Verizon's Fios TV is coming to New York City starting Monday.
The phone company sent a media advisory on Friday about the launch and will provide more details about the service during a Webcast press conference Monday morning. New York City granted Verizon its TV franchise back in May. And on July 16th, the company won final approval to offer its TV service from the New York Public Service Commission.
Verizon has been aggressively marketing its Fios Internet and TV service in the New York City suburbs for the past couple of years. And the company has offered the Fios high-speed Internet service in some apartment buildings in New York City. Now the company will be able to offer a complete package of telephony, TV, and broadband services to New Yorkers, helping it compete head-to-head with Time Warner Cable, the predominant cable operator in the city.
Verizon's Fios service uses a new fiber network that extends directly into people's homes to deliver nearly unlimited bandwidth capacity.
Technology blogger Dave Zatz reported earlier this week that Verizon will soon offer Web-based videos as part of its Fios TV offering through its set-top boxes. Initial Internet video partners include YouTube, Veoh, Blip.tv, and Break.com, the post said.
(Credit:
Verizon)
On Tuesday, the Franchise and Concession Review Committee (FCRC) of New York voted unanimously to approve Verizon's proposal to provide Fios TV service in all five boroughs. The vote moves the service closer to becoming an option for customers in New York to choose over cable or satellite TV.
"If we are successful in the last steps of the approval process, we will deliver on our promise to begin offering Fios TV in parts of each of the five boroughs later this year," Monica Azare, Verizon senior vice president for New York and Connecticut, said in a press release. ... Read more
The Wall Street Journal reported late Wednesday that Verizon Communications is being sued by a TV advertiser for overstating the number of customers the company has signed up for its Fios TV service.
Digital Art Services, a media and advertising buying company based in Great River, N.Y., said in its lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, that Verizon fraudulently inflated the number of people signed up for the Fios TV service.
Specifically, the lawsuit alleges that Verizon included pending customers when it reported total number of subscribers in the New York region, The Wall Street Journal story said. Digital Art Services buys advertising for clients and is claiming that it had to pay more than it should have for advertising on Verizon's Fios TV service as result of these figures.
Eric Rabe, a Verizon spokesman, said that Digital Art Services' claims are unfounded.
"Any assertion that we are being dishonest or inflating numbers is wrong," Rabe said. "Verizon doesn't do that. And people who have dealt with us know that."
Rabe, who hasn't yet seen the lawsuit, added that he thinks the lawsuit is simply a ploy to get out of a contract that Digital Art Services has signed with Verizon to buy a certain amount of advertising on the Fios TV network.
"They want out of the contract," he said. "We think they should fulfill the agreement. So they have filed this lawsuit to pressure us to let them out of the contract."
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