Verizon Now Offering Small and Medium Commercial Sites Its FiOS Service

NEW YORK - Verizon is ramping up efforts to extend the reach of its FiOS service to small and medium-sized commercial properties such as strip malls, and street-level shops and offices.

The service expansion and marketing campaign targeted to these properties, known as multiple-tenant units (MTUs), is being conducted by Verizon Enhanced Communities, Verizon's business organization that markets communications services to single- and multiple-dwelling unit properties (MDUs). The effort is an outgrowth of Verizon's program to link apartment buildings and other multidwelling units to offer FiOS services to tenants.  

"Verizon is excited to bring FiOS service to small and medium-sized businesses in commercial properties," said Monte Beck, vice president of business marketing for Verizon. "Now as our teams of engineers are expanding the reach of our FiOS services, we'll sell the services to commercial properties, just as we've done successfully in apartment buildings."

Last fall, sales managers from Verizon Enhanced Communities began contacting owners of small and medium-sized commercial properties in California, Florida, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia. Since then, Verizon has been proceeding to bring Verizon FiOS Internet for Business to MTU properties in parts of 16 states where the company is constructing this service expansion.

Customer interest in bringing FiOS to multiple-tenant commercial properties reflects the competitive advantage Verizon's fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP) network offers developers in marketing their properties. Verizon has an aggressive plan to bring FiOS services to even more MDUs and MTUs by the end of this year.

"Verizon's all-fiber-optic network, which provides unprecedented bandwidth and the ability to deliver super-high-speed Internet connections and crystal-clear voice and video signals, practically sells itself," said Eric Cevis, vice president of Verizon Enhanced Communities. "Property owners of apartment or commercial buildings want to attract tenants - residents and businesses - with a network designed to be "future-proof" that can support today's applications as well as foreseeable applications to come."

Verizon FiOS Internet for Business service can deliver Internet access with maximum downstream connection speed of up to 50 Mbps (megabits per second) on the company's most advanced digital, all-fiber-optic network. At 50 Mbps, downloading a 1.2 GB (gigabyte), or 90-minute, standard-definition movie takes approximately 3.2 minutes. Upload speeds of up to 20 Mbps make it a snap to share purchased videos and files over Verizon's large-scale fiber-optic network that extends all the way to customers' homes and small and medium-sized businesses. Using a 20 Mbps upstream broadband connection, uploading a 250 megabyte (MB) file, or a 3,500 page document, takes about 90 seconds, compared with about 47 minutes over a 768 kilobits per second (kbps) upstream connection.

In some areas Verizon FiOS Internet for Business service delivers Internet access with maximum downstream connection speeds of up to 30 Mbps and maximum upload speeds of up to 5 Mbps or 15 Mbps. Verizon FiOS Internet for Business offers a number of broadband speeds to meet the needs of each small and medium-sized business.

Verizon Enhanced Communities received the Cornerstone Award from Broadband Properties Magazine acknowledging the organization for outfitting a 300-unit, eight-building residential community with Verizon's FiOS all-fiber-optic network services in just 14 days.  For more information about the products and services available through Verizon Enhanced Communities, visit www.verizon.com/communities.

About Verizon
Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ), headquartered in New York, is a leader in delivering broadband and other wireline and wireless communication innovations to mass market, business, government and wholesale customers.  Verizon Wireless operates America's most reliable wireless network, serving more than 67 million customers nationwide.  Verizon's Wireline operations include Verizon Business, which delivers innovative and seamless business solutions to customers around the world, and Verizon Telecom, which brings customers the benefits of converged communications, information and entertainment services over the nation's most advanced fiber-optic network.  A Dow 30 company, Verizon employed a diverse workforce of approximately 232,000 as of the end of the first quarter 2008 and last year generated consolidated operating revenues of $93.5 billion.  For more information, visit www.verizon.com.

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