TalesTales FromFrom thethe FiberFiber FrontierFrontier Schools and businesses, online gamers and television viewers, small towns and big cities all have reasons to welcome fiber optic access.

By Masha Zager ■ Broadband Properties

ome months, one story says it all. This time it was needs an instantaneous response. Now. If the message takes the private school outside Salisbury, N.C., that peti- too long to arrive, the trade doesn’t go through and profits Stioned the city to annex its property. Why? Salisbury evaporate. How can a company guarantee an instantaneous is building a municipal fiber-to-the-premises network that response every time? Sign up with a business fiber provider the school didn’t wanted to miss out on. School adminis- – in this case, Optimum Lightpath. trators are developing a technology-enhanced learning pro- There’s also the regional provider whose network is keep- gram for their students, and they knew a fiber connection ing remote towns in South Dakota viable. And the Florida would make the program even better. The city’s response: condo communities that are being upgraded with world- Come on board – we’re delighted to have you. class broadband. And the new services Verizon is introduc- Running a close second is the story of the financial com- ing for FiOS subscribers. And … well, you’ll have to read pany in New York that operates a foreign-exchange trading the rest. I’m not going to give it all away. platform. It turns out that trading currencies is a lot like playing video games: When a trader hits the Enter key, he – MZ

INDEPENDENT TELCOS ‘Internet Traffic Is Increasingly Two-Way’ Northeast Missouri Rural Telephone downstream bandwidth is important using FTTH solutions from Occam in Green City, Mo., is upgrading the sec- too – it enables the IPTV service that Networks. The diversity of the Farmers ond largest of its 14 exchanges from aer- Northeast Missouri has been offering service area, which includes both remote ial copper to buried fiber, using Occam for most of the last year. rural areas and highly populated areas, Networks’ BLC 6000 multiservice access In another customer win for Occam, presented deployment challenges; the platform and ON 2300 series optical Stayton Cooperative Telephone in Ore- company selected Occam’s BLC 6000 network terminals. “Our first initiative gon has purchased the BLC 6000 FTTH multiservice access platform because was to get the wires buried,” says David solution to upgrade its entire 8,500-line it supports access technology options Riddle, Northeast Missouri’s plant su- network from an all-copper to all-fiber suited to a variety of geographic areas. perintendent. “And if we were going to packet architecture. To stay ahead of Over its 3,000-square-mile coverage bury them, it made sense to upgrade to competitive cable companies’ offerings, area, Farmers has used DSL, bonded fiber.” The company will upgrade addi- Stayton needed a platform that could ex- DSL, Gigabit Ethernet FTTP and tional service areas in the future. pand bandwidth, reach rural consumers GPON FTTP. Bonded DSL, Gigabit Northeast Missouri chose a giga- and deliver superior performance. “Our Ethernet and GPON technologies reach bit Ethernet solution largely for its up- goal is to aggressively deploy a new, all- the deepest and most sparsely populated stream capability. Riddle says, “We have fiber network, enabling us to augment rural areas in the Farmers footprint. To an increasing number of subscribers the services we provide subscribers and reach densely populated areas, the com- playing online games and sharing files. capture new revenue streams,” says Don pany uses DSL and Gigabit Ethernet. Upstream bandwidth has become as Lawrence, Stayton’s president. Farmers uses important as downstream. Internet traf- Farmers Telephone Cooperative, to deliver IPTV and chose the Triad fic is increasingly two-way.” Of course, a large ILEC in South Carolina, is also Service Delivery Platform (SDP) from

