FiOS Blog

Long awaited update: 26 new HD channels coming to FiOS in July

2008-05-08T14:52:00.004-04:00

I'm pretty busy, so I'll have to keep this short... but it looks like good times are coming. FiOS subscribers have had no new word on when to expect new HD channels since we were told "Spring 2008" about 9 months ago. Rumor has it that we (well most of us...) will be watching 48 new SD channels and 26 new HD channels before the end of July. Here's a list of what we can expect on the HD side:

1. Animal Planet HD
2. TBS HD
3. ESPNews HD
4. Big Ten Network HD
5. The History Channel HD
6. MOJO HD
7. CNN HD
8. The Learning Channel HD
9. Showtime Too HD East
10. Cinemax West HD
11. The Science Channel HD
12. Showtime HD West
13. HBO West HD
14. The Weather Channel HD
15. Starz Edge HD
16. USA HD
17. Versus / Golf HD
18. Starz Comedy HD
19. Bravo HD
20. CNBC HD
21. Starz Kids and Family HD
22. Outdoor Channel HD
23. SCI FI HD
24. Lifetime HD East
25. Smithsonian HD
26. Pay Per View HD (Events)

Head over to Engadget HD for more details. I apologize for the quick post, but it looks like the end to our HD drought is in sight!

Poll Results: What is a reasonable price for HD VOD movies?

2008-05-02T15:11:00.003-04:00

Our results from the most recent poll are in. The response wasn't huge, but one thing is clear: Verizon needs to lower the prices for HD VOD movies. As further proof that my gripes about the per-movie price weren't crazy, it seems that 100% of respondents agreed with me that a reasonable price is somewhat lower than $5.99:

$2.99 - 2 (33%)

$3.99 - 3 (50%)

$4.99 - 1 (16%)

I could see paying $6-a-pop if you could store the movie on your DVR and watch it over again later. But, as it stands, I can't justify the price. Big V needs to realize... Times are tight, and I've gotta pay for gas and stockpiled rice.

FiOS rate hikes on the way

2008-05-01T10:07:00.003-04:00

The economy is slowing down, and your expenses are going up. With growing prices for gas and groceries, at least you don't have to worry about paying more for your FiOS, right? Wrong. Verizon has definite plans for rate hikes in the second quarter of 2008. No specifics on what the new rates will be, but here's a rundown of the average uppage from last time:

Verizon just increased the price of the primary FiOS TV programming package for new subscribers, as of Jan. 20. The 200-channel FiOS TV Premier package now costs $47.99 per month for new customers, compared with $42.99 for customers who signed up last year.

And a year before that, it upped the rates for the Premier package from $39.95 to $42.99 for new customers as of Jan. 8, 2007.

So you'd best start pinching your pennies if you want to keep that HBO package. And it might be worth putting a few pennies away just in case that MLB Extra Innings package ever becomes available this season.

Will Kern over at 15 Meanings has a post up where he vents about his troubles with the FiOS HD DVR. I can definitely feel his pain... if a DVR glitch had kept me from seeing Neil Diamond week on American Idol, I'd be livid. But Will is definitely not alone.

I've seen some degree of flakiness from my DVR, especially in the series management. About half way into the John Adams series on HBO, my box decided that the future episodes were not part of the same series and did not schedule them for recording. I noticed in time and set the DVR to record the second half as it's own series. In my series manager, John Adams was listed twice. Weird, eh? I know a number of my neighbors have had even more serious issues, too.

There are definitely some annoyances with the DVR... but is it worth going the Tivo/cable card route? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

FiOS bits and pieces

2008-04-22T15:15:00.003-04:00

There hasn't been too much activity on the FiOS front so far in this still-young week, so I've rounded up a few random items that might be of interest.

FiOS Doesn't Play Nice with VOIP?

There was a bit of a dust-up over on Consumerist last week when a FiOS adopter was told that they would have to convert their VOIP lines from other providers to Verizon phone lines in order to become a FiOS customer. Verizon has dispelled this rumor as pure garbage, which in fact only means that the customer service representative was totally incompetent. Maybe a friendly Personal Account Manager would have helped in this situation?

