On the Home Front - Verizon to Increase Jobs, Services
PROVIDENCE - Verizon Communications announced yesterday that it will extend its fiber-optic network to the homes of residential customers in Rhode Island, enabling the company to offer a host of new services, including cable television.
The company also announced that it will create a regional "fiber solutions center" in Providence to handle orders and questions related to fiber-optic services for its customers throughout New England.
Verizon will add up to 150 new jobs this year to staff the new center and up to 350 over the next two to three years.
The plan to bring fiber optics to residential customers is significant because the hair-thin light-carrying cables can carry an enormous amount of information. That will allow Verizon to offer a range of services beyond telephone calls.
"It just opens the door for all kinds of possibilities," said George K. Loftus, executive director of OSHEAN, a consortium owned by the universities in Rhode Island that provides advanced networking services.
"Certainly we'll see . . . a lot more video -- anything from shopping to training to online courses."
The network will be able to carry a virtually "limitless" amount of information to the home, Verizon said, including cable television programming that is now available only through Cox Communications, or one of the satellite companies.
Verizon cable services will include video-on-demand, more high- definition channels than what's now available on cable, and access to "hundreds" of channels, said Cheryl Mongell, Verizon's president of operations for New England.
Verizon did not provide a timetable or other key details about its cable offerings.
The company did say that its fiber-to-the-home network is already under construction in Warwick and North Kingstown. Fiber services will be available in those communities by the end of the year or early next year, said Donna Cupelo, president of Verizon's operations in Rhode Island and Massachusetts.
It could take some five years to bring services to the other cities and towns in the state, Cupelo said.
Cupelo declined to provide exactly how much money Verizon will invest in Rhode Island to extend its fiber-optic network. The company, on average, has spent $55 million to $60 million annually on capital expenses. She said that the additional investment could be "tens of millions" of dollars beyond that average amount.
The network upgrade will involve running a fiber-optic cable from the phone company's local switching office to the home of a customer. The new line will replace the copper wires in place today.
Those wires, which have been used for more than a century to carry telephone calls, do not have nearly the capacity of fiber- optic cables.
Fiber optics is the science of transmitting computer data, voices and images through transparent fibers usually made of glass. The information is converted to pulses of light, which can be beamed inside the fibers and carried over long distances with little loss of signal.
Fiber-optic technology has been around for decades, but first came into widespread use in the 1980s when long-distance phone companies began building national networks with fiber.
Verizon has been replacing main arteries of its phone network with fiber-optic cables for several years. Today, the company has 128,000 fiber miles in Rhode Island, according to Lillian McGee, a company spokeswoman.
The company's 30 central switching offices in the state have been equipped with fiber optics for at least five years, she said.
The network upgrade will essentially extend that fiber to customers' homes.
A key service Verizon plans to offer will be high-speed Internet access, which will be available virtually statewide since there are no distance limitations as there are with the DSL technology the company now uses to sell fast Internet connections.
The lowest-tiered service will offer access speeds of 5 megabits a second, which is comparable to the service now offered by Cox. Verizon's service will be similarly priced at $34.95 a month, if bought with a package of other services.
Verizon will also offer a high-end service that provides access at 30 megabits per second for $199.95 a month. That type of connection would provide about the same amount of bandwidth that now serves entire universities the size of Rhode Island College, according to Loftus.
Verizon expects to sell that service to people who have home- based businesses, or hard-core "gamers" who desire the fastest Internet connections available.
Rhode Island is the 10th state in which Verizon is building a fiber-to-the-home network. Work began last year in parts of California, Delaware, Florida, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas and Virginia, the company said.
Verizon is currently offering fiber-based high-speed Internet access in parts of Florida, California and Texas. The company said it will launch its first video products "in some locations later this year."
To support its new fiber services, Verizon will establish a regional fiber solutions center in Providence, using space at the company's headquarters on Washington Street. Workers will handle inquiries and orders for fiber services for customers in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine and Vermont.
The company will hire up to 150 people this year, Cupelo said, and up to 350 people over the next three years.
The jobs will be well paying, with top salaries ranging from $1,000 to $1,200 a week, said William McGowan, business manager for IBEW Local 2323, the union that represents Rhode Island Verizon workers.
In addition, the company will hire technicians who will construct the network and install services in homes. The company will hire about 100 technicians in the state over the next two years, said Mongell.
Cupelo said that Verizon chose Rhode Island over other states for its fiber solutions center because of the positive business climate here, the accessibility of government leaders and the availability of incentives, such as job training credits and enterprise zone credits. Yesterday's announcement was attended by several state leaders, including Governor Carcieri, U.S. Sen. Jack Reed, U.S. Rep. James Langevin, House Majority Leader Gordon Fox, Senate President Joseph A. Montalbano, Lt. Gov. Charles Fogarty and Providence Mayor David N. Cicilline.
There was no special "deal" that Verizon received from state officials to locate the center here, Cupelo said.
The new jobs will essentially restore some of the employment that Verizon eliminated in Rhode Island.
The company cut 241 jobs between 2001 and 2003, according to figures provided by the company. It employed about 1,200 workers at the end of 2003.
Cox Communications, Verizon's chief competitor in Rhode Island, discounted the announcement yesterday.
Cox, which has grabbed a significant number of telephone customers from Verizon, said it has already done what Verizon is talking about doing.
"While Verizon works to fulfill its most recent promise, Cox customers today are able to enjoy . . . high-definition television service, entertainment on demand and digital video recorders over the powerful broadband network we've already built throughout the state," Cox said in a statement.
As for the added capacity of fiber-optic lines to the home, Cox's current network can deliver just as much information, said John Wolfe, a spokesman for the company.
"We haven't begun to tap the capacity of our broadband network," Wolfe said.
Timothy C. Barmann covers energy issues, utilities and technology. He can be reached at tbarmann@projo.com
* * *
* Verizon call center employees Theresa Cassidy, left, and Brenda Lister attend an announcement yesterday by the company that it will increase employment and extend its fiber-optic network in Rhode Island. Below, a fiber-optic cable.
JOURNAL PHOTO / MARY MURPHY, above; VERIZON PHOTO, below
Story from REDNOVA NEWS:
http://www.rednova.com/news/display/?id=120729
Published: 2005/01/20 18:00:10 CST
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