14 | BROADBAND PROPERTIES | www.broadbandproperties.com | September 2009 ETI Software Solutions to integrate FieldSmart Platform of Fiber Manage- tion. According to Fay Jandreau, the Mediaroom with its customer care and ment for its three-year FTTH deploy- Midstate plant manager, “Our custom- billing infrastructure. Triad, which is al- ment. Headquartered in Kimball, S.D., ers want more bandwidth and higher ready in full production at Farmers, will Midstate provides telecommunications Internet speed. With this deployment, also provide inventory control for IP set- technology and services to about 5,000 we will bring customers faster Internet top boxes, mediate pay-per-view billing access lines in 11 exchanges. The FTTH speed – with each service being custom- and automate the provisioning of IPTV deployment is part of a brownfield over- ized to each customer’s needs. We will services. With Triad SDP, Farmers can build in and around Platte, S.D., with also bring a full host of video services also support Caller ID, remote DVR approximately 250 miles of construc- that we previously did not provide.” scheduling and prepaid IPTV services over Mediaroom. Pembroke Telephone Company in Georgia selected a GPON solution from ADTRAN – the Total Access 5000 fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP) platform Prepare your community for tomorrow and Total Access 300 Series ONTs – with Connexion Technologies… to deliver voice, high-speed data and IPTV services to its 4,000 subscrib- ers. A primary reason for choosing the ADTRAN solution, the company says, was its interoperability with the IPTV equipment already installed and with the MetaSwitch Softswitch. Pembroke, which has been family- owned since 1946, will overbuild its entire service area with FTTH over the next three years, making it one of the few communications providers in Georgia with an all-fiber network. Grand River Mutual Telephone Corp., an independent telephone com- pany providing broadband services across 48 exchanges in Missouri and Iowa, standardized on ADC equipment to overbuild its copper network with FTTH. The equipment selected includes ADC’s OMX splice cabinet and Next Generation Frame (NGF), which were chosen because of their high density, You can provide for the ever-changing technological needs superior cable management and reduced of residents without touching your budget. By partnering with floor space requirements. ADC also pro- Connexion Technologies to install a cutting-edge Fiber to the Home network in your community, your residents can enjoy the vided local installation support. best entertainment and communications services delivered over Completion of the first pha se of Gra nd a fiber-optic network. This network will also be ready to handle River’s network upgrade, which began in almost any new service that comes to market. April, is expected by summer 2010, and the rollout will continue in subsequent phases. Jim Clark, the company’s direc- Find out more at www.connexiontechnologies.net tor of network operations, says, “Grand or contact us at 919.535.7329. River Mutual is committed to provid- ing advanced services for our residential customers and an advanced network for our business customers to ensure the eco- nomic viability of the areas we serve.” In South Dakota, Midstate Com- munications has selected Clearfield’s

September 2009 | www.broadbandproperties.com | BROADBAND PROPERTIES | 15 Midstate, which is deploying an very clean routing avenues for jumpers sional approach to our fiber manage- active Ethernet solution from Occam on the front side and an easy-to-read la- ment has a direct effect on our network’s Networks, used Clearfield’s complete beling system. And the pigtails exit the performance by avoiding downtime FieldSmart solution, including frames, rear of the patch panel in a very orderly through lost optical connectivity.” interbay management and the FieldS- fashion.” Midstate ordered all its patch mart FDS 144-Port Fiber Patch Panels. SureWest Expands Fiber and In addition, Midstate has purchased panels with preterminated pigtails, IPTV Coverage Clearfield’s Network Interface Device which provided the desired appearance SureWest Communications, a telecom Outside Plant bend-insensitive fiber pig- and protected the secure fiber connec- provider in the greater Sacramento and tails. Jandreau says, “Clearfield provides tions. Jandreau adds, “This very profes- greater Kansas City, Mo., areas, reported

