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Verizon Rolls Dice, Invests $23 Billion on FiOS
The telecom giant is taking a huge risk spending $23 billion on its FiOS network.
 
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Posted 11:22 AM EST April 05, 2007
Posted by: cyborg_trader
As soon as FIOS came to my area in Long Island, I jumped on it. The speed is amazing and I was fairly pleased with my cable high speed until I begin using FIOS. Now if I can only get VZ in my NC home :-( VZ is taking the correct approach. AT&T approach is flawed, still using copper, don't we have that now with DSL. AT&T risk is that if the FIOS is a huge winner, then they would have to do another install to become 100% fiber.





Posted 11:16 AM EST April 05, 2007
Posted by: cyborg_trader
As soon as FIOS came to my area in Long Island, I jumped on it. The speed is amazing and I was fairly pleased with my cable high speed until I begin using FIOS. Now if I can only get VZ in my NC home :-( VZ is taking the correct approach. AT&T approach is flawed, still using copper, don't we have that now with DSL. AT&T risk is that if the FIOS is a huge winner, then they would have to do another install to become 100% fiber.





Posted 8:54 PM EST March 31, 2007
Posted by: nskyvz
Download significantly faster and upload very much faster than cable, cost lower, very high reliability. No streets dug up - tunneling under the streets. Without regard to the financials to Verizon, as a consumer of the service it was a no-brainer, as they say. I signed up as soon as it became available (had been on cable for several years). I still use cable for TV, however - settop box on every TV not acceptable.
Posted 8:42 PM EST March 31, 2007
Posted by: nskyvz
Download significantly faster and upload very much faster than cable, cost lower, very high reliability. No streets dug up - tunneling under the streets. Without regard to the financials to Verizon, as a consumer of the service it was a no-brainer, as they say. I signed up as soon as it became available (had been on cable for several years). I still use cable for TV, however - settop box on every TV not acceptable.
Posted 10:45 AM EST March 31, 2007
Posted by: psbjr
In short, I think Verizon is taking the right approach UNLESS we have a serious recession in the near term which could make this thrust infeasible. In my opinion, that's what happened to AT&T under Michael Armstrong. He had a similarly aggressive, visionary objective but the economic climate necessitated divesting cable and wireless.
Posted 10:45 AM EST March 31, 2007
Posted by: psbjr
My opinion is that competing with the monopoly cable companies for high bandwidth high definition TV is a good strategy for paying for getting the fiber in the ground. The next challenge is to define new services that can make Verizon's approach more profitable.
Posted 10:44 AM EST March 31, 2007
Posted by: psbjr
As was painfully obvious during the dot.com bust, bandwidth for bandwidth's sake is not a good strategy. Just look at the situation with Level 3 Comm., who announced that they were a pure bandwidth provider and would someday carry half of the world's IP traffic on their network. They had (have) a good network but they did not have a good plan. It's always been clear that networks must be service driven.
Posted 1:21 PM EST March 30, 2007
Posted by: inquisitive1112
Friends have great praise for the service, installation and support they get. Me? I'm stuck in an AT&T service area. And AT&T still can't get U-Verse to operate consistently, particularly their HD TV services! VZ FIOS strategy is limited only by their operating territory and customer pricing points.
Posted 1:21 PM EST March 30, 2007
Posted by: inquisitive1112
Verizon is on the right track. Long-term goals over short-term, short sightedness. Their customer satisfaction with FIOS is close > 80%. Better phone, internet and TV at a cheaper price than the individual services, + more expansion and HD offerings...
Posted 12:47 PM EST March 28, 2007
Posted by: dac122
Cable and copper (DSL) are maxed out right now (espcially copper). The only way to increase people's bandwidths is with Fiber. High bandwidth wireless eventually meets a wire somewhere. Internet backbones have been fiber for years. Its just a matter of time before it MUST come to the home. Like it or not fiber is the future.
Posted 10:18 AM EST March 28, 2007
Posted by: joshuatree28
Unfortunately, the commitment that Verizon is placing on FiOS restricts them to revenue generated within the US. Not to say that is bad, just that it can prevent them from increasing their market share in a more global fashion. But either way, 23 Billion is a lot of cash that could be brought back to the shareholder, so this chance that they are taking could result in a major failure if it doesn't pan out.
Posted 8:50 AM EST March 28, 2007
Posted by: rd24dec
Newszi -- what?????
Posted 7:41 PM EST March 27, 2007
Posted by: Newszi
Please read my below comments in reverse order, to keep the continuity, and clarity of what I wanted to tell...
Posted 7:39 PM EST March 27, 2007
Posted by: Newszi
Ranging from accessing my mails from the fridge, through asking it for nice recepes, watching my farovite tvshows, while organizing the work for the washing machine all interactively, to playing games at the backseat of my car. There is no need for central servers, and everything is connected with Wi-Fi. This is true for entire cities, and large networks also. You can finde Wi-Fi hotspots at every conrner-coffeshop. The only thing we need is bandwidth bandwidth bandwidth ...
Posted 7:39 PM EST March 27, 2007
Posted by: Newszi
Around 2000 it was smart to think that thin clients at homes would be the future, connected to a central server capable of doing wast amount of calculations, and stuff. Nowadays, the picture got to be a bit different. Why would I deploy a central Computer to handle much calculations at home, if an even cheaper computer can do anything I would ever need to ask of a computer at home?
Posted 7:38 PM EST March 27, 2007
Posted by: Newszi
The other thing is the decentralization of the internet, and communication.
Mostly because of the rapid advancing of the mobile, and handheld devices, but also because significant media processing power of the lowest cost PCs awailable to buy, and the high end computers are that amazing, that they can render animations real time, that realistic, that even the most pro can't even tell for sure if that's a CG or real capture.
Posted 7:38 PM EST March 27, 2007
Posted by: Newszi
She can even tell me which ever doctor is the best in certain cases to go to for a survey. My parents, and the elders in my family all are amazed of how much infromation I know about the wolrd, but I'm amazed of those yougsters perform way better than me/us.
Data is the future, and old fashioned telecommunication company is destined to die. That's how it is, noone can change it.
Posted 7:38 PM EST March 27, 2007
Posted by: Newszi
But that's just one thing. The most interesting for me was to learn that the more younger the more developed interpersonal connetctions they are to maintain. This is just crazy, my twelwe years old cousin knows more people than I do, most of them never ever met before personally, but they know more about eachother by just communicating in internet/mobile devecies, etc, than I could ever learn about any of my girlfirends, but I sure try hard.
Posted 7:37 PM EST March 27, 2007
Posted by: Newszi
For example I use one Instant messaging system, two mail acounts, thre websites, and a blog, but one of my best internet-friend, who was sixteen only when we became friends, had approx. 400 msn contats, I had 63 at the time, and se also used ICq, and several other systems I've never heard before, and that's something because I like to stay up to date concerning communications...
Posted 7:37 PM EST March 27, 2007
Posted by: Newszi
Verizon is right, AT&T despite being one of the wolrd's largest will face difficulties in the future. The amount of data we trasfer each day can be measured in exabytes, or even way more. The most amazing thing is how fast the amount is growing.
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