Verizon to roll out super-fast Net access

Verizon Communications Inc. yesterday identified 19 Boston suburbs -- including Natick, Newton, and Woburn -- where it will offer super-fast Internet access over a new fiber-optic network this year.

The same network will also be used to provide TV service designed to compete with those from Comcast Corp., RCN Corp., and satellite television companies as Verizon begins to secure local cable television franchises.

The project is also part of an escalating telecommunications race: Comcast is rolling out an Internet telephone service that takes dead aim at Verizon's core business, its phone operation.

Verizon is preparing to offer Internet access at speeds of up to 30 megabits per second, six to 10 times faster than what's possible with conventional cable modems. Both Comcast and RCN are responding this month with free upgrades for current and new customers. Comcast's current 3-megabit service will increase to 4 megabits, and RCN will crank up its 7-megabit service to 10. Subscription prices will not increase.

The system involved in Verizon's plans, the FiOS network (pronounced FIE-ohse), reaches about 116,000 homes and businesses in Greater Boston, and should reach at least 230,000 by year's end, spokesman Jack Hoey said.

The 16 other communities Verizon identified as part of its first wave of service are Andover, Bedford, Belmont, Boxford, Burlington, Holliston, Hopkinton, Lexington, Lincoln, Lynnfield, North Reading, Reading, Sherborn, Topsfield, West Newbury, and Winchester.

Hoey said those communities were chosen based on factors including ''market demand, geographical density, being part of a service cluster, and the cost and speed with which we can roll out service."

Verizon will install most of its new optical fiber on poles, which is much quicker and less expensive than pulling fiber through the underground conduits that serve much of Boston and Cambridge.

Verizon is also opening a 150-job FiOS service center in Providence that will cover Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

Verizon plans three FiOS broadband Internet services, all of which offer much faster ''upstream" Internet connections (to send data) than Comcast's or RCN's. That could appeal to people who regularly transmit large video and graphics files or compete in multiplayer online computer games:

5 megabits downstream (to receive data) and 2 upstream, for $35 a month bundled with phone service, $40 a month stand-alone.

15 megabits down and 2 up; $45 bundled with phone and $50 stand-alone.

30 megabits down and 5 up; $200 a month.

Bruce Leichtman, president of Leichtman Research Group in Durham, N.H., a broadband market analysis and consulting firm, said Verizon's services may prove most appealing to small businesses and a hardcore minority of Internet ''speed freaks" who crave superfast connections for games and video downloads.

''The question of what does 15 megabits get you that 3 or 4 doesn't is hard to answer and hard to quantify, but clearly what we're talking about is the high end of the market, and what the high end always knows is they want more," Leichtman said.

Of Verizon's plans, Comcast spokeswoman Jennifer L. Khoury said: ''Speed alone is not a winning formula. It's not just the speed, but what you do with it." Comcast plans several upgrades to its Web portal, which emphasizes made-for-broadband video and music downloads, and expects to roll out a video conferencing service this year.

But even as Comcast pooh-poohs raw speed, it plans to offer another round of free speed upgrades to customers in all 343 New England communities it serves during the week beginning Jan. 26. Its most popular service, which offers 3 megabit downloads and 256 kilobit per second uploads for $43 a month for customers who also take cable TV, will be upgraded to 4 megabits down/384 kilobits up.

In the five communities where RCN Corp. competes with Comcast, Verizon will become the third provider of high-speed Net and TV: Burlington, Lexington, Natick, Newton, and Woburn.

''We think we created the bundled concept, and we do it best," said RCN spokeswoman Brooke Tyson. ''Verizon's a phone company coming in to offering other services. We think it will take them a long time to get it right."

Peter J. Howe can be reached at howe@globe.com.