Verizon Expands Fiber Network To Six More States

Verizon is pushing fiber-optic networking even further along the last mile with the announcement that it will be deploying its fiber-to-the-premises network in six more states on the East Coast. Customers in parts of Virginia, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York and Pennsylvania will join others already announced in California, Florida and Texas.

Business and residential customers on the FTTP network will be able to subscribe to Verizon's FiOS broadband Internet access service for downstream connection speeds of up to 30 Mbps, roughly equivalent to a DS3 link, at rates starting as low as $34.95 per month. Verizon offers the services available as part of its DSL products over the FiOS platform without extra charge, and plans to add video services next year.

The first East Coast deployment of the FTTP network will be in the Washington suburb of Arlington, Va. Verizon selected based on the concentration of high-tech businesses, defense contractors and the presence of an affluent, educated residential market near Washington. Verizon says that it will have completed the deployment in Arlington by the end of next year.

Business and residential customers in the rest of the country might have to wait a little longer for fiber to make it to their doorsteps, but according to Paul Lacouture, president of Verizon's Network Services group, the wait will be worth it. "Verizon is building a broadband future for America. And today we're one big step closer," he said in a statement. "The future will ride on the bandwidth of fiber optics. No one is making that future more real than Verizon."

To make this happen, the company expects to have invested $800 million in FTTP by the end of this year, and plans to hire 3,000 to 5,000 new employees to build the network by the end of 2005.