Verizon Communications Inc. is installing fiber-optic Internetservice in Dorchester, using Boston's biggest, and one of its mostdiverse neighborhoods, as a test site for the challenges the companywill face in bringing "FiOS" to urban areas nationwide.
But relatively few Dorchester residents will be able to get thehigh-speed service, which promises download speeds up to 10 timesfaster than Verizon's popular digital subscriber line service, anytime soon. Verizon says installation is moving at a snail's pacebecause it's harder to run lines in an urban setting than in theneat, suburban grids where most of the more than 100,000Massachusetts residents live who already subscribe to FiOS.
"We're starting to dip our toes in the water in places likeDorchester because we get a sense of what it's like to install fiberin urban areas where you have to go underground, under the streets,"said Philip G. Santoro, a company spokesman.
Verizon also hopes that bringing fiber optics to Dorchester willput an end to criticism that it was aiming its newest serviceexclusively at wealthy, mostly white suburbs around the country. Butthe company declined to provide any specifics about the number ofhouseholds it was targeting in the neighborhood, or how many hadalready signed up.
Installing fiber in suburbs where many of the homes are detachedsingle-family structures tends to be easy: Connect a wire from atelephone pole to a box called an optical network terminal on theside of the house. But cities are a challenge. Many utility lines areunderground instead of on poles, and dropping fiber under streetsinvolves opening manholes, pumping out water and dangerous gases,then sending in work crews. "And you have to repeat that every 150 to200 feet," Santoro said.
The prevalence of apartment and office buildings, where deals haveto be worked out with landlords to allow the fiber cables into abuilding, further complicates the matter, he said. Verizon spent $300million nationwide building the fiber-optic network in 2005 - mostlyin suburbs - and says it will do the same this year. About 5 millionUS homes can get FiOS Internet service. It takes five times as longto design the network for a city neighborhood than it does in thesuburbs, Santoro said.
Verizon crews can run 70 feet of fiber-optic cable per hour in thesuburbs, compared to 20 feet per hour in urban areas.
An Internet connection over a fiber-optic cable moves faster thana DSL connection because of the material used to transmit packets ofdata. DSL uses copper phone wires to send data as electrical pulses;fiber optics are actually fine pieces of glass strung together overwhich data travel as pulses of light. In short, data travel overfiber optics at the speed of light.
In Massachusetts, Verizon is the only company offering fiber-optic connections to homes, part of a strategy that also includeseventually offering a subscription TV service to compete with cableand satellite companies.
Installation in Dorchester started in the first quarter of 2006but the company didn't begin advertising its availability untilAugust, mostly through mailings to homes that are close enough to thenew lines to be eligible for the service. Verizon won't say how manylocal FiOS subscribers it has in Massachusetts nor will it sayexactly how many it has in Dorchester. Santoro acknowledged there arefew in Dorchester because the service is so new there.
By installing fiber optics in an ethnically diverse neighborhoodpopulated mostly by middle-class and low-income people, the companymay be able to refute critics who have accused Verizon of high-techredlining.
"While we are glad to see Verizon bringing fiber to Dorchester,the point is not whether the telephone companies are bringing fiberto a few working-class communities, but whether they'll play by therules that cable companies play by and bring their advanced servicesto all neighborhoods," said Cyril Dadd, a spokesman for BroadbandEverywhere, a Washington, D.C., advocacy group that gets financialsupport from Verizon's rivals in the cable industry.
Santoro dismissed that criticism, saying Verizon started offeringFiOS in suburbs because they were easier to wire and promised aquicker return on investment. "This notion that we pick and choosewhat neighborhoods we went into based on demographics is justunfair."
Verizon is also rolling out FiOS in New York City's Queensborough, and in Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., where it isencountering many of the same issues it faces in Dorchester. Santoropointed to Lawrence, Lynn, and Framingham and other densely populatedareas in Massachusetts where Verizon is installing the service.
In Dorchester, one community technology advocate welcomed FiOS,where he says a gap still exists between those who have high-speedInternet access and those who don't because it's not available tothem or they can't afford it.
"It's wonderful to have Dorchester be a site where we can haveaccess to high-tech broadband strength, and we want to be part of anyeffort to bring more access because the Internet is the way to jobs,the way to education," said Bill Walczak, executive director of theCodman Square Health Center, which runs a technology-trainingprogram. But Walczak said he's more focused on the city's plannedWiFi network, which could offer free Net access to all.
Reaction to the availability of the service among residents inFields Corner, which has a sizable African-American, Caribbean, andAsian immigrant population, where Verizon crews last week put fiber-optic cables underground, ranged from indifference to excitement.
Eve Preval said many people she knows cannot afford high-speedInternet service anyway. She had both Verizon phone and DSL serviceat her home, but canceled it, she said, because of cost.
"I make decent money, but for somebody who's on minimum wage,these people have it hard," she said.
But Steve Davis, another Fields Corner resident, said he switchedhis Internet service from Comcast to Verizon DSL this summer, on therecommendation of a friend in Needham who has FiOS Internet. Hewasn't able to get FiOS then, but hopes Verizon can hook him up soon.If FiOS is already in the suburbs, he said, "They should be overhere."
Keith Reed can be reached at reed@globe.com.
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