SDN Communications Keeps Rural Towns Alive With Fiber At a time when many companies are scaling back, SDN Communications is growing its territory and offering new services. That’s because it is a lifeline for many of the small communities within its expanding footprint. Based in Sioux Falls, S.D., SDN is a regional transport provider owned by a group of independent telcos that collec- tively serve more than three-quarters of South Dakota’s geographic area. In addition to providing a fiber optic backbone for its member telcos, SDN sells Carrier Ethernet services to large enterprises. “A variety of organizations can move bits and bytes, but we’re the best in the Upper Midwest at providing high-security, high-availability, high-band- width services,” says CEO Mark Shlanta. Hospitals, banks, insurance companies, government agencies and data centers all rely on SDN for connec- tivity. Fiber optic connectivity enabled a town in SDN’s SDN Communications footprint with fewer than 100 residents to become home network engineer Billy to a bank that serves customers all over the world. A fiber Volek installs and tests the ECI Ethernet routers connection between a rural hospital and a metropolitan that will bring fiber hospital recently allowed doctors to deliver a premature connectivity to small baby during a blizzard and to stabilize the mother and towns in South Dakota. infant until weather conditions permitted their removal to Sioux Falls. bone. This year, it The core institutions – major hospitals, bank head- finished building quarters and so forth – generally require bandwidth of out a network 1 Gbps; rural hospitals, clinics and branch banks need to support com- anywhere between 5 Mbps and 50 Mbps to upgrade the mercial applica- traditional DS1 services they are growing out of. Because tions across the SDN can supply them, as well as such other anchor insti- n o r t h w e s t e r n tutions as schools, with the bandwidth they need, they and north-central can continue to operate efficiently in small communities. parts of the state. That, in turn, means residents can stay in those com- It has also extended beyond South Dakota’s borders to munities. “Having schools, medical care and banking in deploy fiber backbone to cities such as Omaha, Neb.; those markets are the three key factors to keeping rural Fargo, N.D.; and Bismarck, N.D. Later this year it will com- communities viable,” Shlanta explains. plete connections to Casper, Wyo., and parts of south- western Minnesota. The goal for 2009 – 2010 is to create Growth Beyond state Borders an eight-state backbone including South Dakota and its In 2008, SDN completed a transport network that links border states, along with Colorado. Shlanta says, “We’re South Dakota’s state government offices and universi- reaching into large communities in the border states, ties and connects them to the national research back- trying to become a regional business carrier.”

16 | BROADBAND PROPERTIES | www.broadbandproperties.com | September 2009 The new route between Casper, Wyo., and Rapid City, The CESR SR9700 is one of the largest-capacity and S.D., is the first to connect these two locations with fi- highest-density Ethernet solutions available. Tom ber – previously only microwave had been available. The Durfee, SDN’s director of network planning and opera- Bismarck-to-Rapid-City fiber link is one of the first routes tions, says, “We approached our existing telecom equip- between those two cities and certainly the first to place ment vendors in need of a solution that would grow with nodes in the towns along the route. us. The flexibility and cost effectiveness of ECI’s product were important elements in our decision to work with On-Ramps and Off-Ramps SDN’s recent backbone expansions were built using an them on this project.” Infinera DWDM platform, which Shlanta said had been With the new fiber backbone and the routers, rural instrumental in the projects’ being successfully com- South Dakota towns such as Belle Fourche, Newell and pleted on time and within budget. Now, to supply Eth- Maurine that were without access to fiber will have high- ernet services from the new nodes to nearby business bandwidth services available to their banks, health care customers, SDN is planning to deploy ECI Telecom’s providers, schools and government agencies. For some CESR SR9700 Carrier Ethernet Switch Router platform at of these towns, these fiber-borne services may provide a the ingress and egress points to the backbone. new lease on life.

