FCC Sees Jump in High-Speed Internet Access Lines
dailynews.yahoo.com
Wednesday November 1 3:16 AM ET
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The number of lines providing high-speed
Internet access, or digital subscriber lines (DSL), jumped 57 percent
during the first six months of this year, according to the Federal
Communications Commission (news - web sites).
There were about 4.3 million lines connecting homes and small businesses
to the Internet as of June 30, up from 2.8 million lines at the end of 1999,
the agency said on Tuesday citing data it collected from providers.
Of those lines, 2.8 million offered speeds of over 200 kilobytes per second
in both directions, up from 2 million at the end of 1999, the FCC said.
Verizon Communications (NYSE:VZ - news), the nation's biggest local
phone company, said on Monday it was installing about 3,500 DSL lines a
day and was on track to have 500,000 DSL customers by the end of this
year.
SBC Communications Inc. (NYSE:SBC - news), the second biggest local phone company in the United
States, said it had 516,000 at the end of September while Qwest Communications International Inc.
(NYSE:Q - news) said it expects to have 250,000 DSL customers by year-end and hopes to double that
number by the end of 2001.
High-speed Internet service subscribers were located in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico and about 70 percent of the nation's zip codes were represented as of June 30, up from 59 percent at the end of last year, the FCC said.
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Michael |
