He might not end up becoming an Oxford Networks customer, but Charles Mercer, a vice president with a local financial services firm, is eager for the company to come to town.

“It’s all about choice, and this is going to give businesses a choice like they’ve never had before,” said Mercer, senior vice president for FISC. “We don’t need to be a customer for their plans to help FISC. More competition means more choices, and that’s what helps us.”

Company officials announced last week plans to begin wiring downtown Lewiston and Auburn with fiber-optic cable to each building.

That will allow Oxford Networks to offer a full range of telecommunications – high-speed Internet access, local and long distance telephone and cable television.

And it puts the company into direct competition with a wide range of businesses – Verizon for telephone service, Adelphia for cable television and both companies for high-speed Internet access.

“A big part of our plan is to offer many services for deeper discounts,” said Michael Tompkins, director of sales and marketing for Oxford Networks. “For single services, we’ll be competitive. But when you start combining services, like Internet and phone, that’s where we can offer deeper discounts. That’s where we see our advantage.”

The Auburn City Council approved, 6-0, the franchise agreement with the company Monday; the Lewiston City Council has it on its agenda Tuesday.

If the councils approve, the company will start plotting its network, running fiber-optic cable to the core areas of both cities’ downtowns within 18 months. The company plans to have both cities completely wired by 2008.

Faster is better

Speed is key to the company’s business plan. Fiber-optics is one of the fastest ways to transfer electronic data. Most telecommunications companies, including Verizon and Adelphia, run fiber-optic cables to the street, relying on slightly slower cables to branch off to the individual buildings.

Oxford Networks would run fiber-optics to each building, providing speeds of up to 40 megabytes of data per second. At that rate, a two-hour movie and soundtrack could download to a computer in two minutes, seven seconds. A file that size would download in more than six hours on a cable modem or DSL phone connection.

It would take a week to download a file that size on a 56K modem.

“We don’t expect anyone to use all 40MB,” Tompkins said. “And yes, the more they sign up for the more expensive it will be.”

Digital cable television signals could use about 6 megabytes of that stream, and heavy Internet usage could take up another 2 megabytes. Telephone service would use less than a megabyte of that data stream.

The company will target both consumers and businesses, Tompkins said.

“The customer can choose the services they want, and our prices will be competitive,” he said. “So if they only want cable or telephone, we’ll be competitive. But we can offer steeper discounts if they take more services. It’s all the same system so we’ll be able to offer economies our competitors can’t.”

Prices unknown

The company has not issued a price list, however. Adelphia’s Mike Edgecomb said he expects those prices to be high.

“It sounds like they’re targeting a high-end customer,” Edgecomb said. “We haven’t seen the economics of this yet, but they are making a significant investment and they have to get it back somehow.”

Edgecomb said Adelphia’s lawyers would be reviewing the franchise agreement.

“We have a provision of our franchise agreement there that says another company cannot be given a better deal,” he said.

But Edgecomb said the company is not worried.

“It comes down to product offerings, service and price,” Edgecomb said. “We offer a good services at a good price, and I think people are willing to pay for good quality customer service.”

But FISC’s Mercer said he expects competition will help drive prices for Lewiston-Auburn down.

“Choice, that’s always good news,” Mercer said. “I can’t imagine something like this won’t have an impact on the whole downtown. Besides, just knowing that this kind of network is available here helps attract business. It should be good for everyone.”

staylor@sunjournal.com