Verizon Adds On-Screen Local Info
By Matt Stump -- Multichannel News, 3/19/2006 10:00:00 PM
Verizon Communications Inc. multichannel-television subscribers will soon be able to retrieve text-based local weather and traffic information on the television set, where they also will be able to showcase music and photos files stored on their home computers.
“The way to compete is to leverage our strength,” Shawn Strickland, vice president of product-line management at Verizon for the FiOS TV service, said in discussing the two new features that will debut over the next few months.
Strickland said the first new service -- text-based local weather and traffic information “crawls” at the bottom of the TV screen -- will debut this spring.
To retrieve the local weather and traffic information, FiOS subscribers, using their remote controls, will input the correct ZIP codes on the enhanced TV screen of the FiOS guide, Strickland said. Using software Verizon developed internally, the request from the subscriber is sent to a local Internet server that contains the local weather and traffic information.
Strickland said Verizon’s Yellow Pages division has deals with content partners in local markets to supply FiOS TV systems with weather and traffic data.
The second new service, due this summer, will allow consumers to display photos from their PCs on their TVs and to call up PC-based music playlists on their TV and home stereo systems.
That new feature will launch this summer, at the same time Verizon launches multiroom digital-video recording, which will allow subscribers to view, on their bedroom TV sets, content stored on the main DVR set-top that is in the family room.
For more on the new local services to be added to Verizon FiOS TV, please see Matt Stump’s story on page 12 of Monday’s issue of Multichannel News.
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