Verizon's FiOS TV: Overview

Service Highlights

* A broad collection of all-digital programming and compelling consumer choice.
* A lead offer with more than 180 all-digital video and music channels, for $34.95 a month with Verizon FiOS Internet Service or a qualifying voice plan for $39.95 a month as a stand-alone service.
* More than 20 high-definition channels, with extraordinary clarity and theater-quality sound.
* More than 2,200 On Demand titles available to customers now, increasing to over 3,500 titles in the next several months. Many of them are free.
* Channels grouped by genres such as entertainment, sports, news, shopping, movies and family, making it easy for audiences to find their favorite programming.
* An easy-to-use interactive programming guide that integrates HD programming, On Demand content and the digital video recorder along with broadcast television into a seamless user experience.
* A dual-tuner, HD-capable DVR that gives customers the freedom to pause and rewind live TV, record one show while watching another, and fast forward to their favorite part of the program - all without a VCR, tapes or DVDs.

Verizon has come up with “FiOS TV Widgets”. This service is now available at no extra charge to Verizon’s fiber optic television subscribers, providing access to real-time local traffic and weather information. Widgets displays local traffic and weather based on the customer’s ZIP code. The first time customers access the service, they use their remote control to pull down a Widgets menu from the FiOS TV Interactive Programming Guide and enter their five-digit ZIP code on the keypad. Verizon-developed software manages the interaction between the remote control and the Web server where the Widgets traffic and weather information is stored.Once retrieved, weather and traffic are displayed individually beneath the current programming. After setting up the service, customers can access Widgets simply by pressing a button on the remote. To view traffic and weather from across the country, they can return to the menu and enter a different ZIP code. Verizon says it is making Widgets available by market, and deployment will be completed with the north Texas market in the next several weeks.This move is reportedly just the first stage of Verizon’s interactive IPTV plans. Later this year, the telecom giant plans to offer a multi-room DVR solution, and also allow customers to view digital photos on a TV screen.

Service Areas

FiOS TV provides a broad collection of all-digital programming with more than 400 total channels, two-dozen high-definition channels and video on demand. It is delivered over Verizon’s fiber-to-the-premises network to more than 50 communities in seven states: California, Florida, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Virginia and Texas. Verizon is pressing Congress to pass a law that would allow it to bypass local TV franchising authorities so it could deploy video services more quickly, but in the meantime it is slogging away town by town, house by house.Residents in these communities who are FiOS TV-eligible now have the option to trim their monthly bills by bundling FiOS TV service, FiOS Internet service and the Verizon Freedom Value unlimited calling plan, all for $104.85.Verizon has worked hard to negotiate franchise agreements for cable TV over the past two years. Company is currently building the network in parts of 16 states. By the end of last year, Verizon had passed some 3 million homes with the new technology and expects to pass 3 million more this year. The company began building the network in 2004. Verizon is spending $20 billion to build out a fiber-optic network that will have far more speed, capacity, and flexibility than its existing copper-wire system. The rollout is running ahead of schedule, but so are many of the costs.