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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.

There's no question that Verizon Communications hit a home run with its aggressive fiber strategy.

The fiber-to-the-home network called Fios has enabled Verizon to supercharge broadband speeds and compete against cable in the TV market.

Fios also has helped future-proof Verizon's network. While its cable competitors buckle under the pressure of peer-to-peer traffic on their networks, Verizon has enough capacity in its network, thanks to its fiber upgrades, to weather the storm unscathed and work on its own timetable to find more efficient ways to handle peer-to-peer traffic.

Mark Wegleitner, Verizon's senior vice president of technology in charge of broadband and consumer services, has helped develop and drive Verizon's fiber strategy. I sat down with him at the Nxtcomm trade show in Las Vegas last week to talk about a wide variety of topics, including the controversy over Comcast's treatment of BitTorrent traffic, faster speeds for Fios, and what the company plans to do next when it reaches its 2010 goal of passing 18 million homes with fiber.

Below is an edited excerpt from that conversation. Feel free to share your thoughts after in the "TalkBack" section.

Q: As you know, Comcast got caught slowing down peer-to-peer traffic on its network. As a network provider yourself, do you think it's necessary to manage your customers' traffic?
Wegleitner: I think we can come up with scenarios where network management would be necessary. While there might be plenty of bandwidth out there, you can't really guarantee that you can get an error-free transmission of, say, a video file that will be guaranteed at a specific point in time. That is why you might need rational network management.

So what would you consider to be acceptable network management?
Wegleitner: It's still a work in progress. But it's important to ensure the capabilities of applications.

But is it acceptable to identify and slow down specific types of traffic like BitTorrent or other peer-to-peer applications?
Wegleitner: Well, it's sort of a glass-half-full situation. Degrading traffic for one application enables another to work better. But we have to allow people who use the peer-to-peer applications for lawful and legitimate purposes to do so.

Verizon is working with several peer-to-peer companies to find ways to use the technology to distribute content more efficiently. How can the P2P protocol benefit service providers like Verizon?
Wegleitner: Peer-to-peer is a distribution enabler. But often when people talk about P2P, it gets lumped into a category with things that are bad, mainly because it takes up so much capacity on the network. But whether it's a good thing or a bad thing, there is underlying technology for P2P that can be used to everyone's advantage to get content like video, which everyone is asking for, distributed in the most efficient way.

We conducted some tests with the P4P group and Yale University, and showed that customers have a better experience, and we use fewer resources, when we used the P2P technology. It's really a win-win situation for us and the customer.

Degrading traffic for one application enables another to work better. But we have to allow people who use the peer-to-peer applications for lawful and legitimate purposes to do so.

And we're still working cooperatively with P2P companies and the rest of the folks in the P4P group to employ the technology in a way that would maximize its impact.

Verizon has said it expects to pass 18 million homes with its Fios fiber- to-the-home service in 2010. Where are you guys in that deployment?
Wegleitner: I'd say we are slightly ahead of schedule for homes passed. But in general, I'd describe us as on schedule. We will have 12 million homes passed this year, which is the goal we had previously stated.

Verizon announced recently that it's increasing the speed of its Fios service to 50Mbps on its high-end tier of service. How much faster can the speeds on Fios get?
Wegleitner: The original specification for the Passive Optical Network, or the FTTP network, we are using allows us to provide 100Mbps to the home. So that's probably a reasonable ceiling, given the current technology. But we are also deploying GPON, which is an enhancement to the original fiber technology we're using.

The specification for that calls for 200Mbps to the home, with 400Mbps peak utilization. But we'll probably see the next generation of technology allow us to deliver between 125Mbps and 175Mbps to the home. We are working with suppliers for that technology to go even faster. But 100Mbps is within range, and we could even go a little higher.

Are people really using the 50Mbps service?
Wegleitner: Under specific circumstances, transferring files at 50Mbps is better than 10Mbps. The key here, though, is concurrent use. In the old days, when you had one PC, there probably wasn't much need for these kinds of speeds. But now there are multiple devices connected to broadband in the home. And that number is only going to grow. So it's important to have the performance there.

Verizon has begun selling a bundle that includes Verizon Wireless service and high-speed Internet and video, and no home phone line. How long before you think that the old landline telephones will be obsolete and will disappear altogether?
Wegleitner: In the broadband world, voice service is a small increment of traffic, in terms of bandwidth and cost. And in a converged world, we can give people who keep a voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) landline a rich set of features. So I don't know that it won't be a useful service for a large portion of the population. I don't think the last chapter has been written on voice yet.

