Verizon Avenue said today it has launched a fixed broadband wireless access system in the small community of Rantoul, Ill., making it the fifth network it has deployed to date.

Verizon Avenue, a subsidiary of Verizon Communications and charged with bringing broadband access to hard-to-reach areas, now has Alvarion’s BreezeAccess gear in three Illinois towns, in Grundy, Va., and in Emmaus, Pa., all with a combined population of 42,000.

Verizon uses the networks to offer DSL equivalents to homes and small businesses, promising up to 1.5 Mb/s of upstream capacity and 384 kb/s downstream.