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Efforts by SBC Wisconsin to offer advanced fiber-optic connections to homes in Oconomowoc's Pabst Farms development underscore the increasingly competitive landscape for providing broadband services.
With cable television providers including Time Warner Cable and Charter Communications Inc. adding voice transmission services, and the rapid growth of wireless broadband technologies, traditional telecom companies like SBC are being forced to spend billions on expanded broadband offerings.
"They're scared silly over the cable companies, they're beside themselves at this point," Terry
Barnich, a Chicago-based telecom consultant, said of telecom providers.
Pabst Farms, a 1,500-acre residential and business development, is SBC's first mass deployment of fiber-to-the-premise connections, which means connecting a home directly to a fiber network instead of using copper wire to connect the home and the fiber network.
A direct fiber connection means much greater efficiency than copper lines in offering a variety of very high-speed Internet services such as video-on-demand programming, online gaming, digital television and whatever services the technology allows for in the future, said Paul La Schiazza, president of SBC Wisconsin.
"Fiber is our future," La Schiazza said. "It's the direction this company is taking to satisfy our customers."
In June. SBC Communications announced it would invest between $4 billion and $6 billion in its 13-state territory...