So when you talk about new voice services, are you talking about offering unified communications in the home?
Wegleitner: Yes, we can offer a unified communication experience in the home today with point solutions. And we have run way left for more sophisticated and converged services.

When will we see these services?
Wegleitner: We can already provide the ability to forward calls. But the find-me and follow-me services haven't caught on as rapidly as we thought. Sometimes the first time an application comes out of the shoot, it doesn't catch. But then later, it does. I don't think we've created enough selection or a compelling-enough template to drive mass-market adoption of some of these services yet. But that will come. I don't think we're talking more than a couple of years away.

Verizon's original Fios plan goes through 2010. What happens after that? Will Verizon continue to deploy fiber to more customers in its footprint, or will you focus more on DSL?
Wegleitner: I think there is more gas in the engine for fiber-to-the-home beyond 2010 that will help us get into the remainder of households in our footprint. Will we cover all the homes in our footprint? Probably not.

In the lowest-density areas, it's hard to justify new wireline deployment. And technically, DSL is available over copper. But it has limitations on long loops. Wireless solutions are attractive in these rural areas. We are looking at options in that area. But it's worth noting that even many of the small towns in our footprint are still within miles of a city center. So it's only about 30 percent that is out in low-density areas.

Right now, the primary horse we are betting on will be 3G and 4G solutions for wireless.

Would Verizon use LTE or WiMax to provide wireless broadband in those rural areas?
Wegleitner: Well, LTE is the horse we are riding right now. So that will likely move to the head of the line, in terms of the high-speed wireless-broadband data service we'll offer. We are already offering direct broadcast satellite for video delivery where we aren't offering Fios TV. So we could pair DBS with wireless data to also offer a triple-play offering in those rural areas.

Some of your cell phone competitors, such as AT&T and T-Mobile, are using Wi-Fi in different ways to extend their broadband networks to public hot spots. T-Mobile is actually using it to augment its cellular voice service. Will Verizon use Wi-Fi?
Wegleitner: We might see Wi-Fi used in the home to provide multiple device interconnection. Right now, we are using the Multimedia over Coax Alliance (MoCA) cable standard to deliver connectivity using the existing cable infrastructure in the home. But we could use other kinds of connectivity in the home, such as Wi-Fi or power line.

But as far as offering Wi-Fi in hot spots or covering whole communities with Wi-Fi, we've tried it. We provided Wi-Fi in Manhattan, but we no longer offer that service.

I remember that. A few years ago, you guys turned your existing phone booths in Manhattan into Verizon Wi-Fi hot spots. But when you rolled out EV-DO service, you shut down the Wi-Fi hot spots. Why?
Wegleitner: The economics just didn't pan out. I think right now, the primary horse we are betting on will be 3G and 4G solutions for wireless.

Speaking of 4G, there's been so much talk about moving to the next generation of wireless networks. What do you see as the biggest challenges in building and running the next-generation broadband wireless networks?
Wegleitner: One challenge will be the sheer number of new devices on the network. It's a double-edged sword. There's more capability for end users, but it also means that the network provider has to understand these capabilities. There's not going to be a common denominator, so we will have to be able to identify and recognize the devices and their capabilities, and adapt to it.

The other thing is that we'll need additional management for all these devices. We'll have to be able to localize problems, identify them, and be able to fix them. And we'll have to make sure we can do this at a reasonable cost.

LAS VEGAS--Verizon Communications is boosting speeds for its Fios fiber-to-the-home service, the company plans to announce Wednesday.

The company's COO Denny Strigl is expected to announce the speed upgrades during his keynote speech at the NxtComm trade show here. The upgrades come as Verizon customers use more bandwidth intensive applications such as video downloading and photo sharing.

"The appetite for bandwidth shows no sign of slowing down," Strigl said in a statement. "Neither will we. We've already had successful trials of the 100-megabit home, which will be a reality faster than anybody thinks."

As part of the upgrade, all Fios customers will now have access to download speeds of 50 megabits per second and uploads of 20 Mbps for about $140 a month. The company is also offering its symmetrical 20 Mbps download and 20 Mbps upload service to all Fios customers for $65 a month.

Verizon had already been offering these speeds in certain markets such as Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York. But now the service will be expanded to Verizon's entire Fios customer base, which is spread throughout its 16-state territory. Previously Fios in these states, such as Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia, topped out at 30Mbps/15Mbps and 15Mbps/15Mbps.