How does Verizon "black out" games?

I saw this post over at ericd.net complaining that FiOS' Versus channel disappeared during a Bruins NHL playoff game last night, but the game was carried on NESN. I saw similar behavior during the Caps game the other night: the game was carried locally on Comcast Sports Net and nationally on Versus. I went to check the Versus feed and found just a black screen.

Putting both experiences together, I guess this is the FiOS way of less-than-elegantly blacking out a game. When I used to have DirecTV, I used to get a message that said something along the lines of "This game isn't available in your market". Hopefully Verizon can implement something a little more user friendly than just a missing feed.

FiOS HD Woes

Engadget stirred the pot a bit more yesterday re: FiOS' lack of HD options. While the post tells us nothing new, there are some nice links in there from the past six months that lay out why Verizon is stuck with the current size of their HD offering and what they're doing to fix it.

A little more "what's up" on the new FiOS PAMs

2008-04-17T15:02:00.000-04:00

I mentioned these new FiOS personal account managers, or PAMs, in a post last Friday. At the time, I didn't have a clear idea of exactly who or what they would be or how they would work.

Luckily, the 'remove the labels' blog has more information about Verizon's new approach to customer service:

Here’s how it works: Each new FiOS TV-phone-Internet customer receives the name of an individual “PAM,” as Verizon is calling them, plus a refrigerator magnet with the manager’s cell phone number and e-mail address. Each “PAM” carries a Blackberry, works from 8AM to 8PM, and is responsible for around 800 customers. These new positions receive a base salary, but receive a bonus depending on how highly customers rate their support satisfaction.

Sounds pretty good on the face of it. These PAMs won't necessarily be able to fix all of your problems on their own, but they will serve as a friendly go-between for you with the much maligned Verizon customer service department. That would probably remedy 75% of complaints right away. Actually getting the customer service department to follow through would be the last 25%.

I'd like to see this system work and eventually be phased in for all FiOS customers nationwide, but the cynic in me wonders how much the PAMs cost and whether or not they will make enough of an impact in terms of customer retention and positive PR to justify that cost. We shall see.

Anyone out there have any PAM experience you would like to share?

What's a reasonable price for a FiOS HD VOD movie?

2008-04-16T12:07:00.002-04:00

That's the question for the new poll. I've already expressed my view that the $5.99 for a one-time-view movie is way too high, HD or not. Let's see what you all think.

Apparently some crazy "study" has determined that $9 is a reasonable price point for HD VOD titles. Let's hope Verizon doesn't put too much stock in that research next time they are considering price points for movies on FiOS.

So, what's your opinion? Vote in the poll, leave a comment, share your thoughts.

FiOS digital lineup is expanding

2008-04-15T15:05:00.004-04:00

FiOS is rolling out the ION channel suite to Northeastern markets this week. From the article on CMSpin:

In addition to its 2007 agreement to carry the ION Television Network, Verizon FiOS recently added The Worship Network (www.worship.net), qubo and ION Life to its Boston, New York, and northern New Jersey markets. The launch follows the recent addition of the ION channel suite to the FiOS TV lineup in Philadelphia, Southern California, Dallas, Tampa and Washington, D.C. FiOS also plans a future launch in Portland.

Not much else to add. These aren't exactly the most exciting batch of new channels for me, but I was enjoying the Wonder Years reruns that ION was running several months back. ION is located in sort of a funny place in my lineup, so I almost never see it in the guide. It's stuck in that forsaken bunch of SD public and non-English channels between 9 (the highest numbered local channel) and 50 (USA Network) that I almost always completely skip over. If there's something worth watching on PBS, I'll catch it on HD PBS networks which are nicely interlaced with everything else in the 800s.

Poll Results: How satisfied are our readers?

2008-04-14T10:26:00.003-04:00

Our first blog poll closed at the end of last week, and the results are in. The sample size is too small to mean much, but let's analyze it anyway.