146,900 fiber-marketable homes as of Optimum Lightpath, the CLEC our customers is a competitive advantage June 30, 2009, up 21,200 from a year ear- arm of Cablevision that supplies fiber for both GAIN and our customers. That’s lier. SureWest, which was one of the first Ethernet connectivity to businesses in the why we chose Optimum Lightpath,” says independent telcos to deploy IPTV over New York metropolitan area, introduced Andrew Haines, CIO of GAIN Capital. a fiber-to-the-home network, recently an- its Ethernet-based Virtual Private Ring “Now we have true network diversity, nounced that it is using the Microsoft Service (VPRS), which reduces costs for physically independent of traditional car- Mediaroom IPTV platform to expand its companies with multiple locations by le- riers, improved speed and reliability and video services in the greater Sacramento veraging shared bandwidth and bundled the ability to add capacity in just a few region. The service is expected to start up communications services. VPRS is a busi- days – ultimately providing us with more by the end of 2009; by the second quar- ness-dedicated Layer 2 access service that bandwidth for fewer dollars.” ter of 2010, it will be available to 25,000 provides 500 Mbps, 1,000 Mbps and 10 Utah-based Broadweave Networks, homes that are currently receiving only Gbps connectivity at a flat fee per site. It a fiber-based CLEC that purchased the telephone and high-speed Internet ser- delivers low-latency communications ser- ailing iProvo municipal fiber network in vices from SureWest. vices, simplified billing, and soon, online 2008, announced a merger with Verac- Bill DeMuth, SureWest’s senior vice self-provisioning and real-time report- ity Communications, a service provider president and chief technology officer, ing. Optimum Lightpath says the service on the open-access iProvo and UTOPIA says, “Reliability and ease of use have a is “virtually plug-and-play” and allows fiber networks. The merger resulted in significant impact on customer satisfac- businesses to dynamically manage their the formation of a new entity, Veracity tion and retention. We have been test- connectivity based on changing needs. Networks, which will serve more than ing the Mediaroom-powered service in Optimum Lightpath also announced 20,000 customers in Utah. When it actual customer environments, and it a new business customer, GAIN Capi- purchased iProvo last year, Broadweave has unequivocally delivered far more tal. GAIN Capital operates the online impressive results than any of the other foreign-exchange trading platform announced a takeover of Veracity Com- options we reviewed. … The technology FOREX, a 24/5 service used by custom- munications, but the deal failed to close allows us to provide services in new ways ers in 140 countries. To guarantee the at that time. Since then, Broadweave that will further blur the lines between high speed, low latency, high availability has invested a great deal in upgrading traditional TV, Internet and telephone.” and scalability FOREX needs, GAIN iProvo’s infrastructure and, as a result, NTS Communications is continu- Capital required a fiber connection. Op- reportedly has encountered cash-flow ing its FTTP buildout in Levelland, timum Lightpath’s fiber can accommo- problems – a possible motivation for a Texas. Its parent company, XFONE, date both GAIN Capital’s rapid growth merger with the financially stable Verac- reports that the company is achieving and its need for flexible, on-demand ca- ity. However, according to local press re- a subscription rate of approximately 50 pacity, and it saves money for the com- ports, immediately following the merger percent of the businesses it passes with fi- pany in the bargain. announcement, the new Veracity Net- ber. NTS, a prior recipient of RUS fund- “Low-latency trading is critical in the works approached the city of Provo ing, has also applied for funding under fast-moving currency market, so having about stretching out its schedule of pay- the broadband stimulus program. faster connections through the Internet to ments for the purchase of iProvo. BBP

September 2009 | www.broadbandproperties.com | BROADBAND PROPERTIES | 17 Fiber Amenity Providers Connexion Technologies Announces Two New Projects Connexion Technologies has an- made up of five associations that repre- “By welcoming and managing a wide nounced partnerships with two private sent 417 single-family homes, condos, variety of leading service providers on communities in Florida: Pine Ridge III, town homes and villa owners and their our infrastructure, we can enable the located in Greenacres, and Dos Lagos residences. delivery of a robust selection of service in Boynton Beach. Connexion plans to Unlike most fiber deployers, Con- offerings at a significant savings.” create customized fiber optic networks nexion recruits and manages third-party “Our partnership with Connexion for the delivery of television, high-speed service providers rather than providing Technologies is a win-win for both us Internet and telephone in both commu- services itself. “Our unique business and our residents,” says Michael Car- nities. model enables us to deliver a custom- reira, board president at Pine Ridge III. Pine Ridge III, with 336 condos, is ized technology solution that best fits “We get a great value add for our com- in South Florida, a few miles from beach the needs of each property,” says Grant munity, and our residents receive world- access. The Dos Lagos community is Kitching of Connexion Technologies. class services.” BBP

