Verizon’s Enterprise Advances

Five months after Verizon announced its Enterprise Advance initiative, the carrier has lined up more than 150 customers for the service.

Five months after Verizon announced its Enterprise Advance initiative, the carrier has lined up more than 150 customers for the service.

Verizon says the 150 include some of its largest customers, including Bank of New York and The PMA Insurance Group in Pennsylvania.

Enterprise Advance is a key aspect of Verizon’s strategy to capitalize on new opportunities in the large enterprise data market. Nearly 70% of U.S. enterprises have a presence in Verizon territory, analysts say.

Under the first phase of Enterprise Advance, which is now complete, Verizon put in place high-speed links throughout the Northeast, specifically to connect New York, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, among  other states.

In the first quarter of 2003, Verizon added long-distance connections in the Northeast for regional frame relay, SONET and ATM services for companies needing to transmit video or a high volume of transactions, and disaster recovery and data storage. In the coming months, the RBOC will add Transparent LAN/Ethernet, IP and optical networking services such as DWDM to the regional mix.

Verizon says it also plans to extend its services to more cities along the I-95 corridor in the East and then to cities across the country. The extended Verizon network, as expected, will support Multi-protocol Label Switching to support multiple Layer 2 and Layer 3 services over a common infrastructure.

On the consumer front, meanwhile, Verizon last week cut DSL pricing to $34.95 per month from a range of $49.95 to $59.95. At the same time, Verizon is offering a higher downstream speed of 1.5M bit/sec, about double that of the current base offer of 768K bit/sec downstream.

Customers who have purchased the Verizon Freedom Plan – unlimited local/long distance at a flat rate – will receive the service for $29.95 per month, according to a bulletin from investment firm UBS Warburg. The new plans will be announced in June, the firm reports.

“Verizon is ‘slow rolling’ the service with little fanfare to increase its ability to handle what may be overwhelming interest,” UBS Warburg states in its bulletin. “We believe DSL is a highly elastic service, and this attractive pricing should significantly stimulate demand.”