By Mike Benbow
Herald Writer
Snohomish County’s phone company is about to go head-to-head with King County’s in competing for business in downtown Seattle.
Verizon Communications announced plans Thursday to open a new fiber optic network in January that would offer data transmission and long distance services to businesses and governmental agencies in Seattle, an area served by Qwest Communications.
Verizon’s foray into King County could eventually turn into a full fledged competition.
If things go well, the company could complete for local voice customers as well, said Melissa Barran, spokeswoman at Verizon’s Northwest headquarters in Everett.
Seattle isn’t the only battlefront for Verizon. The company is already competing for data customers in the Dallas/Fort Worth area and plans to expand into Los Angeles.
Barran said the Seattle-area market is home to 15 Fortune 1000 companies as well as more than 7,000 additional large businesses. Those companies buy communications products and services estimated at more than $1.5 billion a year.
To extend its presence into downtown Seattle, Verizon contracted for the construction of four fiber-optic rings, creating a network of more than 160 miles of fiber-optic cable. The network can be expanded and should allow the company to reach 80 percent of the potential customers in Seattle’s central business district, Barran said.
Verizon, formed by the merger of GTE and Bell Atlantic, will offer dedicated high-speed, high-capacity data transport services, long-distance calling and Internet data services, she added.
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