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Verizon FiOS TV set to light up New York City

Verizon gets regulatory green light to deploy throughout NYC

      

It’s official: Verizon has just received the final regulatory permissions to offer FiOS TV in all five boroughs of New York City from the New York State Public Service Commission. The move comes on the heels of the city’s Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications decision to accept the Verizon proposal (April 29, 2008) and approval from NYC’s Franchise and Concession Review Committee (May 27, 2008).


The green-lighted territories give Verizon a boost towards its goal of reaching an additional 3.1 million living units within the next five to six years, or 15 percent of its possible target market. But Verizon’s FiOS currently only passes 600,000 units in these untapped NYC markets; the carrier’s long-term penetration goal is about 30 percent of the market, which would translate to over one million FiOS TV subscribers. Verizon plans to serve both residential and small-to-medium businesses through FiOS TV (see Verizon launches FiOS TV for small businesses).

Verizon’s FiOS penetration in New York City currently stands at about 20 percent (mostly in Staten Island). That leaves 2.48 million living units as yet unpassed before FiOS reaches its full deployment potential for TV and/or Internet access service. Typical ARPU for FiOS TV is $129 a month.

FiOS TV service is slated to provide up to 65 high-def channels (that figure now stands at 31 in NYC), with a further goal of 150 channels by end of the year. In addition to sports, international and linear HD channels, Verizon is filling up its video-on-demand platform with over 10,000 titles, 1,000 of which will be in high-def, over the same time frame.

While Verizon brings a number of strong competitive differentiator advantages to the table, its rivals are already moving to counter the emerging threat of FiOS TV and its accompanying triple-play bundle.

“...for example, Time Warner Cable already launched its price lock guarantee and it has 50 high-def channels available in large parts of NYC; when it completes the transition to an all-digital network later this year, the company will have the ability to deliver more than 100 high-def channels throughout the city,” writes Larry Hettick, senior analyst at Current Analysis, in a recent intelligence report. “In April 2008, TWC had completed the digital transition in Brooklyn and Queens and announced that it expected to complete the transition in Manhattan by the end of 2008. TWC has also introduced its ‘called ID on TV’ feature in NYC and it plans to launch the Start over video feature in New York City later this year. TWC already increased its marketing efforts in Q1 2008, and it has announced plans to be more aggressive in the city.

“Cablevision has already been competing against the FiOS triple play in Long Island for nearly two years and with Verizon’s broadband and voice products for four years and it is now the majority wireline voice provider on Long Island with more residential phone customers than Verizon. Cablevision attributed its healthy sales results against Verizon to its well-positioned triple play; at the end of Q1 2008, 62% of Cablevision’s new video sales were triple play product sales. Cablevision estimated that, at the end of Q1 2008, Verizon was capable of serving a little less than 1.3 million of the 4. 6 million Cablevision-passed homes and it reported that the market penetration impact of telco-provided video sales is still in the single digits.”

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