Municipalities FTTH Spurs Annexation for Salisbury As we’ve reported in previous issues, the viding broadband services – even just to ber system. The plan requires revenues city of Salisbury, N.C., is in the process business customers – would help pay for to meet or exceed operation and main- of deploying a municipal fiber network the fiber deployment, the utility would tenance expenses plus depreciation of with assistance from Atlantic Engineer- consider launching an FTTP project. newly installed fiber and electronics. At ing Group. Although the system hasn’t The availability of broadband stimulus present, the network is meeting this goal; gone live yet, it already inspires the envy funding is a factor in the decision, ac- commissioners will continue to review fi- of nearby residents. In July, the North cording to the report. nancials on a quarterly basis and approve Hills Christian School, which occupies Grant County Public Utility Dis- further buildout on an annual basis. 17 acres outside the city limits (not con- trict (PUD) in central Washington has Based on the new guidelines, the tiguous to Salisbury), petitioned to have selected Infinera equipment to power PUD is now in year two of a five-year its property annexed to Salisbury so it an optical network supporting triple- plan to supply fiber to 80 percent of resi- could be connected to the fiber network. play broadband services in rural areas of dences and 95 percent of businesses in The school director said North Hills re- Grant and Douglas counties. the county. Close to 9,000 more homes quested annexation because it is imple- Grant County PUD began building and businesses will have fiber services menting a technology-enhanced learning a wholesale fiber-to-the-home network in available by the end of this year. program and believes “the addition of fi- 2000 and lit up the first home in August Because the PUD needed the ability ber to the home will greatly benefit the of that year. At that time, its territory was school.” The Salisbury City Council ex- to add bandwidth quickly and easily, it pressed “delight” that the school wanted underserved by broadband and parts of it chose Infinera’s Digital ROADM archi- to join the city and unanimously agreed did not even have telephone service. To- tecture, which enables it to reconfigure to the annexation as of the end of 2009. day, the fiber optic network passes nearly the network remotely, via software, in The Johnson City Power Board, a 15,000 homes, businesses and farms; 40 response to changing traffic patterns. TVA electricity distributor in Tennes- percent of these purchase one or more Robert Bergman, telecom engineer for see, is about to begin connecting all its services from the 14 retail providers of- Grant County PUD, says, “Infinera al- substations with a fiber optic network. fering services over the network. Com- lows Grant County PUD engineers to According to local press, the utility is petitive carriers have also entered the provision circuits quickly and easily, and conducting a feasibility study to help it market to offer triple-play services. the Infinera architecture dramatically decide whether to extend that network to After a hiatus of several years, Grant simplifies operation of the network, re- the premises of some or all of its 74,000 County PUD established guidelines in quiring far fewer line cards, optical cables customers. If the study finds that pro- 2008 for further development of the fi- and spare parts to keep on hand.” BBP

18 | BROADBAND PROPERTIES | www.broadbandproperties.com | September 2009 RBOC UPDATE 2Q09 FiOS Report: 650,000 Homes Passed, 300,000 Customers Added Verizon reported that it continued to net new FiOS Internet customers, bring- year earlier. FiOS Internet was available add FiOS customers at record rates in ing the total to 3.1 million as of June 30, to 11.0 million premises, and penetra- the second quarter. There were 303,000 2009 – an increase of 56 percent from a tion (sales as a percentage of potential

Deployer Spotlight

Alaska

States with deployments referenced in this article

North American Telcos Stayton Cooperative Telephone www.sctcweb.com Broadweave Networks www.broadweave.com SureWest Communications www.surewest.com Farmers Telephone Cooperative www.ftc-i.net Verizon Communications www.verizon.com Grand River Mutual Telephone Corp. www.grm.net Midstate Communications www.midstatesd.net Other North American Deployers Northeast Missouri Rural Telephone www.nemr.net City of Salisbury, N.C. www.salisburync.gov NTS Communications www.ntscom.com Connexion Technologies www.connexion Optimum Lightpath www.optimumlightpath.com technologies.net Pembroke Telephone Company www.g-net.net Grant County Public Utility District www.gcpud.org SDN Communications www.sdncommunications.com Johnson City Power Board www.jcpb.com

