Verizon last week announced its first business services for its FiOS fiber-to-the-premises network and reiterated its plans to sell wholesale FiOS access to ISPs.

The wholesale issue was stirred up again when Earthlink said it was negotiating with Verizon to use the FTTP network for its Internet access service, under a commercial wholesale agreement the two companies are now negotiating. Verizon's wholesale plans first came to light in March.

“Wholesale service is an $8 billion business for us,” said a Verizon spokesman. “Why wouldn't we utilize our FiOS to reach those customers?”

Verizon has existing agreements with a large number of ISPs who resell its DSL network and the FiOS sales are a natural extension of that, the spokesman added.

“This is such a natural extension of what we are doing with DSL that it just makes sense,” he said. “These are commercially negotiated contracts that are mutually beneficial.”

The small business service via FiOS is now available in parts of California, Florida and Texas, where Verizon initially launched its access fiber buildout. Verizon FiOS Internet Service for Business will come in three speeds: 5 Megabits per second symmetric, 15 Mb/s downstream/2 Mb/s upstream and 30 Mb/s downstream/5 Mb/s upstream. Services comes with either dynamic or static IP addresses and prices range from $59.95 a month up to $170.00 a month, depending on configuration.

In other FiOS news, Cox Communications said it will add a 15 Mb/s downstream, 2 Mb/s upstream service to its high-speed data offerings in northern Virginia, where it must compete with FiOS in many suburban Washington, D.C., communities. The new service costs $55 for customers who buy a bundle of services from Cox. In addition, Cox will boost existing “Preferred” service to 5 Mb/s with no cost increase.