FiOS Internet Takes Manhattan

Telco Offers High-Speed To Pair of Apartment Complexes; Sill Lacks Video Franchise

By Todd Spangler -- Multichannel News, 3/24/2008 8:31:00 AM

Verizon Communications has inked a deal to Internet service at up to 50 megabits per second, over its FiOS fiber-optic network, to residents in two Manhattan apartment complexes – but for now, the telco's still unable to proffer TV services in New York City.

Verizon announced an agreement Monday with Tishman Speyer, the owner and manager of the 110-building complex of Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Verizon FiOS Internet service is now available in seven buildings in the Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village, which are located on 80 acres and contain 11,232 apartments. In 2006, Tishman Speyer acquired the residential complex from MetLife in a deal worth $5.4 billion.

Verizon will be competing with the promise of higher speeds against Time Warner Cable and RCN, both of which provide triple-play services to Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village.

Eric Cevis, vice president of Verizon Enhanced Communities, said in a press release that the deal to bring FiOS Internet services to Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village is the single largest urban agreement the phone company has undertaken to date and said it expects to expand the service to all the buildings in the complex “in a short period of time."

However, Verizon currently does not have a franchise from New York City to offer video service. The telco offers FiOS TV service to some communities in the New York counties of Westchester, Rockland and Orange, as well as on parts of Long Island. Verizon said it intends to expand video services in the state as it obtains franchises “in other markets.”