Verizon Hits FiOS Milestone
By Steve Donohue -- Multichannel News, 6/25/2007
Chicago— Verizon Communications has reached one milestone and is nearing another for its FiOS TV service.
Verizon chairman and CEO Ivan Seidenberg, during a keynote address at the NXTcomm convention here last Wednesday, said the company will soon hit the 500,000 subscriber mark for its FiOS TV service. The telco also recently signed up its 1 millionth customer for FiOS high-speed Internet service.
Seidenberg showed several-hundred attendees a video featuring the Bayer family of Massapequa, N.Y., as the former Cablevision Systems Corp. customers gushed over the quality of FiOS, saying that the Internet and video service is superior to cable.
“We had the [Cablevision] triple play — we found that the quality wasn't up to the service we expected,” Rich Bayer said. “We decided to change and have been happy ever since.”
Bayer's wife, Marjorie, and their kids also raved about FiOS in the video. “I am paying less than I was before and I'm getting a lot more also,” she said.
While cable operators are beginning to boast of future Internet services that will offer download speeds of 100 Megabits per second, Seidenberg said Verizon expects to quickly blow past 100 Mbps. FiOS Internet already offers download speeds of 50 Mbps and is capable of delivering speeds of 100 Mbps.
“Today, 100 Mbps is just the beginning,” he said.
Verizon plans to deploy gigabit passive-optical-network (G-PON) technology that will allow it to quadruple its Internet downstream speeds.
“By the end of the decade, our cable competitors say they'll be transitioning to DOCSIS [Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification] 3.0,” he said. “We'll be transitioning to speeds that rival what we deliver today to our most advanced business customers.”