Independent research earlier in the year showed that 96% of Verizon FiOS subscribers were "happy" with their service. How do our results stack up?

Extremely satisfied - 4 (28%)
Satisfied - 7 (50%)
Neutral - 0 (0%)
Disappointed - 1 (7%)
Extremely disappointed - 2 (14%)

We have 78% of respondents indicating that they are Satisfied or Extremely satisfied. If we assign scores to each selection, such that Extremely satisfied is a 5 and Extremely disappointed is a 1, we have an average score of 3.68.

Not too shabby, but not exactly "96% happy" either.

If you responded to the poll, leave a comment and let us know why you voted like you did. Even if you didn't get a chance to vote, take a minute and share your thoughts.

FiOS News Roundup: Misleading ads, other misleading ads, and PAMs

2008-04-11T09:48:00.005-04:00

Verizon and FiOS have been in the news this week more than once relating to misleading advertising. The first incident has CNET claiming that Verizon has lifted the phrase "near flawless" out of a New.com article and is attributing it to a CNET review. The ad in question is right here:

CNET's take on the issue is right here in the CNET Crave blog. Here's the quote in it's original context in the news article (the key phrase has bee bolded):

This fierce competition reinforces how important it is for Verizon to offer a near-flawless TV experience. Verizon's executives knew that getting that experience right would be key, and that getting it right meant making sure there was enough bandwidth on the network to deliver several streams of high-definition video at once. It also meant ensuring the service was reliable and met customers' expectations.

Not long after the CNET dust-up, Verizon made news for a second time when it filed suit againt Time Warner for misleading advertising. Verizon claims that Time Warner is misleading customers by claiming that FiOS requires a satellite dish. TW is also touting that it's been in the fiber game for over a decade. Here's the 60 second version of the commercial in question:

Verizon's Eric Rabe has issued an online response to both situations via the Policy Blog this week.

In other news, Verizon is looking to change the face of its FiOS Customer Care system by introducing personal account mangers, or PAMs. These new managers have been deployed on a trial basis in some areas of Florida. From the article, it's not exactly clear how the PAMs will function. It sounds like they will provide a friendly, personal interface to the customer but not necessarily be equipped to make technical changes. Customer care is one of the biggest areas of complaints that I hear about from FiOS customers, so hopefully these PAMs are a step in the right direction.

The FiOS analog tier might be going away sooner than you think

2008-04-09T10:00:00.005-04:00

It's no secret that the FCC has mandated an end to analog television broadcasts by early next year. But, it looks like Verizon is getting a bit of a head start. In a release on Monday, the company announced its plans to start phasing out the analog tier of FiOS TV.

Verizon will phase out the analog channels on a regional basis. In New York, customers will see the transition on April 21. Customers have been notified well in advance by letters, e-mails and phone calls from Verizon.

Verizon will furnish all customers in need with a free digital-to-analog converter to accommodate older TV sets. This isn't being done for purely altruistic purposes, those. CED Magazine is reporting that it is part of a deal Verizon has cut with the FCC:

In fact, Verizon had cut a deal with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to cease analog transmission prior to the 2009 date in exchange for a waiver exempting it from the ban on set-top boxes (STBs) with integrated security, which was put into effect in July.

It's also pretty clear that Verizon will try to use the whole switch-over/free converter scenario to try to upsell basic analog customers to more expensive programming packages.

The good news is that the sooner the analog tier is a thing of the past, the sooner that bandwidth can be put to good use... like more HD options.

More on FiOS HD VOD

2008-04-08T12:47:00.002-04:00

When I posted about HD Video On Demand launch last week, I promised that a full review was forthcoming. And it still is. But for now, here are a couple more of my first impressions:

Picture quality - The HD VOD picture is very nice. It's slightly less crisp than watching live HDTV, but it's a huge improvement over the SD VOD options, especially on a large screen HDTV. And it certainly looks a lot better than those craptastic Comcast screen caps from yesterday...
VOD Interface - The VOD interface is still slow. For now, like I mentioned, the HD options are just one section of the overall VOD menu. And did I mention that the VOD interface is laggy and slow? I think I did.

