A Wiring War Among Giants

South Plainfield

Verizon workers during training in South Plainfield, N.J.

THE vast parking lot at Verizons training center here has been packed the last few months as hundreds of technicians, salespeople and operators gear up in a nearby squat brown building for Verizons headlong jump into the television business.

Inside, Verizon is running classes in two shifts, soon to be three. In groups of eight, technicians once trained to climb poles and work in manholes are learning to be cable guys who can fiddle with set-top boxes, flat panel screens and remote controls.

About 50 technicians are graduating each week from this video boot camp with skills they hope will arm them in the fight against their archrivals at Comcast and Cablevision, which have moved swiftly into the phone business by signing up tens of thousands of Verizons customers, who have also been lured away with heavily discounted television plans.

To regain ground in this intensifying turf war, Verizon is spending $20 billion nationwide to build a state-of-the-art fiber optic network that can carry not just four phone lines and speedy broadband connections, but also hundreds of television channels per household.

In New Jersey alone, Verizon plans to spend $1.5 billion over three years to reach most of the homes on its turf, more than 90 percent of the municipalities in the state. By selling its own television services, Verizon can create a triple play bundle of products, a powerful marketing tool that can help chip away at cables dominance in the pay television market.

In effect, Verizon is trying to do exactly what cable providers have been doing so well — sell ever-larger bundles of products at a discount to a largely captive audience. For years, consumers who wanted more than the few channels of over-the-air television have had to go to their local cable company — which often had an exclusive franchise — or to a satellite provider, which has had trouble selling in cities where lines of sight to the sky are harder to come by.

So far, Verizon has been going town to town in New York trying to win new franchises from local officials, but the process has been slow. To date, only two dozen municipalities in the New York area, including Massapequa Park and Hempstead on Long Island, Dobbs Ferry and Irvington in Westchester County, and Nyack and Clarkstown in Rockland County, have signed off on Verizon selling television.

In New Jersey, Verizon was negotiating with 92 municipalities and making little headway. Then, in August, lawmakers in Trenton joined those in Texas, California and several other states who have passed laws creating a consolidated application process.

To make the most of the law, Verizon has applied to sell video services in 316 of the 526 communities it serves in the state. If all goes as planned, New Jerseys Board of Public Utilities will approve the request by Dec. 18, freeing Verizon technicians to start selling television to some of the 2.1 million households in those 316 communities.

People are eager for it because they want a choice and they dont want to be stuck with one company, said Thomas Donohue, a Verizon technician from Passaic who was recently trained in South Plainfield.

Competition in New York may further heat up if legislators in Albany pass their own statewide franchise law. Assemblyman Richard L. Brodsky of Westchester County has proposed legislation that, he says, is also designed to guarantee that consumers, particularly those not served by Verizons fiber network, continue to get decent phone service.

A statewide franchise only makes sense if it enhances the affordability and availability to average people, Mr. Brodsky said. Im not interested in refereeing a wrestling match between two behemoths.

Verizon said it is reviewing Mr. Brodskys proposal, which is still in committee.

In Connecticut, the Public Utility Commission decided that the Internet-based television service being developed by AT&T, the main phone company in the state, is not a cable service and therefore does not need a cable franchise.

AT&T plans to spend $336 million to build its fiber network, though it has not said when it would begin selling television.

LAWMAKERS in Washington have been debating a bill that would establish a nationwide filing process, but rather than wait for its passage, state legislators have moved ahead on their own.

Tag Cloud

External Information

Additional Information

Where Am I?