Verizon will also upgrade its mid-tier offering increasing speeds from 15Mbps/2Mbps to 20Mbps/5Mbps. And the low-end service will increase from 5Mbps/2Mbps to 10Mbps/2Mbps.

Verizon's 7-megabits-per-second DSL service is now available to over 3 million of its customers, the company said Thursday.

The service, which was announced in January, was initially only available to about 400,000 homes, in roughly 400 communities. But the company has been upgrading service and ramping up speeds in parts of 20 states and the District of Columbia. Customers interested in getting the higher-speed service should check the Verizon Web site to see if the faster speed service is available in their area. In many places the fastest DSL speeds available are still only 3Mbps.

The new service offers 7.1Mbps downloads and 768 kilobits per second uploads for $42.99 with a one-year contract that also includes local phone service. Verizon President Denny Strigl recently acknowledged during an interview at an investor conference that the company has been downplaying its DSL service in lieu of its fiber to the home service called Fios. But he said that going forward DSL will be emphasized much more.

"We certainly haven't abandoned DSL," he said.

NEW YORK--Verizon Communications plans soon to offer online parental controls for free to all its broadband customers in an ongoing effort to keep kids safe on the Net.

The free new perks were announced Tuesday by CEO Ivan Seidenberg during a lunch at WiredSafety's Stop Cyberbullying Conference at Pace University in New York. Seidenberg spoke in front of an audience filled with young people, parents, educators, and government officials, who all gathered for the daylong conference on cyberbullying.

Specifically, Verizon plans to offer parents the ability to block their children from viewing selected content. The company is also offering application filters so parents can limit access to certain applications. And Verizon is giving parents the ability to designate specific time periods when the Internet or certain functions can and cannot be used.

"We know that people will only fully utilize broadband networks if they trust that their personal information will remain private, and that parents will not feel comfortable with their children's embrace of technology unless they know their children are safe," Seidenberg said. "Verizon has tried to stay ahead of the curve on both fronts, and that's why we've decided to make even more tools available to our customers for free."

Parry Aftab, founder of WiredSafety.org, praised Verizon and Seidenberg, in particular, for his work in protecting children online. The organization even honored him with a special Internet Superhero award.

"Verizon has a long history of getting behind the issues," she said. "Not just the issues that are good for the bottom line, but issues that are good for consumers generally."

Seidenberg said that all companies involved in the Internet have some responsibility to ensure that people using their services are safe.

"We think of it as part of our corporate responsibility," he said in a conversation after the lunch. "And we feel that it's important for Verizon to be part of the dialog."

Seidenberg also touched on efforts the company is making to ensure privacy and safety for subscribers of its Verizon Wireless service. He acknowledged concerns surrounding the use of location-based services, which use satellite GPS chipsets embedded in phones to track subscribers.

Verizon offers a service that allows parents to keep track of their kids. It also recently started offering a service through a company called Loopt that provides a friend-tracking application that alerts people when their buddies are nearby.

Seidenberg said the company has gone to great lengths to ensure that sensitive location information isn't abused. In addition to giving subscribers the ability to turn on and off the tracking services, he said that Verizon has also developed a multitiered security and authentication system to make sure that subscribers are sharing location information only with people they trust and know.

"Privacy is a priority for Verizon," he said. "And we work really hard to maintain customer trust."

Verizon Communications' hot streak continued during the first quarter of 2008.

The company said Monday that first quarter profits jumped about 10 percent to $1.64 billion, fueled by demand for its mobile phone service and fiber-to-the-home service called Fios.

Revenues grew about 5.5 percent to $23.8 billion, the company said. About $11.7 billion of that revenue came from its wireless business, an increase of about 13.2 percent from the first quarter of 2007.

There's no question that Verizon Wireless, which is jointly owned by Vodafone, has a good reputation as a wireless provider. Its network is considered to be highly reliable, and the company has always done well retaining customers.

And now Verizon is getting those customers to use more of its data services, such as picture messaging, text messaging and Internet surfing. In fact, it looks like mobile data is driving growth in the highly profitable wireless business with revenue from data services jumping 48.9 percent from the previous year generating about $2.3 billion in revenue.

Verizon reported that its customers sent or received more than 58 billion text messages and 1.1 billion picture/video messages during the quarter. And customers completed 34.6 million music and video downloads. On average, Verizon's wireless customers spent $11.94 a month on data services, an increase of about 33 percent from a year earlier.