I'm not the only one with opinions on the new HD VOD, though. There's some commentary over on the Dallas Morning News' Technology Blog.

Have you gotten a chance to try out the new HD goodness? Leave a comment and share your impressions. Still waiting for HD VOD or FiOS in general and have some questions? Leave them and we'll try to get you an answer.

How compressed is your FiOS HD signal?

2008-04-07T11:14:00.005-04:00

HD compression has been a hot topic for the last week or so. In order to conserve bandwidth and launch some additional channels, Comcast increased the compression of a number of its HD channels last week. This didn't go unnoticed to HD junkies, and threads like this one over at AVSForum show why. The screen shot comparisons between Comcast and FiOS service don't just show a little graininess... the compression is very obvious and downright embarrassing for Comcast.

Surely not by coincidence, Verizon has started running ads touting its own "pure uncompressed high definition" programming. This raised some eyebrows from critics and Verizon has been forced to clarify its position. From the article:

Verizon media relations director Bobbi Henson, asked to substantiate the claim in the TV spots, said the point of the campaign is to show that “our FiOS TV customers are receiving HD that’s not compressed by Verizon.”

“It’s true that content owners compress their video before sending it to video service providers,” she said in an e-mailed statement. “But we forward the signal to our customers the way that we receive it.”

Verizon isn't adding any additional compression to signals it receives from content providers; the content providers may be providing a compressed signal, though. So while FiOS customers may not be seeing "pure uncompressed" HD in every case, Verizon is still providing as nice of a HD picture quality as possible.

Are you satisfied with FiOS? Take the poll

2008-04-04T14:50:00.003-04:00

We've added a new poll over on the right sidebar which asks the simple question: How satisfied are you with your FiOS service overall? If you haven't voted yet, go ahead and share your opinion.

The results won't be in any way scientific, but should be an interesting comparison to the data we posted back in February that showed FiOS subscribers are 96% satisfied with their service.

Baseball season is here... When will FiOS offer MLB Extra Innings?

2008-04-03T09:56:00.003-04:00

Since HD VOD is now up and running at my house, it's time to move on to the next item on my list of features that I'm pining after: MLB Extra Innings. Baseball season has been underway now for almost a week, and Verizon has thus far remained silent on their plans to roll out the package since initially announcing that Extra Innings was in the works back in February.

Last we knew, Verizon was still in the process of negotiating a deal with MLB for the rights to carry the broadcasts. Even after that deal is in place, it could take up to two months for Verizon to reconfigure the channel line up on its nationwide network according to this article from Fredricksburg.com.

Here's the latest update from Eric Rabe on the Verizon Policy Blog:

No new news here, sorry to say. We continue to negotiate, but, to be clear, it takes us some time even after a deal is reached to get new content on the FiOS system, and not all areas get the content at the same time. So that's the story for now. Obviously, when we have something more substantial to say, you'll hear it here first!

Posted by: Eric Rabe on March 20, 2008, 01:02 PM EST

We can hope that Verizon is preparing its network for the Extra Innings package while negotiating the deal. We can also hope that Verizon has reached a deal with MLB and is withholding announcement until they are ready to launch the service. For now, let's just hope that Verizon gives us some sort of heads up as to what's going on.

Stay plugged in for more info as it becomes available. Subscribe to the blog feed to stay up to date.

FiOS HD Video On Demand silently launching in select markets

2008-04-02T10:11:00.002-04:00

As I mentioned back in my February post about VOD, I've been waiting for some HD goodness. It now looks like cravings will be satisfied.

While channel surfing last night, I came across a Verizon FiOS commercial that was touting HD VOD. I pulled up the VOD menu, and sure enough, there it was: "High Definition" was one of the options under "Browse".

My experience apparently isn't an accident or an anomaly. Broadband Reports has unconfirmed reports of HD VOD launces in Texas, California, Maryland, Northern NJ, and Philadelphia/Delaware. I can add Northern Virginia to that unofficial list. We'll expect some official announcement from Verizon later this week.

