[telecom] Mobile Services and Cable TV Are Unexpected Allies

Mobile Services and Cable TV Are Unexpected Allies

By AMY CHOZICK September 23, 2012

BASKING RIDGE, N.J. - Tucked amid rows of office cubicles at the sprawling Verizon Wireless headquarters here and hidden behind a locked door sit the company's best kept retail secrets.

The mock store looks like a Verizon Wireless retail outlet right down to the signs for the iPhone 5 and racks of mobile accessories. But on one wall, an experimental display of tablets and smartphones labeled "Home Services" offers Verizon customers a new service: cable TV.

The display is a little-known result of Verizon's $3.9 billion purchase of spectrum from Bright House Networks, Comcast, Cox Communications and Time Warner Cable that the Federal Communications Commission approved last month. While most attention has focused on how the purchase of unused airwaves will help Verizon expand its new fourth-generation wireless network, a less publicized result is that cable companies can now use Verizon's retail presence to sell cable packaged with phone and wireless service.

So in mock store displays to be introduced across the country next month, Comcast's Xfinity cable service app appears on an "attract loop" that plays on a plasma television. Verizon customers will be able to browse television listings on a Verizon Samsung tablet and learn to set their DVR remotely using Xfinity's service. "Verizon Wireless & Xfinity, Better Together," an in-store sign says.

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***** Moderator's Note *****

I don't get it. If Verizon is still trying to offer TV through fiber optic, why would they be giving retail space to Comcast? Is this change signalling the erection of a tombstone over Verizon's media ambitions?

Bill Horne Moderator

Reply to
Monty Solomon
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Verizon has no plans to expand beyond areas already served, just back fill. A lot of Verizon customers will never get FIOS, the same goes for at&t Uverse. This way they can get part of the profits that the able companies have taken. We have what at&t calls Uverse, the service we have is just ADSL, I know since I am a COEI Installer and put the equipment in, the speed is a lot better, but jumps all over the place.

Reply to
Steven

At Wed, 17 Oct 2012 10:08:41 -0700, Steven wrote: [snip]

Verizon will be marketing the cable companies' TV service only in areas where FiOS is unavailable.

Reply to
Michael D. Sullivan

You must remember that FIOS was a GTE project long before Verizon. Former GTE service areas for the most part have full fiber, in the area I worked in Riverside county, Moreno Valley was wired for Fiber over 20 years ago, we had Fiber Rings all over the area, it now goes all the way down the the San Diego country line out to past Palm Springs.

Reply to
Steven

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