Denise Koenig is a spokesperson for SBC Communications. She spoke today with Unwired LA about the new, $4 billion deployment of fiber optic plant throughout the SBC service area, enabling the delivery of IP access, by 2007, to 18 million households at rates between 20 megabits to 25 megabits per second.

You can hear what she had to say by clicking here.

The core upgrade in this project involves replacing the copper "pipes" that now carry signals from central switching offices to neighborhood nodes with fiber optic pipes that can transmit data at much higher bitrates. Existing copper wires will still carry the information into homes, but, with the use of more powerful switches at the neighborhood level, at much higher speeds than are now possible.

Pricing arrangements and content strategy were not revealed in this interview, but Ms. Koenig did point out that this new high-speed architecture will greatly accelerate the convergence and integration of a wide-range of existing and future digital services.

Project Lightspeed will be deployed throughout the 13 states where SBC now delivers its services.

You can read more about Project Lightspeed, listen to a 90-minute conference call with financial details of the project, and access a detailed presentation about it by SBC CEO Edward E. Whitacre by clicking here.