FairPoint Communications said it will provide 100 percent broadband coverage to its customers in half of its Vermont telephone exchanges by the end of 2010, relying in part on WiMAX technology.
Offering full coverage in only part of Vermont may sound like a half-promise, but it’s a significantly more ambitious commitment than Vermont residents were going to get from Verizon, which unloaded those exchanges on FairPoint because it had little interest in rolling out broadband beyond the very few densely populated centers in the sparsely populated state.
Vermont Gov. Jim Douglas said FairPoint’s expansion is an important contribution to his e-State Initiative – a plan to make Vermont the first state with universal access to quality cellular coverage and high-speed broadband technology.
“Increasing access to high-speed broadband is strengthening our economy, creating jobs and encouraging innovation. This new infrastructure is the platform for growth and job creation across every sector of our economy,” Douglas said.
FairPoint will continue to expand the existing wired network as it has been since April, and it will also integrate WiMAX to extend the reach of its network to less densely populated areas.
FairPoint is also building a new IP-based fiber network capable of supporting multiple access technologies, including DSL, WiMAX, and eventually fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP).
“FairPoint will be the first company in the United States to deliver a combined wireless and wireline solution over an IP-based network on such a large scale,” claimed Michael Brown, vice president of broadband and access engineering for FairPoint.
More Broadband Direct:
• AT&T reorganizes with eye on convergence
• Verizon, AT&T lead J.D. Power rankings for customer satisfaction
• Sprint to sell IP-based converged services to biz customers
• FairPoint bringing fiber, WiMAX to Vermont
• Netflix to stream video content from Starz
• T-Mobile once again fires at M2Z plan