I didn't have time to play with it too much last night, but here's a quick rundown of what I saw:

There were two main partitions of HD content: HD Movies and HD Television.
HD Movies had a decently large selection of revent movies, all of which seemed to be priced at $5.99. I haven't gotten a chance to gauge the picture quality yet, but I'm still holding to my view that this is too pricey.
HD Television had sub-menus for about 4 CBS shows (including Jericho, maybe a CSI or two?) and a whole bunch of other content that didn't interest me in the least.

I'll need to investigate a bit more later this week when I have some time.

What is FiOS costing you these days?

2008-03-18T18:14:00.002-04:00

I found a couple of interesting things late last week that relate to a subject near and dear to everyone's heart... bills.

We'll start with your Verizon bill. In this post over at Broadband Reports, they somehow got hold of an internal memo from a major cable operator. The memo tracks the price of certain bundles and hardware across different states, and apparently customer service reps for this cable operator are using the numbers to justify their own price hikes to customers. Nothing mind blowing, but some states have seen a noticeable increase in prices over the past year. Of course, this data should be taken with a grain of salt seeing as it comes from one of Verizon's competitors.

Here's an example of what they have for Virginia:

Freedom Essentials + FiOS 5Mbps/2Mbps + FiOS TV Premier (two-year commitment) increased from $104.98 to $115.98
Freedom Essentials + FiOS 5Mbps/2Mbps + FiOS TV Premier (one-year commitment) decreased from $114.98 to $110.98
Freedom Essentials + FiOS 15Mbps/2Mbps + FiOS TV Premier (two-year commitment) increased from $119.98 to $120.98
Freedom Essentials + FiOS 15Mbps/2Mbps + FiOS TV Premier (one-year commitment) decreased from $124.98 to $120.98

FiOS 5Mbps/2Mbps + FiOS TV Premier increased from $85.98 to $101.97
FiOS 15Mbps/2Mbps + FiOS TV Premier increased from $92.98 to $111.97
FiOS 15Mbps/15Mbps + FiOS TV Premier increased from $107.98 to $123.97

Moving on to another bill, Lance J. Technoweb has done some analysis to determine roughly how much your FiOS service is affecting your electric bill. It's by no means a complete look, as he only measures the electricity use for the main network box and the battery backup unit. To get a complete picture, you would need to take similar measurements on the router and the set top boxes as well. Lance determines that the network paraphernalia is using roughly 140 Kilowatt-hours per year, which depending on where you live might cost you up to $29 annually. Not backbreaking, but you probably didn't take electricity consumption into account when you were figuring how much converting to FiOS was going to cost you.

FiOS well positioned in the "HD arms race"

2008-03-12T11:54:00.002-04:00

Which service provider is going to offer the largest array of high definition content in the long run? It's too early to tell, but Verizon's FiOS is in a great position to compete according to this article from Cable360. The piece speculates that Verizon has plenty of bandwidth, and that FiOS is in a better place than most cable providers for a couple of reasons:

• FiOS already employs a relatively small portion of its video bandwidth for analog channels, and by February 2009, FiOS will reallocate even this segment entirely for digital TV.

• Verizon can allocate the entire 860 MHz for downstream standard definition and HD TV channels. On cable, some of this bandwidth is allocated for upstream and downstream VOD and Internet access. On FiOS, traffic for VOD and Internet access is carried on different wavelengths (for upstream and downstream) over the fiber plant and does not subtract from the 860 MHz for linear TV.

Bottom line: this is good news for FiOS subscribers. Once Verizon finishes upgrading the network components that are currently causing the bottleneck, the sky is the limit for FiOS bandwidth. Check out the article for the full scoop.