September 2009 | www.broadbandproperties.com | BROADBAND PROPERTIES | 19 Multifamily fiber Innovations From Verizon Although Verizon began its fiber-to-the-premises de- Because the placement options for larger ONTs were ployment in the suburbs, FiOS has become increasingly limited, Verizon often had to extend wiring to the ONT urbanized as Verizon negotiates video franchise agree- and drill through walls. With the new ONTs, “because ments with one city after another. The company capped of the positive aesthetics and the form factor, we have its celebration of the first anniversary of FiOS TV in New more placement options,” Levendos says. “We [have] the York City by announcing agreements with New York opportunity to connect the ONTs with existing wiring University, to install FiOS in faculty housing, and with the and to do less rewiring. We can position them closer to Trump Organization, to bring FiOS services to four more electric outlets. And there’s no augmenting of electrical Trump residential high-rise buildings in Manhattan. outlets, which was always a possibility before.” This urban shift means a higher proportion of today’s installations are in multiple dwelling units (MDUs), which The Vertical and the Horizontal have traditionally posed challenges for fiber deployers. The indoor ONT isn’t Verizon’s only MDU innovation. The Verizon has always worked closely with suppliers to tai- company is also using a new system for vertical deploy- lor FTTP technology to its needs, and this has been par- ments – a premeasured, preformed fiber architecture ticularly true in the multifamily environment. that can be placed quickly in the vertical runs, avoiding the need for splicing. Levendos explains, “We’ve got fi- Enter the ONT ber products that are factory-made where the optical Last month, Verizon announced that it had begun de- loss is qualified and standardized and understood. The ploying new, smaller optical network terminals (ONTs) amount of retesting and rework is dramatically reduced, in apartment complexes in New York, Southern Califor- and that speeds up implementation.” The equipment is nia and Tampa Bay. ONTs link fiber optic networks to in- sourced from ADC and other suppliers. home wiring and convert light pulses into electromag- In the horizontal dimension, Verizon is using Corn- netic signals. The new ONTs, about the size of a ing’s ClearCurve family of optical fibers, a rugged, bend- home router, take up minimal space – they can be posi- insensitive fiber that “goes into nooks and crannies and tioned under desks or on shelves – and simplify service into the apartment unit,” terminating at the ONT, accord- installation. ing to Levendos. One of the new devices, the Alcatel-Lucent I-21 1M-K The new vertical and horizontal technologies have indoor ONT, measures just 1.25 inches high, 8.5 inches allowed Verizon installers to deploy more quickly, with wide and 5.5 inches deep. The other device, the Motor- better quality and more consistency, Levendos says. ola ONT 1000 GTI indoor ONT, is slightly larger. Prior to these innovations, “when you were placing raw Alcatel and Motorola developed the equipment fiber vertically, you had to deal with building-to-building based on Verizon specifications. According to Vincent ranges of optical loss based on the quality of work being O’Byrne, technology director at Verizon’s product and done; horizontally, in placing a fiber, you had to have a technology development labs in Waltham, Mass., the much more delicate approach to positioning, testing and new ONTs were designed to meet a challenging set of retesting when it didn’t fall into the right optical range.” specifications and to better serve the MDU market. Levendos hopes the new indoor ONTs will encour- “Space is a precious commodity in apartment build- age building owners’ adoption of the single-family ONT. ings, and these new, smaller ONTs were specifically de- Many multifamily owners and managers prefer multifam- signed with that in mind,” says Eric Cevis, vice president ily ONTs, which Verizon believes will ultimately limit the of Verizon Enhanced Communities. “We’ve downsized services available to customers. The owners’ preference the equipment and minimized the hassles for property for multifamily units, Levendos says, is based in part on owners, making FiOS an even more attractive service of- the form factor of the single-family ONTs. As their com- fering for residents of multidwelling units.” fort level with the new, smaller ONTs grows, he says, “I Chris Levendos, head of engineering for the FiOS think that concern will fall away.” buildout in New York City, says New York customers had Has Verizon solved all its MDU deployment chal- demanded “something smaller and better looking, with lenges? Levendos says, “We’re still tweaking the ONT, more flexibility of placement to balance the aesthetics and even on the horizontal side there are some ... really and spatial demands of a New York City apartment.” So good opportunities to help improve the efficiency and far, customers have been pleased with the new devices. the overall implementation impact to the building for “We have only positive feedback,” Levendos says. “Ev- the owner and the individual apartments. We’ll continue eryone wants [them].” to build better mousetraps.”

