Verizon chief sees DSL becoming the norm in three years

CNY Business Journal (1996+), Dec 15, 2000 by McChesney, Charles

SYRACUSE - Eighteen to 36 months from now, businesses and homeowners will find high-speed Internet access over their phone lines to be as easy to use and reliable as regular phone service, says Ivan Seidenberg, president and co-CEO of Verizon.

In an interview before addressing the annual meeting of the Metropolitan Development Association of Greater Syracuse, Seidenberg explained that his company has not been able to keep up with demand for digital subscriber lines (DSL) that allow access to the Internet at 40 times the speed over regular phone lines. Comparing the situation to the recently reported shortage of flu vaccine, Seidenberg says DSL is a "complicated technology" and that customers demand "tremendous reliability." He points out that while most everyone with a computer knows that occasionally the computer will crash and need to be rebooted, "it's a whole different mindset" for phone-company service.

After saying that DSL will reach phone-like levels of reliability and availability within three years, Seidenberg quickly adds that reliability and availability will improve before then. He says service in Central New York will be up in 12 months.

Then, Seidenberg says, market forces will become involved as customers are able to choose between highspeed cable modems and high-speed DSL. However, Seidenberg - who says his company's value comes from getting not just marketshare, "but revenue per account" - says he does not expect the price of high-speed Internet access to fall far from its current $40 per month.

Seidenberg paints a picture of great growth. He expects that in a few years, nearly half of all homes will have highspeed Internet access, as opposed to "right now, maybe 3 percent."

In particular, Seidenberg says small too business is moving toward high-speed (or high-capacity) Internet access. "Every pizza shop, every gas station is putting in a high-cap line," he says. With that he says, any small business can reach customers around the world. And, he adds, with high-speed access and a product, "everybody becomes a small-business entrepreneur."

Discussing broad outlines of the future of Verizon - a company that includes the former Bell Atlantic, New England Telephone, and Frontier Cellular, among others - Seidenberg sees more voice traffic going to wireless phones as landlines become used increasingly for data transmission. "Data is where it's at," he says.