Verizon allowing ISPs access to Fios

Verizon is confirming a California ISP’s claim that the telco is offering other ISPs access to its new fiber-to-the-premises network.

A company spokeswoman said Verizon is currently in commercial negotiations with multiple ISPs to allow them to sell service over the Fios network it is building.

“If you can do it in a way that makes business sense for us and makes business sense for them and is good for the customer, we’ll do it,” she said. A couple of deals have already been signed and more are in the works, the spokeswoman added. Verizon is looking “for a reasonable return” on its investment, she said.

Ari Ramezani, founder and CEO of DSLExtreme, said he has a “contract sitting on my desk” to use the Verizon Fios network to sell Internet access, much as his company has been reselling Verizon’s DSL network.

“I’ve been talking to them about it, said Ramezani, who first went public with the information on a BroadbandReports.com message board and has been surprised by the response. “I didn’t think it was that big of a deal. We’re a big partner of theirs.”

Since Verizon is not legally required to provide access to its new fiber buildout, many assumed the company wouldn’t do so.

In fact, the Bell companies had claimed for many years that they were holding back investing in fiber access networks until they were certain that the Federal Communications Commission wasn’t going to impose an unbundling requirement on those new networks, as it has on their existing copper plant. The FCC decided last year that it would not require the Bells to unbundle new fiber buildouts.

Verizon is in the midst of a multi-billion fiber construction project that so far has reached more than 100 communities in 14 states.

Ramezani said his company is already a major reseller of both Verizon and SBC Communications’ DSL services. “We are one of Verizon’s larger providers and we are SBC’s third largest in the country,” he said. “We have also tested ADSL2 with SBC.”

He said DSLExtreme would like to trial a voice over IP offering over Verizon’s Fios plant. “It’s my understanding you don’t have to have a phone line to get Fios,” he said.