A growing number of Verizon customers across Los Angeles and Orange counties and throughout the Inland Empire are now experiencing next-generation broadband Internet access as the company expands availability of its Verizon FiOS Internet Service to homes across Southern California.

By the end of this year, FiOS (FYE’-ose) will expand to parts of Ventura County, and the service will be available to Verizon customers in 22 Southern Californian cities. The majority of customers in Huntington Beach, Murrieta, Sun City, Malibu and Beaumont can already experience the FiOS difference.

Verizon is delivering FiOS over its new fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP) network, which it is already constructing in California and 13 other states – 50 percent of the states where the company offers landline phone service. Fiber deployment is under way in Adelanto, Apple Valley, Bermuda Dunes, Camarillo, Chino, Desert Hot Springs, Hermosa Beach, Indio, La Quinta, Chino Hills, Ontario, Palm Springs, Perris, Lake Elsinore, Temecula, Redondo Beach and Victorville. Some customers in these cities can already order FiOS. Additional cities will be added next year, and Verizon will announce FiOS Internet Service in these areas as it becomes available.

To date, Verizon has deployed 8 million feet, or 1,500 miles, of fiber-optic cable in Southern California as part of the FTTP project. The company will deploy millions more feet of fiber in 2005.

To help build its ultra-fast network, Verizon plans to hire between 3,000 and 5,000 new employees nationally by the end of this year. In Southern California, Verizon is adding approximately 500 full-time positions to handle fiber splicing, installation, repair and engineering. The new jobs include 124 positions at a new Fiber Solutions Center in Ventura County, which handles calls from Verizon’s FiOS customers. The center’s staff will eventually grow to 300 positions, as FiOS-related calls increase.

Verizon also estimates it will retain more than 1,000 contractors in California to work on various aspects of the local FTTP project such as underground boring, trenching and fiber splicing.

Customers who want to determine whether they can order FiOS Internet Service visit Verizon’s FiOS Web site at www.verizon.com/fios or call 1-888-GET FIOS (1-888-438-3467).