The height of technology
Verizon trains a force to install its ultra-fast fiber optics
Thursday, April 28, 2005
BY TOM JOHNSON
Star-Ledger Staff
Inside an unimposing office building in a South Plainfield industrial park, Jeffrey Batiste is busy training some of the next generation of telecommunications workers.
He barely can control his enthusiasm.
VERIZON'S EARNINGS TOP FORECASTS
PAGE 25"You have to compare this to other major milestones within the industry," says Batiste, a 10-year veteran in charge of training for Verizon in New Jersey. "This is as significant as when they began stringing wires across the country or bringing a telephone into every home."
About 160 people each month are being trained to install the company's ultra-fast communications network for homes and small businesses. The work force is crucial to the nation's largest local phone carrier's aggressive goal to replace its old copper phone network with fiber-optic cables.
The cables, consisting of hair-thin strands of glass, are capable of transmitting voice, video and data signals at speeds far exceeding today's copper-cable standards. The network is Verizon's move to sell the triple play of television, phone and fast Internet access being marketed by cable television companies.
In New Jersey, Verizon plans to spend $200 million this year and hire as many as 500 workers to build out the network. Verizon also has hired at least three outside contractors who likely will hire hundreds more workers.
"Before we were just connecting phone wires to the house," Batiste says. "Now, we're building a new network into the home. There's so much bandwidth here that we can't even fathom what we are going to do with it all."
In the beginning, though, the workers get an old-fashioned introduction into the telephone worker's day. They start with a two-week course in telephone-pole climbing.
Then follows an intense course teaching them how to install the fiber optics. The service, available to only about two dozen towns in the state, is dubbed FiOS, short for fiber-optic service.
The first main component, optical line terminals, are located in the company's central switching offices, which typically serve between 10,000 and 15,000 homes, Batiste says. The terminal serves as the point of origination for the fiber-optic transmissions coming in and out of Verizon's national network.
The optical signals are then sent to an optical fiber distribution hub where the signals are split off to serve multiple customers. The 4-foot aluminum encased hubs are sometimes mounted in the neighborhood they will serve or put atop a telephone pole.
Each hub is capable of serving between 216 and 432 homes, Batiste says.
From there, the signals are sent to an optical network terminal mounted on the outside of a customer's home where the light signal is converted into a dial tone, and data or video feeds run into the homeowner's premises. A battery backup will provide power for voice service during any loss of electrical power.
Inside the home, Verizon workers will connect the network to the customer's computer, television and phone, a process that will take about two hours. A router will allow it to provide Internet access for as many as four personal computers, Batiste says.
The toughest part of the job will be mounting the optical distribution hub atop the pole. Hovering above the ground, the workers will use special tools to splice the cable into as many as 12 different ports. The splicing job is supposed to be completed within 2 1/2 hours.
The workers Verizon is hiring need not be college graduates, but they must pass a written test. All will be union workers represented by International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and earn between $31,800 and $60,000 a year.
So far, the workers in training aren't finding the task daunting, says Tom Sak, a retired Verizon worker who helps train the workers. Only two of the 170 or so workers who have gone through the course failed it, he says.
"It's intimidating at first, but once the instructors teach you how to do it, it goes pretty smoothly," says Anthony Chen, a 23-year-old Belleville resident who was talked into applying for a job as a facility technician by his brother-in-law, who works for Verizon. "I'm very excited about the technology and the capabilities of fiber."
Verizon New Jersey President Dennis Bone says installing the fiber-optic network has endured some hiccups. Verizon New Jersey isn't alone in trying to build a communications network, so the company has been held up because of delays in obtaining equipment to do the job.
Verizon could use more of the high-tech tools to splice the cables and the trucks that take fiber off the spool and attach it to the existing network. "This is a huge logistical problem," Bone says.
By the end of the year, Verizon hopes to wire up to 70 towns in 10 counties, a rate the company hopes to duplicate next year, Bone says. It will probably not offer video programming to customers until next year.
Verizon is signing up customers for the high-speed data service.
Waqas Haque, a 32-year-old computer consultant in Old Tappan, called the company seeking to change his existing phone lines and was told about the fiber-optic service. For someone who often works out of his home, the service has proved valuable.
"This costs about the same as my cable modem did, but it is faster," says Haque, who is paying $49.95 a month for the service. "I can certainly see the difference, especially when I'm downloading files."
Tom Johnson may be reached at tjohnson@starledger.com or (973) 392-5972.
FAT PIPES
Verizon is installing a fiber optic network in New Jersey.
M ain components:
Optical Line Terminals: Located in Verizon's central switching office, this equipment is the traffic cop for fiber-optical signals coming in and out of the company's national communications network.
Optical Splitter Hubs: 4-foot-high aluminum boxes mounted atop a telephone pole or on the ground, these hubs will be where the optical signals from fiber link are split off to serve individual customers via individual strands of fiber.
Optical Network Terminal: These small medicine-cabinet-sized terminals will be mounted outside homes and businesses. This is where the optical signal is converted into voice, data or video feeds into the customer's house or business.
Fiber optic cable: Connecting the components is cable that is less than half-inch thick, which can send optical signals of light at great speeds via 216 hair-thin strands of glass.
Customer options
Verizon is initially installing the fiber-optic network in 24 towns: Allendale, Alpine, Closter, Demarest, Franklin Lakes, Harrington Park, Mahwah, Northvale, Norwood, Oakland, Old Tappan, Ramsey, Rockleigh, Westwood and Wyckoff in Bergen County; the city of Passaic; Ewing, Lawrence and Pennington in Mercer County; Mendham Township and Rockaway Borough in Morris County; Tinton Falls in Monmouth County and Evesham and Medford in Burlington County.
The company plans to announce other towns shortly. By the end of the year, it hopes to wire 70 communities in 10 counties around the state.
Customers interested in the service should call (888) GET-FIOS (888 438-3467).
Source: Verizon Communications