Mobile data accounted for about 20 percent of all wireless sales for the quarter, but the company hopes it will eventually account for a bigger chunk of the revenue pie in the future. About 58 percent of Verizon's retail customers had broadband capable devices at the end of the first quarter, the company said.

Wireless operators, such as Verizon, are counting on consumers to use even more data in the future. That's the reason Verizon spent $9.3 billion on new wireless spectrum licenses in the Federal Communications Commission's recent 700MHz spectrum auction. The company has already said that it plans to use this spectrum to build its 4G wireless broadband network that will deliver even faster data speeds to its customers using a technology called LTE.

The company is also trying to spur innovation by opening its network to a faster certification process for new devices and applications. The hope is that streamlining the process will allow developers to get products and services that use the Verizon network on the market faster than before offering customers new and cool devices and applications first.

But wireless isn't the only shining light for Verizon. The company also saw big growth in its fiber-to-the-home service called Fios. This service, which includes high-speed broadband access, telephony and TV service, competes head-to-head with cable offerings. Verizon said it added 263,000 new TV customers in the first quarter bringing the total number of Fios TV customers to 1.2 million. In terms of broadband, the company said the majority of its new broadband customers were for Fios. The company added 262,000 Fios broadband connections during the quarter for a total of 1.8 million Fios broadband customers.

As expected, Verizon continued to see declines in its traditional telephony business, which fell 2.5 percent during the quarter. The company cut about 6,500 workers in 2007 and more job cuts in the traditional telephony business are expected throughout the year, company CFO Doreen Toben said.

Verizon's bets on wireless and fiber seem to be paying off. But as the overall U.S. economy softens it will be interesting to see if the company's strong growth will continue. My gut feeling is that Verizon is in good shape. Cell phone, TV, and broadband service are three things that most people won't want to live without even if they are crunched for cash. But the big question is how much more will people be willing to spend on the extras, such as mobile music downloads, mobile TV service or the highest level TV and broadband packages? That's the big question that will likely determine how much growth Verizon will experience in the future.

Verizon Communications is asking the Federal Communications Commission to force cable operators to streamline their process for allowing people to switch video providers.

In its petition with the FCC filed on Wednesday, Verizon said that cable operators require customers to contact them directly when they want to cancel service, which often leads to more work for the new video provider and confusion for the consumer.

By contrast, the phone companies have been required to have procedures in place that enable a new provider to submit a voice disconnection order on behalf of the consumer.

"This significantly complicates the process of switching video providers, thereby entrenching the cable incumbents' dominant market position," Verizon said in the petition.

Verizon thinks a ruling by the FCC is needed to "establish parity in the processes for cancelling telephone and video services." Verizon sees the cable companies' reluctance to expedite the cancellation process as an attempt to discourage people from switching providers, which ultimately hurts competition.

But the cable industry says that Verizon's complaints are unfounded.

"Verizon's fairy tale complaint is a lame attempt to deflect criticism from its years-long illegal practice of misusing proprietary information to prevent consumers from switching to a new phone provider," Brian Dietz, vice president of Communications for the National Cable & Telecommunications Association (NCTA) said in a statement. "This is yet another example of Verizon looking for a regulatory handout to help them compete, rather than focusing on a customer-friendly approach to providing--or switching--service."

AT&T and Verizon have been spending billions of dollars to upgrade their networks they can offer a triple play package of services to consumers that includes telephony, broadband, and TV service. And they've started to gain traction in areas where their TV service is available.

The cable industry has also been competing on the phone companies' turf with its digital voice services that replace traditional phone lines. It's also getting good traction selling this service as part of a bundle and has been stealing millions of customers from the phone companies.

Verizon's petition comes as the two largest cable operators in the U.S., Comcast and Time Warner Cable supposedly discuss financially backing a new company formed by combining Sprint Nextel's WiMax division and the WiMax operator Clearwire, according to news reports.

WiMax, which provides more bandwidth than current 3G cellular technology, is one of two main 4G wireless technologies that will likely be deployed in the U.S. These networks will not only allow cell phones to connect to the Internet, but they will also connect other consumer electronic devices like digital cameras, music players and gaming devices.

A partnership between the cable companies and Sprint and Clearwire could help the companies develop an integrated wireless service that would compete with Verizon and AT&T, which own their cellular networks.

