Verizon this week has announced the next two states for its fiber-to-the-premises network deployment and detailed the cities to be served in other states.

Northeastern Indiana and Rhode Island are the two states into which Verizon will next launch FIOS, its fiber-based access service which initially will deliver high-speed Internet access at speeds up to 30 Mpbs.

In Indiana, the towns of New Haven and Fort Wayne will be wired over the next two years, while in Rhode Island, the first designated construction will take place in North Kingstown and Warwick. In addition, Verizon is opening a customer service center in Providence, R.I., which will initially employ 150 customer service representatives.

The latest announcements brings to 11 the total number of states in which Verizon is building fiber optic networks.

The telecom giant also chose to disclose this week the specific towns it will be serving in Massachusetts and New York. That list includes 19 municipal areas in Middlesex and Essex counties in Massachusetts, 25 communities in Westchester and Rockland counties in upstate New York, and 13 communities on Long Island.

Verizon and its hired contractors have been installing fiber optic lines in these areas, and in other announced states, in advance of naming which areas it will serve.

"We had announced Massachusetts and New York earlier as states we would be building in, but we hadn?t named communities yet," said a Verizon spokesman. "We decided it was time to let people know--they?re seeing the crews in the streets doing the installation."

The installments in the Northeast are actually expected to proceed more quickly than those in Florida and Texas because most of the current outside plant wiring in the Northeast is aerial.

"It goes a little faster because there?s no digging or directional boring," said the spokesman.

He conceded that Verizon has run into some trouble specifically in the Tampa, Fla., area where, as recently as last week, its contractors hit and severed water lines, disrupting service and forcing area residents to boil their water.

"It has not been a great job by all involved," the spokesman said. "But we?ve had war room councils and we?ve addressed it. We are working hard to ameliorate any issues, and we?re doing a better job of working with cities and towns, and with state agencies."

The final numbers aren?t in, but Verizon expects to hit or come very close to its stated goal of passing one million homes with its FTTP network by the end of 2004. The company is only selling FIOS in three states--California, Florida and Texas--because it needs to get all its back office and support mechanisms in place before it starts selling service, the spokesman said.

The new Fiber Solutions Center in Providence is part of that effort. The initial staff of 150 is expected to grow to 350 as new communities are turned up on the FTTP network. This is the third center that Verizon has opened to specifically provide customer support for FIOS.