RSSVerizon adds 458,000 FiOS subscribers in three months
By Jacqueline Emigh | Published October 29, 2008, 12:25 PM
Driven by its FiOS HDTV and Internet broadband services and Verizon Wireless, a joint venture with Vodane, Verizon's business boomed big time from July through September, even as the economy began to slow.
With the world economy starting to unravel, Verizon Communications added 233,000 FiOS TV subcribers and 225,000 FiOS Internet subscribers from July to September of this year, while its Verizon Wireless joint venture added 1.5 million new subscribers, according to third-quarter financial results released this week.
Verizon Wireless, a collaborative effort with Vodafone, managed to ink a copious number of new customers despite the addition of another 2 million subscribers by its archrival AT&T, the exclusive wireless service provider in the US for Apple's iPhone.
In another feat, on July 28, with the quarter just under way, Verizon launched its FiOS HDTV services, the company's answer to high-def cable, in New York City. As previously reported in BetaNews, the first customers consisted of more than 100 multiple dwelling units (MDUs) in that city.
But now that the economy is hitting new lows, will Verizon be able to keep thriving during the fourth quarter? Although studies indicate that consumers are cutting their spending, Verizon already has deals under way that could help to see it through a particularly tough quarter.
Verizon's traditional phone line services dropped during the third quarter, for a decrease of 12% from the same time frame in 2007, reflecting an industry trend also marked by this week's acquisition by CenturyTel of Sprint spin-off Embarq.
All told, Verizon's third-quarter earnings rose 31.5% during the third quarter to $1.7 billion, or 59 cents per share, in comparison to $1.3 billion, or 44 cents per share, during the same quarter a year ago.
Just this week, Verizon Wireless launched its 3G network to portions of four counties in the state of Ohio, following a $17 million network investment made in the area earlier this year.
In addition, Verizon Wireless has reportedly said it might launch femtocell products next year, probably in response to rival Sprint-Nextel's rollout of a femtocell home base station late last year.
A femtocell product from Samsung, carrying a Verizon "Ubicell" brand, is reportedly now awaiting FCC approval, according to an account in Unstrung on Monday.
In a deal that isn't yet complete, Verizon announced in June that it plans to further expand its wireless presence by acquiring Alltel. Under terms of the proposed deal, Verizon would purchase the equity of Alltel for $5.9 billion and assume $22.2 billion in debt.
As for FiOS, Verizon has an extensive and complicated pact in place to roll out high-bandwidth TV and Internet services throughout the five boroughs of New York City by 2014.
Since July's launch of FiOS TV in New York, Verizon has since expanded the service to Oregon, Washington, and about ten other states.
Ditto, except we don't even have DSL. I lobbied selectmen in our small New England town to let FIOS in as a competitive cable / internet provider and now they have it everywhere in town where there is a pole, except on our street where our cables are underground. The irony is that I know of quite a few work-out-of-home telecommuters who would jump at the chance to get on FIOS high speed instead of our current unreliable cable broadband. Just can't get any info out of Verizon as to when they will offer the service. Seems to be some sort of 'top secret" plan. By the time they get around to it maybe some enterprising company will put in WIMAX so that I can just drop a WIMAX broadband / WiFi router in the house and move on. What a headache.....
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|As someone who has FiOS available I'm pretty dissapointed in their lack of competitiveness in regards to pricing. Switching over from Comcast would still lead me to paying similar prices after the promos, but just getting some better upstream speeds which I really don't need. Guess in the end Verizon is just another huge corporation looking to milk its customers.
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|Consider yourself lucky that you can even get FiOS. Down here in Baltimore, we're stuck with either Verizon DSL, overpriced (compared to other counties in MD) Comcrap cable or some hokey, overpriced line-of-site metro wireless.
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|Every public corporation has teams of analysts that examine what they can charge in a particular market. They actually whittle it down to tenths of a penny versus sales going up or down based on price. YOu do realize that they could easily lower their prices, but that their profits would go down and they wouldn't be able to continue the offer it at those prices? They have shareholders to account to.
The price you pay is the price the market is willing to pay. If a competitor comes along and offers a faster service, better service, more convenient and universal location install, and at a lower price, then Verizon and Comcast may change their ways.
Complaining about it does nothing. Zilch.
For what it is worth, I've had Comcast since AT&T and excite@home, and the number of times I've had an outage would fit on two fingers, due to a storm and a dead Cmodem. I find that fantastic in 9+ years of using a service, I've seen Enterprise T-1's with SLA's and multiple downtimes well beyond that.
Having said that, if Verizon came to my hood, I'd get it, and I'd pay whatever they asked. Bandwidth is king, and I find it more important than car insurance or other seemingly "needs" typical of a homeowner.
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|You actually made some sense until completely blowing the whole post with 'Bandwidth is king, and I find it more important than car insurance or other seemingly "needs"'
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|I did? I don't need a car to survive, work is 4 miles away and bus is 25 minutes, bike is 20, and walk is 1.45 hours to get there. My job DEPENDS on reliable, fast internet. I've said it many times before, but I would never live in a location where I didn't have it, unless somehow I had supplemental income. Not gonna happen.
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