Verizon shoots for smaller businesses
The company unveils a discounted high-speed Web plan for smaller-size businesses that reduces the connections that an office needs by making use of bandwidth that usually stays idle.
On Tuesday, the company unveiled Integrated Access, a discounted high-speed Web plan that offers amenities usually reserved for Verizon's higher-paying business customers. Prices for various versions of the plan were not immediately disclosed.
Verizon, AT&T and other carriers are now in a pitched battle to sell high-speed Web service to smaller businesses, because the price of bandwidth and equipment is dropping into the spending ranges of these potential customers.
To attack the market, nearly all are mimicking a year-old tactic involving "channelized" services, which let businesses reduce the number of high-speed connections that an office needs by making use of bandwidth that usually stays idle. AT&T debuted the tactic last year.
The new Verizon plan is also among the first to incorporate broadband price cuts that the company made in May. Along with slashing 30 percent from residential broadband, Verizon cut about 10 percent off the cost of broadband that is meant for corporations.