Telco Verizon Inc. is making good on its promise to put light into its broadband strategy, announcing it will turn up the first of its fiber-to-the home high-speed data network deployments in the Dallas-Fort Worth suburb of Keller, Texas later this month.
Starting later this summer, the new Verizon Fios FTTH service will offer speeds up to 30 megabits-per-second. It will be offered in three service tiers of 30 Mbps downstream, 5 Mbps upstream at a price that has not been announced as yet; 15 Mbps/2 Mbps at $44.95 as part of a Verizon bundled call package or $49.95 stand alone; and 5 Mbps/2 Mbps for $34.95 per month bundled or $39.95 stand alone.
The service also will include content and features now available to Verizon digital subscriber line customers, including content from Microsoft Corp.’s MSN ISP, the new Verizon Broadband Beat entertainment portal, up to nine e-mail accounts, an address book and calendar, 10 megabytes of personal Web space and a Web site building tool.
Verizon is also building FTTH local networks passing 100,000 homes each in Huntington Beach, Calif., metro Tampa Bay and Hillsborough County, Fla. and in other suburban areas of Dallas-Fort Worth. Plans are to bring those networks online later this year. The telco’s goal is to pass 1 million homes and businesses in its nine-state territory by the end of the year.
For now, the deployments will center on data, but in 2005, Verizon plans to add a Fios video package to the mix.
