FIOS TV Update for D/FW area
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Verizon to expand fiber-optic TV service
[size=-1]By AMAN BATHEJA[/size]
[size=-1]Star-Telegram Staff Writer[/size]
Just a week after debuting in Keller, Verizon Communications announced plans to make its fiber-optic television service available in 21 more North Texas cities by the end of 2006.
The expansion announced Friday will make Verizon’s TV service, called FiOS TV, available in close to 400,000 Metroplex households, including Fort Worth, Denton, Grapevine, Irving, Flower Mound, Colleyville and Southlake, company spokesman Bill Kula said. In Fort Worth, it will be available to 6,000 households, all in the Alliance Airport area.
The company filed for a state-issued franchise from the Texas Public Utility Commission Friday, allowing it to expand to 21 municipalities where the company already provides phone service. The commission is expected to rule on the franchise within 17 business days.
Verizon had previously secured video franchise agreements with Keller, Sachse, Westlake and Wylie. The company debuted FiOS TV in Keller last week.
Lawrence Babbio, Verizon Communications’ vice chairman and president, made the announcement at the annual luncheon of the North Texas Commission, where he also announced a $50,000 grant to the organization’s regional literacy initiative.
Babbio credited Texas lawmakers for passing Senate Bill 5 last month, which allowed new entrants into Texas’ cable TV business to apply for statewide franchises.
The new system saves the company from having to spend years negotiating with individual municipalities on offering its TV service, like existing cable companies still have to do.
"I believe that SB 5 will become a model for what other states will follow," Babbio said.
Fiber optics, bundles of thin glass strands that transmit information via pulses of light, allow the transmission of voice, video and data services through one connection. That allows phone companies like Verizon and SBC to bundle telephone, Internet, and TV services in one package.
SBC, based in San Antonio, also plans to roll out cable-TV service across fiber optic, but is behind Verizon in its deployment.
Babbio said Verizon’s competitive rates - a package of 180 channels and 14 HBO channels costs $54 a month – had already forced a competing cable provider to lower its prices in Keller. He predicted a similar response in other communities.
"We don’t expect what people might call a traditional price war in any way, but we will go into a market at a very competitive price and if [competitors] respond, they respond," Babbio said.
The initial fiber-optic rollout has already resulted in about 1,500 additional hires, said Sheila Lau, Verizon’s Texas market area president. She said she expects the company will have to increase its staff by hundreds more in response to such a large expansion.
Over the short-term, FiOS will only be made available to areas Verizon already serves. In Fort Worth, for example, that means about 6,000 households, all in the Alliance area, Kula said. Steve Banta, Verizon’s southwest region president, didn’t rule out a later expansion of FiOS TV to areas not currently served by the company. "We’re thinking of our own customers first," Banta said. "If it turns out like the way it’s taken off in Keller, then who knows?"
