but eventually subscribers will be able to put stuff on the internet at the same speed they pull stuff down from the internet.

In their press release Verizon explained their reasoning as forward-looking. The company expects the amount of data uploaded through FiOS connections to more than double in the next two years. Their subscribers spend a lot of time online and move a lot of data, Verizon says, and those trends just keep growing. Consumers keep uploading more data — video especially — and so their internet connections need to be able to support doing that well.

Existing customers will eventually get the upgrade at no additional charge, but customers who have enrolled in Verizon’s rewards program, My Rewards +, get access before everyone else.

In general, broadband connection speeds in the United States, both download and upload, are continuing to improve, but asymmetrical access has definitely remained the norm. Verizon is not the first to offer access to a symmetrical connection; as Ars Technica points out, Google Fiber and several small ISPs offer matching upload and download speeds already.

Verizon is, however, beating national competitors like Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and AT&T to the punch, and that might just be what matters most to them. In many FiOS markets, Verizon’s service is the only viable existing alternative to cable broadband.

With the competition merging up all over — Comcast/TWC and AT&T/DirecTV are both on deck this year — actually offering customers better service might be Verizon’s best bet for staying successful in the business.

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