20 | BROADBAND PROPERTIES | www.broadbandproperties.com | September 2009 customers) was 28.1 percent, up from Vendor Spotlight 23.5 percent a year earlier. FiOS TV service was available to ADC...... www.adc.com 10.3 million premises by the end of ADTRAN...... www.adtran.com June, and there were 2.5 million cus- Alcatel-Lucent...... www.alcatel-lucent.com tomers at the end of the quarter, up 82.1 Atlantic Engineering Group ...... www.atlantic-engineering.com percent from a year earlier. The penetra- Clearfield...... www.clearfieldconnection.com tion rate was 24.6 percent, compared Corning...... www.corningcablesystems.com with 19.7 percent a year earlier. There ECI Telecom...... www.ecitele.com were 300,000 net new customers in the second quarter. ETI Software Solutions ...... www.etisoftware.com In the consumer market, FiOS aver- Infinera...... www.infinera.com age monthly revenue per user remained MetaSwitch...... www.metaswitch.com strong at more than $135, compared Microsoft ...... www.microsoft.com with $72.59 for all Verizon consumers. Motorola ...... www.motorola.com The rollout of the FiOS network Occam Networks ...... www.occamnetworks.com picked up steam again after a slow first quarter, with an additional 650,000 premises passed in the second quarter. vides on-screen access to ESPN Fantasy sands of Wi-Fi hot spots. Verizon Wi- As of the end of the second quarter, Football points and statistics, including Fi hot spot locations include hotels, air- the FiOS network passed 13.8 million rosters, box scores, scoring leaders and ports, restaurants, coffee shops, retailers, premises, or approximately 43 percent player information. Over the coming convention centers and public locations of households in Verizon’s wireline net- months, Verizon and other developers across the United States. work footprint. will add more applications, both free DVR users can now use FiOS Me- and fee-based, to the Widget Bazaar. dia Manager to play videos, photos and Enhancements to Subscribers to the FiOS TV Home music from their computers on their FiOS Services Media DVR service can now search TVs and Internet-enabled cell phones to Verizon also announced a bevy of en- and view online videos from blip.tv, remotely manage their DVRs. These hancements to FiOS services: Dailymotion and Veoh, free of charge features existed before but were available The Widget Bazaar applications and without any additional equipment. only to a small number of users. store gives FiOS TV subscribers access The Verizon In-Home Agent, now Finally, and most significantly, Veri- to a variety of TV-based applications. available for Windows-based FiOS In- zon launched a trial of the TV Every- This new marketplace, located within ternet subscribers, performs functions where initiative, which makes over-the- FiOS TV’s Interactive Media Guide, is that once required assistance from a launching with free Twitter, Facebook help-desk representative, such as config- top video a free adjunct to paid video and ESPN Fantasy Football Widgets. uring a new PC to work on a home Wi‑Fi services such as FiOS TV. The trial With the Twitter Widget, subscribers network, setting up e-mail accounts, includes content from Time Warner’s can follow tweets related to the program automatically fixing Internet access or Turner networks, TNT and TBS, and they are watching, see tweets on the hot video problems, ordering subscription will be expanded to include content topics of the day or search for tweets on TV channels, modifying phone features from other providers. Participants will specific subjects. The Facebook Widget and obtaining setup instructions. be able to watch television programs lets subscribers update their Facebook Subscribers to FiOS Internet service from these networks on their personal accounts and see friends’ status updates. with 25/15 Mbps or faster connections computers or laptops, at home or away, The ESPN Fantasy Football Widget pro- now have free wireless access at thou- using any broadband connection. BBP

INTERNATIONAL DEPLOYMENTS

British volunteer coast guard crew digs its own FTTP installation…New FTTP deployments planned in Thailand, Malaysia, Greece and the Middle East… Read all of these stories and more in the digital edition at www.bbpmag.com/bbponline.php

September 2009 | www.broadbandproperties.com | BROADBAND PROPERTIES | 21