RSSVerizon Wins Calif. FiOS TV Franchise
By Ed Oswald | Published March 9, 2007, 3:10 PM
Scoring a major victory in offering its television services to a broader segment of the population, Verizon disclosed Friday that it had been the first to gain approval for a statewide video franchise in the state of California.
The nation's largest state changed its laws last year, taking the power away from local municipalities and allowing companies to apply to the state's Public Utility Commission to offer services. It went into effect on January 1.
It follows eight states -- Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia -- which already have similar laws. Over a dozen other states are currently considering statewide franchise legislation.
Calling it a huge victory for consumers, Verizon said it plans to announce later this month what communities would be first to benefit from the franchise approval. About 45 new communities in Southern California would gain FiOS TV service.
Verizon had previously built out a fiber-optic network in many of these communities and was already offering fiber-optic based Internet service in many of these locations. However, it had only gained approval for the television service in 18 locales.
"The commission's rapid approval of our application opens up an exciting new dimension in home entertainment for many of our Southern California customers," Verizon's western region president Tim McCallion said.
The top tier FiOS TV package, including 200 channels, would be offered for $42.99 USD per month. Other packages, including Spanish-language centric channels, would also be made available.
Currently, the company counts some 207,000 television subscribers in a potential customer base of 2.4 million. It claims in areas where it competes with other services, rates have dropped as a result.
Man i hate Ohio, we get NOTHING but raped by our cable co's they did replace our lube with sandpaper, so i guess that was a change.
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|Good for them. I have FiOS Internet and TV in the Boston area and it has been fantastic! Customer service during the install and 2 small issues I've called them about was very much acceptable. They had the issue corrected as soon as it was possible and my monthly bill being about 40% what it was with Comcast is great! No... I don't work for them. :)
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|Too bad Verizon only offers this service in areas where it has local telephone service.
Most areas in Houston can't get it.
Too bad for Verizon...not getting customers because they aren't around.
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|Has anyone here tried that Ms. Pac-Man game on iPod yet??
I dont know if it is worthful to have since is costs 5 dollors, I could spend that amount money on BURGERS :>
"Ms. Pac-Man, not content to have already appeared on every other game system, ever, has decided to grace the iPod with her presence. Besides containing all 256 levels from the original, plus retro cabinet art borders, the $5 download also features a new tutorial mode."
Source: http://www.vcdconverter.net/news/
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|I didn't like Verizon at first but I have an extreme dislike for Comcast, over priced for nothing. I use FiOS high speed and it works great, faster service for less. Go Verizon you have changed my mind about the company but the customer service still needs to improve a little.
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|Southern Cali?
What, they want to see how well it performs under water? :p
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|LMAO!! no s***!! just wait til the New Madrid snaps and throws this country back 100 years. Notice that all the damn channels that are being added to these highend broadband connections are crappy multicultural and multiracial channels.. what a complete waste of bandwidth.. Telemundo in HD... what a fugging waste!!! but then again Verizon is ran by jews and non-whites..
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|8800, what are you trying to say?
You are going to see that with any cable company, their high end channels are going to be multicultural, PPV and HD of the same basic channels. Comcast, Dish, Charter Comm., AT&T (when they owned the old Comcast markets) and now Verizon are doing it. The people at the top know how to make the money no matter if they are black, green, red or white. They are out to make money, the bottom line.
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|I sense all kind of -ism from this post.
And I'm really tempted to bite the bait but I won't....I'll just say that the more diverse the programming, the better the choice for everyone.
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|8800GTXer,
Go back to Germany and sleep next to your dad's (Hitler) grave. That's where you belong.
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|You do realize you're the laughingstock of the intarweb, right?
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