Q&A Verizon's Bob Ingalls on home fiber optics

If you think a cable modem or DSL line gives your home high-speed Internet access, you're wrong. Actually, most cable and DSL connections are still far too slow to support a new generation of digital entertainment. Telecommunications titan Verizon Communications vows to change this, by running massive fiber-optic data lines to millions of homes in 33 states. The cables will support much faster Internet service, plus multiple voice phone lines and digital video. Last week, Verizon signaled one new service it plans to add: Internet phone calls. Bob Ingalls, Verizon's president of retail markets, explains the company's plan in an interview with Globe staff reporter Hiawatha Bray.

Verizon says it's going to deliver fiber to the home. What does that mean?

What we're really talking about is fiber optic running all the way from our central office directly to the home. There'll be three different streams, a data stream, a video stream, and a voice stream, which will allow up to four different access lines.

Today's broadband services let a home user receive 1.5 megabits of data per second, and send 256 kilobytes per second. How much faster will fiber be?

The space that we're talking about is a service which will offer to the home user five megabits and two megabits. That's the base product, for the kind of novice user. The price that we're offering it at is $34.95 if you have a bundle of services, and $39.95 if you have a stand-alone.

You're also offering a 15-megabit service, which is 10 times faster than Verizon's DSL. But most Internet sites today send data at slower speeds, so how will extra speed benefit customers?

We're building a superhighway, and enabling that is going to draw application providers who'll make applications we haven't thought of today. We believe that some of these interactive applications that haven't yet been developed will arrive because the bandwidth is there.

Verizon has said it will offer fiber in a Dallas suburb first. When will Massachusetts get it?

We're not announcing the other states [but] we're obviously going to those markets where there is high opportunity of selling high-speed data services.

Along with Internet access, you're going to use the fiber to carry interactive video offerings. What will that mean for consumers?

If you're a Boston Red Sox fan and you're watching Nomar Garciaparra at the plate, you'd have the ability while you're watching the game to flip over to a website and look at statistics, or video from his past. That's really what I'm talking about toward the end of next year.

But to do this, you're going to have to run a new set of wires to millions of homes. That's got to be extremely expensive.

We have not announced publicly the cost, but you can do the math. We're going to pass 3 million houses, so it's definitely cost with a "b" in front of it, not an "m" in front of it. A million premises at $1000 each.

But after spending this much to build the network, you'll sell your improved Internet service at the same price you charge today. Where's the payoff for Verizon shareholders?

We have a huge opportunity. Voice is a product that virtually everybody uses today. The broadband market is a huge opportunity today. We think the year's going to end with 26 to 29 percent of the market having broadband.

Today, the cable companies who got into cable modems earlier certainly have a share advantage over us. We see the market growing and doubling over the next five years, and we expect to get our fair share. Then you look at video. We think there's a market opportunity there to win over both the satellite and the cable business.