Verizon Wireless will offer fast Net service
Verizon Wireless is bringing its fastest broadband wireless data service -- with triple the capacity its rivals offer -- to metropolitan Boston and the Providence, Hartford, and New Haven areas, beginning today.
The service, called BroadbandAccess, offers unlimited Internet access at typical average speeds of 300 to 500 kilobits per second for $80 a month, plus the cost of a plug-in access card for a laptop computer.
The service was initially deployed last year but only in parts of Washington, D.C., and San Diego. Recently, though, Verizon has been steadily expanding the availability of BroadbandAccess to cover areas that are home to about one-third of all US residents.
The Boston coverage zone includes virtually all areas within and along Route 128, from Lynnfield to Quincy, where Verizon offers cellular phone coverage, said spokesman David Thomson.
Outside the metropolitan area, BroadbandAccess coverage extends along Route 9 and the Massachusetts Turnpike to Interstate 495 in Westborough, along I-495 from the Pike to I-93 in Andover, and along the I-95 and Route 1 corridors through Providence to Cranston and Warwick, R.I.
Verizon has also added the coverage at Logan International Airport in Boston, Manchester Airport in New Hampshire, T.F. Green Airport near Providence, and Bradley International Airport in Windsor Locks, Conn. Connecticut coverage also includes the Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun casinos.
Offering BroadbandAccess in major southern New England population centers vaults Verizon back into the lead, for now, in an ongoing speed war between the major wireless carriers.
Cingular Wireless LLC, the biggest US carrier, offers an EDGE wireless data service in all parts of New England where it has upgraded its cellular phone service to so-called GSM coverage. EDGE promises average connections of 100 to 135 kilobits per second, or about three times the speed of a conventional fixed dial-up modem.
Cingular has said it will add a new service called UMTS, which offers speeds closer to Verizon's BroadbandAccess, in 15 to 20 US markets by the end of this year but has not said if Greater Boston will be among them. Sprint PCS is also planning upgrades in the coming year.
Verizon's New England regional president, Bob Stott, said BroadbandAccess was part of a $330 million regional network upgrade over the last year that included adding 130 cell sites.
Verizon said it is also selling a personal computer wireless access card for $50 with a two-year contract, or $100 with a one-year contract. In both cases the net price is based on a $150 rebate.
Verizon also expects to soon begin selling more wireless cards and new models of phones that can use the faster network. With BroadbandAccess, as with Cingular's EDGE service, when subscribers are out of range of the fastest network they automatically revert to roughly 50-kilobit coverage from older, slower networks.
Peter J. Howe can be reached at howe@globe.com.