FiOS In The News: Roundup

2008-03-11T11:29:00.003-04:00

Nothing big on the FiOS news front so far this week. Instead of making things up, here are some interesting FiOS-related links from around the web:

Verizon, Fiber or Die? - A reader question at Slashdot spawns some discussion about whether or not Verizon is trying to strong-arm traditional copper DSL customers into making the switch to FiOS
Nothing Lasts Forever - A Computer World blogger is left hanging when his FiOS Actiontec modem/router bricks up two weeks after the end of the warranty period, and Verizon charges him $130 for a replacement
Verizon Tests AFOX - Verizon hopes to improve network performance and management with new AFOX (automated fiber-optic cross connect) capabilities, eliminating one of the last remaining manual network functions

Update: Those free HDTVs are coming... eventually

2008-03-06T18:42:00.003-05:00

Like we talked about earlier in the week, Verizon is having problems meeting customer demand for the free 19" Samsung flat-panel HDTVs that were offered to all new "Triple Freedom" customers over the past several months. Lots of angry letters, lots of press, you get the picture. So, not surprisingly, Verizon has addressed the issue directly in the policy blog.

Like we posted yesterday, the bottom line is that customers who were promised televisions are going to get them. From the Verizon post:

First, let’s set the record straight. If a customer qualifies for a TV set under our recent promotion, they’ll get one. We stand behind the offer and are doing a number of things to speed up the process.

The bad news is that customers (who ordered prior to December 31st) are going to be waiting 10 to 15 weeks to receive the new displays. Since not everyone has that kind of patience, Verizon is offering a couple of alternatives for those of the instant gratification persuasion.

Those waiting for their freebie can opt to receive a Magnavox 19” LCD HDTV instead. This non-Samsung set will arrive in 4 weeks.
The super impatient cash in their chips for a $200 Best Buy gift card, which could arrive in as little as 2 weeks.

Neither option is too shabby, and the choices show that Verizon is making an effort to make the situation right for FiOS subscribers.

So, about that free 19" LCD HDTV for signing up with FiOS....

2008-03-04T11:17:00.004-05:00

If you were in a hurry to sign up with Verizon to get the free 19" LCD HDTV they have been offering to new FiOS subscribers in the recent ad campaign... you may want to temper your expectations. You may have thought that your FiOS installer would show up at your door with the shiny new display, but that isn't the case. According to Verizon, this is how is should work:

Two to three weeks after all your bundle components are installed and working you will receive a letter in the U.S. Mail. The letter will include a username and password for a website address to redeem the promotion. You must claim your gift award within 45 days of receiving the letter in the mail.

Unfortunately, it sounds like the 45 day window is a bit of a pipe dream, too. Not surprisingly, a lot of customers are steamed. Over at the Consumerist, there is a full length report on the issue, including lots of angry comments from customers waiting for their TVs.

The bottom line is that Verizon is going to have to provide the televisions or comparable reimbursement at some point. But in the mean time, this ugly situation is a bit of a black mark, especially in contrast to the recent positive customer feedback mentioned earlier.

FiOS subscribers are 96% happy

2008-02-28T10:44:00.005-05:00

That's not too bad, right? Apparently it's really good. This article from EETimes is a little dated, but still relevant. The data suggests that subscribers to Verizon's FiOS service are more satisfied than customers signed up with DirecTV, Dish Network, and AT&T's new-ish U-verse service. Here's the relevant excerpt:

In a recent survey of customer satisfaction, respondents ranked Verizon's Fios FTTH network highest in satisfaction with 96 percent of respondents satisfied with the service. By contrast, satellite-based services for DirecTv and Dish Network ranked at 89 and 82 percent respectively, and AT&T's fibre-to-the node (FTTN) service was in line with several cable TV services that ranged from 70 to 73 percent.

Obviously I can't speak for the quality of the data, but that's a very impressive margin. If you're a FiOS subscriber, the moral of the story is to be glad that Verizon laid down your fiber instead of AT&T.

MLB Extra Innings coming to FiOS TV

2008-02-26T18:26:00.003-05:00

At least it sounds like that might be the case. According to the Verizon FiOS Policy Blog:

We are currently working with MLB Extra Innings and we’re optimistic that we’ll begin offering the package soon. It won’t be everywhere, all at once unfortunately, but we are working hard to get MLB EI on FiOS TV for as many fans as we can as soon as possible.

