For Tony DiCicco, a 19-year-old in Doylestown, Pa., the future of Internet access is close at hand, yet so far away.

In the single-family homes surrounding the rowhouse community where he lives, fiber-optic Internet service is available from Verizon Communications Inc., which has embarked on a $23 billion project to replace its copper phone lines.

DiCicco is studying for a telecommunications degree and is convinced of the superiority of fiber optics over copper lines and cable.

But in DiCicco's community of Westwyk, Verizon has a long-standing right of way but rejected that route because of the risk of damaging other utility lines.

Richard Michie, treasurer of the Westwyk Condominium Association, said it is looking into giving the company the right to dig another route.

Verizon is pushing to get FiOS to apartment buildings, rowhouses and other shared dwellings, but for a number of reasons, the going has been much slower than the rollout to single-family homes. In some cases where it is available, the FiOS service an apartment building does get is a technical compromise that could limit future Internet speeds.

At the end of last year, Verizon had rolled out its fiber infrastructure in areas with 6 million homes. A quarter of those homes, or 1.5 million, were in multi-dwelling buildings, according to Eric Cevis, vice president of Verizon Enhanced Communities.

But most of those 1.5 million were not actually able to get the service right away. The company had permission from building owners to sell FiOS to only 337,000 of those homes.

NOT DISCRIMINATION

Verizon stresses that it's not discriminating against apartment buildings and renters, who have lower average incomes than home owners. It's doing a complete overhaul of its infrastructure, and knows it has to tackle apartment buildings to complete it. Apart from Internet service, the fiber allows the company to provide cable TV programming and lowers the cost of maintaining its network.

In areas with single-family homes, Verizon pulls fiber down the street or behind the houses, either on utility poles or below ground. If a homeowner orders FiOS, Verizon installs an Optical Networking Terminal, which is about the size of a large shoe box, on the side of the house, and connects it to the main fiber line. The customer's computer, phone and TV set can then be connected to the terminal.

COMPLICATED ISSUE

For multifamily buildings, the procedure is more complicated, for two main reasons.

First, Verizon needs permission from the owner of the building, the co-op board, or whoever else controls the common areas, to wire the building. And getting people interested in new technology isn't always easy.

The other hurdle: Verizon's standard Optical Networking Terminal is a large affair, designed with little regard for aesthetics. It may not look incongruous in a garage or at the back of a bungalow, but inside an apartment, it's another matter.

"A lot of the customers did not necessarily like the technology ... because they thought it was too big, it took up too much space," Cevis said.

To get around that obstacle, Verizon and its equipment vendors have developed a terminal that can be mounted in a basement or hallway closet to serve several apartments at once. Internet traffic is carried the last stretch to the apartment over the existing phone line using digital subscriber line technology, or DSL, and the TV signal is sent separately over coaxial cable.