Verizon's Fiber-Optic Cable to Offer Keller, Texas, Ultrafast Internet Hookups
Posted on: Wednesday, 19 May 2004, 06:00 CDT
May 20--KELLER, Texas -- Keller residents will be able to sign up for Internet service as much as 10 times faster than existing connections this summer as Verizon wires the city with fiber-optic cable.
The Northeast Tarrant County city of 33,000 is the focus of Verizon's first effort at reaching homes and businesses with fiber optics on such a scale. The company, which officially unveiled the effort Wednesday, said that by year's end, it hopes to have 1 million homes wired with fiber optics in Texas and eight other states.
Starting in 2005, Verizon also expects to offer TV via its fiber-optic network, although company officials said they have not yet contracted with TV programming providers. Verizon may offer pay TV in competition with cable systems, but the company has yet to launch such a service.
Fiber optics uses hair-thin strands of glass and pulses of light to transmit electronic signals that can represent voices, data or video. Millions of miles of fiber optics, which replace copper cable and electrical signals, have been installed nationwide but have never been hooked to residences and small businesses.
Verizon calls this step "fiber to the premises," or FTTP.
Bob Ingalls, who heads Verizon's marketing efforts to residential and small-business customers, said the company expects to offer its high-speed Internet service for prices comparable to DSL and cable modem services, which generally cost $27 to $45 a month.
Verizon's slowest fiber-optic service will offer 5 megabits per second, compared with about 1.5 Mb per second for existing services, and it will offer 15 Mb per second this summer, Ingalls said, with 30-Mb service coming next year.
In 2005 and beyond, Ingalls said, Verizon hopes to offer a set-top box, similar to a cable or satellite TV controller, that will handle all a customer's video services.
He said he expects high-definition TV to be a popular service, noting that fiber-optic systems can handle numerous channels of high-definition programming, rather than the limited number available today via cable and satellite.
That appeals to Keller resident Julius Bleker, 45, who says movie watching is a big activity for his family, which includes three children. Bleker attended Verizon's announcement at a park in the city's Williamsburg Estates neighborhood, where he lives.
"All of these movies are just bits of data, but now we burn the bits on a DVD, and you have to drive to the store and get the DVD and put it in your machine, and then take it back to the store," Bleker said. It would be much better, he said, to get a movie over a high-speed Internet line, watch it and be done.
The system that makes this possible is all but invisible, especially in areas where utilities are buried. About every four homes share a "splitter," where individual strands of fiber optic can branch off a main cable and run to the home.
Paul Lacouture, president of Verizon's network services group, said the company will spend about $15 million for fiber optics in Keller. Verizon has installed about 400,000 feet of fiber-optic cable in Keller so far, both above and below ground, and expects to install an additional 800,000 feet before it's done, he said.
Verizon is the nation's largest telephone company, with about 26 million customers.
Keller City Manager Lyle Dresher said installation has gone smoothly for the most part. He said he expects the fiber-optic network to boost the appeal of living in Keller and to spur economic development.
In a related announcement, Verizon said it has created a customer service operation in Dallas that will employ about 50 people to handle inquiries about the new service. The company expects employment to grow rapidly as more people sign up for fiber-optic connections.
-----
To see more of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.dfw.com
(c) 2004, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Texas. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.
VZ,
Related Articles
- Southwest Airlines Celebrates 15 Years of Service in Tucson, Boise, and Salt Lake City
- Verizon Receives Approval for TV Franchise Agreement With City of New York
- Fredericksburg Residents to See More Choice, Competition As Verizon Obtains Cable Franchise for City
- Aeromexico Introduces New Service to Central America; U.S. Gateways Gain Service to Honduras and Nicaragua Via Mexico City Flights
- Leading Industry Trade Group Names Verizon Services Corp. Best New Shared Services Organization
- Time Warner, Sprint in Talks ; Deal Would Allow Cable Company to Offer Package With Cell-Phone Service
- Softbank BB Offering Cut-Rate Optical Fiber Internet Service
- Vyvx Extends MPEG-2 Compressed Fiber Video Service in Canada, U.K.
- Metrobility Targets End-to-End Management of Metro Ethernet Services with New GigE Offering
- (NT.TO) Cable & Wireless Jamaica Offers Advanced Voice, Data Services Using Next Generation Wireless Network from Nortel Networks
 |
 |
User Comments (0)
RSS Feeds