This sounds promising. Baseball fans who don't live in the market where their team plays (like...me) will have to hope that the "won't be everywhere" part doesn't apply to them. More than likely the limited availability has to do with Verizon's bandwidth issues - the same ones that are keeping us waiting for an expanded HD lineup. For that reason, I'm not holding my breath on the games being available in HD, but I'll keep my fingers crossed.

Some suggestions for FiOS Video on Demand

2008-02-25T10:57:00.003-05:00

I watched a movie via FiOS Video on Demand this past weekend. We were trying to watch Michael Clayton, and the RedBox across the street was fresh out. Driving to Blockbuster would have been a 20 minute round trip, so we decided to make use of the Video on Demand feature. After some reflection on the experience, here are some suggestions for Verizon to improve the service.

The price point for "featured" movies is way too high. I was in a pinch, but the $4.99 price tag still had me on the fence about whether I'd watch the movie at all. Considering that I can typically get a DVD from RedBox for $0.99/day, I can rent from Blockbuster for closer to $3, and depending on how many movies I watch prices via Netflix would be much lower, Verizon really needs to make the experience worth the $5. There are some problems though, as you'll see below.
The VOD application needs to be revamped. Selecting VOD launches a separate application from the IMG guide. This app takes some time to load, and once it does it's still quite laggy. It can take several minutes to scroll through the list of movies to find what you want to watch. When I finally found the movie I wanted, I tried to purchase it but I received an error message that basically told me "This isn't working right now, try again later." After trying a few times, the app crashed and my STB rebooted itself. After that I was able to go in and purchase the movie, but what a pain! Also, the infomercial content running in mono sound in the background of the VOD app is obnoxious.
The VOD picture quality needs to be improved. For $4.99-a-pop, I'd ideally want the movie in HD. I know that HD VOD is on the way, but I'm sure the price is going to go up. Even for SD, though, the picture quality is poor. There are all sorts of artifacts to the picture such that it feels like you're watching an old VHS tape. Plus the 4:3 picture format isn't ideal for movies; I'd much prefer a letterboxed version.

Those are probably my three biggest gripes. And I'd be willing to overlook the second two issues for watching free content, but with a pay-per-view model Verizon needs to give some serious thought to shoring up their offering.

Straight from the horse's mouth: The FiOS Fact Sheet

2007-05-04T10:43:00.000-04:00

The Verizon Policy Blog has an updated FiOS fact sheet which includes the numbers for Q1 2007. This goes a bit more in depth than the analysis we linked yesterday, and includes some projections for the next 3 years.

A couple of highlights from the FiOS section:

Verizon will begin boosting speeds and capabilities on its all-fiber network when it begins deploying advanced G-PON electronics in 2007. This technology can increase downstream broadband speeds by up to four times, and upstream speeds by eight times.
At the end of March 2007, Verizon was marketing its high-speed FiOS Internet service – with downstream speeds of up to 50 Mbps and upstream speeds of up to 10 Mbps – in over 1,700 communities in all 16 states where the company is building its FTTP network.

Click the link above for the full report.

Thanks to John 'CZ' Czwartacki from Verizon for tipping us off to this one in the comments for yesterday's post on the latest quarterly earnings report.

What can Verizon's quarterly earnings report tell us about FiOS?

2007-05-03T11:57:00.000-04:00

Not much happening on the FiOS news front this week. Instead of inventing news, I'll dig something up that I may have missed earlier.

Verizon released their Q1 2007 earnings report earlier this week, and this post over at IP Democracy provides some analysis. Of interest on the FiOS front:

Verizon netted 177,000 new FiOS data customers for the quarter
The growth rate for data customers is about equal to what it was at the same time last year
Verizon netted 141,000 new FiOS video customers for the quarter
The growth rate for video customers is over 10 times greater than at the same time last year

In a nutshell, the data business continues to grow steadily while the video service is still seeing its growth rate increase. This is probably because they video service hadn't officially launched in many FiOS markets at this time last year.