Verizon (NYSE: VZ) continues to make progress with its copper to fiber migration, replacing copper facilities in two more of its central office facilities in New York City.
The service provider wrote in an FCC filing that it replaced copper distribution and loop facilities with FTTH facilities at its East 79th Street and East 97th Street COs.
When this process is completed, the service provider will continue to offer services over the new fiber facilities.
Verizon said that most of the customers served by copper out of these COs primarily purchase POTS (plain old telephone service). Although they could eventually offer FiOS services, the carrier's initial plan is to offer the same services it provides over the existing copper today.
"Following transition to fiber, Verizon will continue to offer these customers the same POTS service over fiber at the same or better price as they received on copper facilities," wrote Verizon in an FCC filing. "There will be no change in the underlying features and functionalities in their service: this is not a transition to IP-based service and Verizon will offer these customers the same regulated service they have today."
At the same time, Verizon recognizes that there could be customers that still use legacy DS0 (digital signal 0) services that are either not compatible or are not available over a fiber-based connection.
The telco said that if such services exist in these COs, it "will work closely with those customers to address their particular needs."
Given the challenges of migrating customers from copper to fiber, Verizon has been setting goals for what will be a multi-year transition.
During the first quarter of 2015, Verizon migrated 47,000 customers off of copper and onto fiber, helping it come closer to reaching its 2015 goal of 200,000 conversions for the year. At the same time, the telco is in the process of decommissioning ten COs.
Any CO it converts from copper to fiber provides benefits to both Verizon and its customers.
For Verizon, the benefit is that it can reduce real estate space by 60-80 percent. In decommissioning a legacy Class 5 switch and related copper, they can reduce their CO footprint from 13 floors to just one or two floors, for example.
On the customer end, the telco sets a foundation on which it can potentially upsell POTS-only customers its FiOS TV and broadband data services.
For more:
- see this FCC filing (.pdf)
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