Everyone knows the benefits of a diet high in fiber. It turns out that the same holds true for communications services.
Copper has served the communications needs of the country well for more than 100 years, but in many instances the better option today is fiber optics. Fiber is more reliable than copper, especially during inclement weather. This means customers enjoy better voice quality, and customer calls for repairs drop by orders of magnitude. In 2013 alone, Verizon eliminated 600,000 repair dispatches as a direct result of migrating customers served by copper over to fiber. That means more satisfied customers and more than $100 million in savings for Verizon – a win-win-win for Verizon, shareholders and, most of all, customers.
And when something does interrupt service, like downed lines from storms, service can be restored more quickly.
Verizon technician connects a home to a fiber-optic cable drop.
Verizon is well on its way to surpassing its goal of migrating 300,000 residential customers from copper to fiber in 2013. In fact, the company now has more customers connected via fiber (6.2 million) than copper (6.1 million). So far, Verizon has migrated 500,000 lines overall since the migration initiative began last year.
Upgrading from copper to fiber benefits everyone. And, fiber optics is a technology platform that can easily evolve with a community and customer’s technology needs many decades into the future.
