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Verizon Beats Market Expectations with FiOS Television Service

6:55 am on October 19, 2007 | Category: Business, Internet, Telecom Services, Television

Verizon CEO, Ivan Seidenberg’s aggressive play for the fiber-optic video market is beginning to pay off this year, with approximately 2,000 new pay-TV customers joining the FiOS service each and every day.

The service has progressed a lot from two years ago, when Seidenberg’s plan was met with scorn by analysts and investors, who doubted that Verizon would see a positive return on the tens of billions of dollars it would take to built a fiber-optic broadband and video network. A slow but steady built out of the necessary infrastructure has been greeted with enthusiasm by consumers, however, and even America’s top cable company, Comcast, admits that it is feeling the pinch.

“The telecom companies have had their fits and starts, but Verizon is real. Verizon is taking video customers from us,” acknowledged Comcast‘s Chief Operating Officer, Stephen Burke, at a recent conference in New York.

As of the end of June, Verizon’s network already passed 3.9 million households, serving more than one million high-speed internet subscribers, and close to half a million pay-TV users.

“We have a really great platform that is seeing tremendous acceptance in the marketplace,” Seidenberg commented. “Every one of our metrics is improving quarter over quarter.”

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