Wireless and the Fios fiber-to-the-home broadband network continue to fuel growth for Verizon Communications.

On Monday, the second-largest phone company in the U.S. reported profits were up 3.9 percent for the fourth quarter of 2007, as it added more wireless subscribers in its joint venture with Vodafone and nearly hit the 1 million subscriber mark for its Fios TV service.

Earnings met analyst expectations with net income coming in at $1.07 billion, or 37 cents a share. That was up from $1.03 billion, or 35 cents, a year ago. Profit, excluding items such as severance pay for laid-off workers, was 62 cents a share.

Verizon added 2 million wireless subscribers during the fourth quarter, likely scooping up subscribers who were leaving Sprint Nextel's service. Sprint, the third-largest cell phone operator in the U.S., lost about 683,000 subscribers during the quarter. In total, Verizon Wireless now has 65.7 million cell phone subscribers.

The company also increased wireless revenue about 13.3 percent with a 53 percent increase in revenue generated from wireless data services.

But Verizon still faces stiff competition from AT&T, the largest wireless operator in the U.S. Last week, AT&T reported a net addition of 2.7 million new users, widening its lead in the market to 70.1 million wireless subscribers.

Verizon also grew its Fios subscribers. Fios is the fiber-optic network that the company is spending roughly $23 billion over seven years to build. The network takes fiber directly to people's homes, providing almost limitless bandwidth. Verizon is building the network so that it can offer a "triple play" of services that include TV, broadband, and phone in an effort to compete more directly with cable companies like Comcast and Time Warner Cable.

Verizon added 226,000 TV subscribers for a total of 943,000 at the end of 2007. The company said it now has more than 1 million Fios TV customers. Verizon hit the 1 million subscriber mark for its Fios broadband service in late June. Back then it reported it had 500,000 Fios TV subscribers. The company said it added about 245,000 Fios broadband subscribers in the fourth quarter, bringing its total broadband customer base to 8.2 billion at the end of the year.

Even as Verizon grows, it is seeing a slowdown in its traditional long-distance business. The company plans to tighten its belt as it continues to focus on its wireless and Fios broadband businesses.

Verizon began cutting jobs during the fourth quarter of 2007 and will continue to do so, said CEO Ivan Seidenberg. The company wouldn't say how many people would lose their jobs, but they will likely be employees in the company's traditional telephone business. The company has been trying to get regulatory approval to sell about 1.6 million phone lines in the Northeast to regional carrier FairPoint Communications. The deal is worth about $2.7 billion.

Verizon's executives also reiterated that the company is not seeing any impact on its business from a slowing U.S. economy. Doreen Toben, Verizon's chief financial officer, said during the conference call with analysts Monday that the company is monitoring the situation, but "has not seen a change of sales expectations through January." She said she expects a solid 2008.

AT&T's CEO said earlier this month that a slowing economy was impacting its business, costing it home phone subscribers during the fourth quarter of 2008. But Verizon has maintained that it isn't feeling the same pinch.

Sprint Nextel and Verizon Communications both see an opportunity to make a buck on their IP telephony patents after successfully suing Vonage Holdings last year.

On Thursday, Sprint Nextel said in a U.S. District Court in Wichita, Kan., that it was suing four small phone companies. Sprint alleges that Nuvox Communication, BroadVOX Holdings, Big River Telephone, and Paetec Communications are infringing on six of its patents.

Those patents, part of a larger portfolio of patents that cover voice over IP technology owned by Sprint, are the same ones used to successfully sue Vonage. The two companies eventually settled the dispute last year. And Vonage agreed to pay Sprint a total of $80 million, which includes $35 million for past use of the license, $40 million for a fully paid future license, and $5 million in prepayment for services.

Verizon Communications, which won a $120 million settlement from Vonage last year, is also asserting its patent claims. Earlier this month the company filed a suit in the Eastern District Court of Virginia against cable operator Cox Communications for infringing on eight patents that had to do with voice over IP technology. Two of the patents in the Cox case are the same ones Verizon successfully sued Vonage for infringing.

Since Sprint and Verizon have already successfully asserted these patents, it certainly strengthens their new cases. And it's very likely the companies will either win in court or be able to pressure these companies and any other VoIP providers into licensing deals.

This is very good news for Sprint, which would benefit greatly from turning its existing patent portfolio into a cash cow. The beleaguered cell phone carrier has been bleeding customers and is in desperate need of new revenue growth to boost earnings.