Verizon's Coverage Area of New York City for Fiber Optic FiOS is a Miserable 46% to 59%; Upstate New York is Worse.
Verizon NY is supposed to have 100% of New York City upgraded, replacing the aging copper-based networks with a fiber optic infrastructure for the delivery of a service called FiOS that offers cable TV, High-speed Internet and Digital Phone services. Being done as part of a cable franchise that was signed in 2008, the construction was to be completed by June 30th, 2014.
Unfortunately, in April 2013, then NYC Public Advocate, now-Mayor Bill de Blasio presented facts that Verizon's buildout was way behind schedule. Using data from July-through-December 2012, (and published in April 2013), Verizon only had 51% of NYC residential 'housing units' capable of ordering FiOS service. According to the City, there are 3.4 million housing units and Verizon had "passed" only 1.7 million of them.
The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that southern New Jersey also suffers from poor FIOS availability despite an agreement with Verizon in exchange for an exclusive franchise.
I read the article and did not find the word "exclusive".
The Communications Act prohibits exclusive cable franchises. 47 USC
541 (a)(1) states "A franchising authority may award, in accordance with the provisions of this subchapter, 1 or more franchises within its jurisdiction; except that *a franchising authority may not grant an exclusive franchise* and may not unreasonably refuse to award an additional competitive franchise."
Indeed it does. But there's nothing "exclusive" about this agreement. It couldn't be an "exclusive" franchise anyway because it overlaps numerous towns and municipalities that already have operating franchised CATV systems.
Verizon's franchise agreement with the State of New Jersey doesn't even appear to be a conventional CATV franchise. It appears to be a creature of the legislature designed to allow telephone companies to enter the video distribution business. It does not require state-wide coverage, it does not require local (town, municipality or county) approval, and it is not exclusive.
The New Jersey BPU Report to the Governor and Legislature "The Effects Of The System-Wide Cable Television Franchise in New Jersey" Public Law 2006, Chapter
83, June 2010 states:
While the system-wide franchise option created a hospitable regulatory change for a provider like Verizon, now no longer limited to offering cable service under traditional municipal consent-based franchises, it left parts of the state without the hope of landline competition. There have been no other applicants for an initial system-wide franchise. [1]
....
Verizon has never represented it would bring FiOS to its entire local phone service area in the state and was not required to do so by the amended [New Jersey) Cable Act. Rather the legislature required Verizon only to build out a portion of its service territory. In short, 70 towns are required "full build" municipalities while the remaining 299 of the total 369 contained in the system-wide franchise application are not. Prior to the entry of Verizon, only four New Jersey municipalities enjoyed head-to-head landline competition. [2]
[1] New Jersey Board of Public Utilities Report to the Governor and Legislature "The Effects Of The System-Wide Cable Television Franchise in New Jersey" Public Law 2006, Chapter 83, June 2010, ii (PDF 9).
As other have noted, the franchise was not exclusive. But back to Bruce Kushnick's point: Verizon had originally, in 1992, promised 100% fiber coverage of the state, in exchange for which the state move them from rate-of-return to price cap ("alternative form of") regulation (AFOR). Under AFOR, they are allowed to earn whatever profits they can, though basic residential rates may be capped, at least for a time. Based on historical documents Bruce & I have read, the original plan was fiber-to-the-node, with 45 Mbps copper drops around the neighborhood. Sort of like U-Verse.
They never met the promise. They switched instead to providing DSL wherever it was convenient for them, and nothing elsewhere. A couple of years ago, two Cumberland County townships, Stow Creek and Greenwich, which had no broadband service, made a lot of noise at the BPUC and got Verizon to put in FiOS. The issue is that now the Christie-appointed BPUC is trying to vacate the original deal in its entirety, relieving Verizon of its obligations and basically turning it into an unregulated monopoly or (where there's cable competition) duopoly. And nobody is a common carrier any more, at least in the proper meaningful sense.
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