In the wake of favorable federal rules that clear telcos from sharing their upgraded networks, Verizon this week greenlighted fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP) deployments in six more states in the northeast and mid-Atlantic.

Verizon will rollout its FiOS platform to homes and businesses in Virginia and parts of Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York and Pennsylvania.

The telco, which had already announced deployments in California, Florida and Texas as well as plans to pass 1 million homes and businesses with fiber this year, said it expects to add 2 million more to that total in 2005.

Verizon noted it will hire 3,000 to 5,000 new employees by the end of 2005 to help with the deployment, and make an $800 million capital investment in FTTP in 2004.

The company is currently offering data services via the FiOS platform, but expects o launch video services over its FTTP networks next year.

Instead of offering video-over-IP, it’s expected that Verizon will overlay RF broadcast technology that’s already commonplace in cable. It’s been rumored that companies such as Motorola Broadband, Scientific-Atlanta and Harmonic Inc. are among vendors in the running for Verizon’s RF overlay plans.