Verizon's spending an additional $18 billion to connect 18 million homes to its new Fios fiber-optic network. That works out to a neat $1,000 per customer, right? Think again, writes networking news site Light Reading. The real cost per actual customer could be as high as $9,650, if you assume that only 1 out of 10 potential customers sign up for service. And at the Nyquist Condition blog, venture capitalist Andrew Schmitt points out that it will cost Verizon another $880 to hook up a customer even after the fiber connection is built. The fiber bills just keep on coming.

Ten thousand smackers is a pretty hefty bill to sign up just one customer. If the goal is to provide television service to compete with cable, Verizon might be better off throwing in 15 years of free satellite TV for every phone customer that doesn't defect to cable. Of course, there is a financially sound reason for Verizon to convert its network from copper to fiber, Schmitt also notes: Fiber is 80% less likely to break and require replacement, leading Verizon to believe it will save $1 billion a year in operating costs by 2010.