When will the RFD channel be available in North Texas?

Something tells me that carriage of RFD-TV doesn''t imply that Verizon actually intends to deploy FiOS in rural areas of the states mentioned.

The only reason any "rural" areas in Rhode Island are wired up is because they''re trying to hook up every road serviced by each CO at once. If a CO that covers an area they WANT to serve happens to include an area they DON''T WANT to serve, they just wire up the whole area so they don''t have to fuss with it later (if they change their mind). If they don''t want to serve a CO at all, they delay rollout in the affected areas as long as they can concoct lies sufficient to keep from violating rollout conditions agreed upon with the RI PUC.

It has been two years now since they ran fiber within two houses of us (about 800ft away), but they refuse under any circumstances to offer it to us since we''re served by a different CO. With copper lines you can request service from other nearby COs, but Verizon slipped a condition past the RI PUC that actually forbids Verizon from crossing CO boundaries with fiber unless they have already crossed it (or something similar and equally illogical).

We became desperate for FiOS because our phone lines were plagued by buzzing noises, static, and loss of a dial tone every time it rained starting in March 2007. Techs came out for several months but didn''t find problems at nearby junction points. They would not check the actual lines for damage, and doing so only ever reached a "proposal" stage after 6 months of pressure. Before the proposal for analysis and repairs could be reviewed (and rejected), it was discovered that the fault was with a not-so-nearby junction. Something at the junction had deteriorated to the point that a large part of the town was left completely without phone service for most of a weekend. A similar equipment failure had affected most of the rest of the town just a few weeks prior. After this was fixed, the noise and lost dial tones seemed to be gone. However, it became impossible to use dial-up modems as we had been for the past decade. No combination of modems, ISPs, and phone lines would allow us to have a stable connection. The ability of the line to carry data would normally vanish every few minutes and return a few minutes later. If an attempt to connect was made during a "non-data" period of time, it was impossible to establish a connection. Naturally, Verizon refuses to guarantee that any data services will work on any level over their copper lines. Equally naturally, Verizon sells dial-up Internet service. We pay for a repair service plan that requires them to come out and check the lines if we suspect that they are faulty, however when the tech came out he only ran the same "is the line working" test they use for basic installation testing. He took our detailed request for proper testing back to his supervisor, and the request was promptly denied. It is barely possible to load a few web pages a day with pictures disabled.

A number of Verizon''s field techs have stated definitively that there is no technical reason for our being deprived of FiOS, and that they would be "happy" to run a line to us. Escalated requests handled by increasing inept and dishonest customer service representatives lead only to contradictory lies about why it''s absolutely impossible for them to provide us with FiOS. In contrast, Verizon''s field techs and a few of the RI PUC employees are honest, have integrity, and were more than willing to help us. However, Verizon isn''t interested in supporting any customers, and especially not customers of 25 years. They feel compelled to concentrate the majority of their time, money, and efforts on deciding what color the plastic shell should be on their next cell phone/camera/radio/tv/pocket-cancer-factory. They''re also very busy making public announcements that they plan to violate FCC conditions on the purchase of new spectrum they just bought. On the local regulatory end of things, the RI PUC is run by a "former" high-ranking Verizon executive. This combined with the federal government''s refusal to force the phone companies to shape up means that no regulatory body exists to support telephone customers in this and other states. Every request for service is tentatively accepted at the lowest levels and immediately rejected at higher levels to ensure that the entire company rots itself to death due to lack of maintenance and progress. FiOS itself is all the evidence anyone could ever need that this is true. The whole thing is a last-ditch effort to recover from the brilliant move made by cable companies to offer phone service. Clueless companies like Verizon just lumbered along until the last possible second to try to enter the "triple-play" market they should have been able to dominate in the first place. No sane person would consider a slow DSL connection (or dial-up in the many, many areas that can''t get DSL), overpriced phone service, and a satellite system to be a real triple-play bundle if they can get cable.

DSL and cable are generally limited to non-rural areas, or at least that is the case in Rhode Island. No surprise that FiOS deployment is skipping over rural areas so far here. In short, will anyone that RFD-TV is targeting ever actually be able to see it using FiOS?