Verizon to Offer Local Cable TV Service

SYRACUSE – Industry deregulation continues to pit Verizon Communications, Inc. against upstate cable provider Time Warner, Inc. And now that Time Warner is marketing its phone service over cable lines, Verizon’s ready to market cable service over its fiber- optic network.

Verizon is working with the state Department of Public Service to bring cable service to municipalities previously served under contracts with either Time Warner Cable or Adelphia. The company is spending $2.4 billion over the next 13 months to provide video and other services to 3-million homes over its fiberoptic network, says spokesman Judy Verses. Already, it’s spent $800 million to provide customers with fiber-optic broadband Internet service.

Industry deregulation is blurring the lines between traditional telephone-service providers, such as Verizon, and traditional cabletelevision-service providers, such as Time Warner. Both companies are expanding their broadbandnetwork offerings by competing on each other’s turf.

Already, Time Warner offers upstate customers telephone service over its cable lines – pitting it directly against Verizon – and Verizon’s DSL service goes headtohead with Time Warner’s popular Road Runner service.

“The increased options available to customers solidify Verizon’s position as the bundle leader in an industry crowded with look- alikes and me-too players,” Verses says.

Bringing Verizon’s cable service Upstate will require the installation of Meet by 5feet metal boxes on the company’s utility poles. Already, the boxes have appeared in the suburbs and exburbs of New York City.

Verses says Verizon’s entrance into the cable-TV market will allow it to compete with Time Wamd, which is able to bundle its services together for residential and business customers. In Central New York, for example, Time Warner Cable customers can have cable service, highspeed online access, and digital phone service through one company and one bill. Verizon is currently unable to offer that package, but Verses says Time Warner’s one-price-fits-all approach to telephone service hurts customers.

“Customers are not fooled by packages that don’t make sense and don’t fit their family’s calling needs,” she says.

Verizon employs 208,000 across four business units: Domestic Telecom serves customers in 29 states with wireline telecommunications services, including broadband, nationwide long- distance, and other services. Verizon Wireless owns and operates a wireless network that serves 42.1-million voice and data customers across the United States. Information Services operates directorypublishing businesses and provides electronic-commerce services. International includes wireline and wireless operations and investments.

Time Warner Cable owns and manages cable systems serving 10.9 million subscribers in 27 states, which includes more than 75 percent of the nation’s markets of 300,000 or more subscribers. Time Warner Cable is a subsidiary of Time Warner, Inc.

Copyright Central New York Business Journal Dec 03, 2004