Totally Wired

By SUSAN WARNER January 1, 2006

HIGHTSTOWN

INCH by inch, the black-coated wire rolls off a giant wooden spool, snakes up a string of utility poles and crosses above the traffic island on Main Street.

All across this town in Mercer County, Verizon workers are suspended in cherry pickers feeding cable onto poles, or splicing fiber-optic ribbons in mobile trucks. These wires, made up of 144 tiny strands of glass no bigger than a hair, have the power to transport the cultural lifeblood of New Jersey: the "Today" show, "Oprah," "The Sopranos" and MTV.

Verizon's plan to wire the state with fiber-optic equipment to carry television in addition to telephone and Internet service, which it already offers, has set off a war of communications behemoths - Verizon vs. Comcast and Cablevision - for control of the state's television sets. Adding video to the telephone company's product line has riled the two major cable television companies operating in the state, even though they fired the first shot by offering telephone service through their Internet connections.

At stake are 2.5 million cable subscribers in New Jersey who paid a total of $2.2 billion for television and Internet service in 2004 alone, according to figures provided by the State Board of Public Utility.

In Trenton, two similar and controversial bills that would make it easier for Verizon to get the network running -- by awarding a statewide franchise rather than the cumbersome process of going town to town to reach individual agreements -- have been introduced, and although their fate is unclear, both sides are taking their case directly to consumers.

For several months, Verizon has been filling mailboxes, newspapers and Web sites with advertisements trumpeting its service as a blow to monopoly pricing by the few cable companies. Returning the salvo, cable television companies have broadcast commercials claiming that the proposed legislation will erode local access to cable channels and eventually increase the cost of cable service despite the introduction of more competition.

"This is being run like a political campaign," said William Dressel, executive director of the New Jersey League of Municipalities. "Emotions are running high. I've had executives on both sides yell and scream at me."

Since July, when Verizon began building its network in the state, the company -- with the help of 700 technicians that it hired for this very purpose -- has been stringing the fiber-optic system past 25,000 to 30,000 homes a month. By the end of the 2005 the network was capable of reaching 200,000 homes scattered throughout 123 of the state's 566 towns.

Nationally, Verizon's fiber-optic network now extends past 3 million homes, and the company plans to add another 3 million in 2006.

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