New York-based Verizon has begun to install several billion dollars’ worth of fiber-to-the-premises infrastructure in its network, according to a report released by BIA Financial Network Inc. of Chantilly, Va., and Telecom Pragmatics Inc. of Birmingham, Ala. “Verizon’s Charging Forward with FTTP — Will Credit Markets and Regulators Get in Its Way?” suggests that the majority of the company’s installations will be along the Interstate-95 corridor, where most of the large businesses in its territory are located.

Although its strategy is to deploy high-speed bandwidth links to as many enterprise customers as possible, Verizon also expects to connect up to 800,000 residences in communities near the corridor this year. The installations follow the Federal Communications Commission’s 2003 decision to allow regional Bell operation companies such as Verizon to deploy fiber optics in the access network without unbundling.

The report predicts that the installations will increase carrier spending in Internet-provider-related equipment as well as standard DS-1 and DS-3 services and OC-3s and other optical rate offerings. It suggests that there also will be a greater demand for multiplexing and grooming cards at these electrical and optical transmission speeds.

The analysts interviewed representatives from service providers such as Verizon, SBC and BellSouth in compiling the report.