Tuesday October 31, 6:39 pm Eastern Time
FCC sees jump in high-speed Internet access lines
WASHINGTON, Oct 31 (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, the Federal Communications Commission said Tuesday.
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 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. |
