Verizon and Cablevision Fight for “Best Network” Distinction

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Verizon and Cablevision Fight for “Best Network” Distinction

5:30 am on March 26, 2007 | Category: Business, Telecom Services, Internet, Television

New York triple-play telecom providers, Verizon Communications Inc. and Cablevision Systems Corp. are turning their race for market share into a war of words, with both companies publicly claiming to have the “best” fiber optic communications network.

The telecom incumbent and cable provider are competing head-to-head in the massive New York metropolitan market for telephone, broadband, and fiber optic television subscribers.

Cablevision’s recent claim that it had the “nation’s most advanced fiber optic network” was described as “hogwash” by Verizon spokesman, Eric Rabe.

Rabe said that Cablevision’s assertional, which appeared in a recent television advertisement was “unfair and unsubstantiated,” but added that the company has decided against legal action for the time being.

Cablevision’s digital phone service has become one of the most popular cable VoIP offerings in the country, expropriating 1.2 million of Verizon’s landline telephone customers in New York state. Verizon is doing its best to fight back, however, with FiOS, a fiber optic television service that is slowly but steadily taking video subscriber away from Cablevision and other U.S. cable incumbents.