O.C. wants to know: When is FiOS coming to my city?
December 5th, 2008, 5:06 pm · 6 Comments · posted by Tamara Chuang, a.k.a. The Gadgetress
Orange County residents were some of the first to get Verizon’s fast FiOS Internet and TV service that is on par with cable companies. But still, I hear, “When is FiOS coming to my city?”
Time for an update. I asked Verizon FiOS for detailed launch by city. Of course, they didn’t give that to me. Too many unknowns (city permits, construction schedules), they said, not to mention that they dont’ want their competition to know.
But here’s what they could tell me:
Right now, FiOS is available in parts of Huntington Beach, Garden Grove, Westminister, Stanton, Fountain Valley and some unincorporated areas. In the next month, the first Seal Beach residents will be able to order FiOS.
Earlier this year, Verizon announced a long list of cities that it was given the go-ahead to launch FiOS. In Orange County, those cities include Brea, Dana Point, La Habra, Laguna Beach and Laguna Niguel. A complete list of Southern California cities is available HERE.
Verizon has the state’s approval to serve those cities with video. But as of Dec. 5, 2008, none of those cities can get FiOS yet, said Jon Davies, a FiOS spokesman.
“We haven’t built the network in all these areas and it’s too soon to say when we will get to cities like Dana Point, Laguna Beach and Laguna Niguel,” he said.
Verizon continues to focus first on cities that are in its telephone territory. Plus, another group is targeting apartments and condos that just need to give Verizon permission to lay down fiber optic cables (Read my earlier report, “Verizon FiOS TV heavily targeting apartments, condos in O.C.”
But even in the cities where FiOS is available, many readers still can’t get it. Davies said he could not offer consumers any insight on when it would be available. I asked what percent of households within those cities could order FiOS. Again, he said, this is another question that is difficult to answer because of competitive purposes.
“We’re not giving out specific sales penetration figures by region but in areas where we’ve been offering FiOS for a while (and, as you know, OC was the first in California) the local numbers reflect the national penetration rates,” he said.
So, not quite what I asked for, but Davies offered this statistic: In the U.S., 24.2 percent of households that can order FiOS Internet do. The penetration rate for FiOS TV is 19.7 percent.
For customers interested in ordering FiOS, you can check if it’s available at your home address on the FiOS checker. But my problem with the checker is that if FiOS is not available, you have no idea when it will be or if your address is even close to getting it.
Davies said the uncertainties of city permitting and construction schedules made it difficult to provide accuate forecast for specific address. And Verizon doesn’t want to tip off the competition.
“Another problem we face is that if we announce our plans too far in advance, the cable companies step up their local marketing efforts in the areas where we’re going to offer FiOS and they try to lock customers into long-term contracts with very aggressive introductory prices,” he said.
“So, we’re looking for a way to give customers as much accurate information as possible without giving too much away to our competitors. It’s a fine line.”
In other words, who knows when FiOS is coming to my city?
I will continue to follow FiOS’ progress and report right here. I have set up an e-mail alert for anyone who’s interested in the latest FiOS news in O.C. Just click this: Subscribe to Verizon FiOS news from Gadgetress.com
Related news:
- Guide to Orange County’s paid-TV services
- FiOS TV coming to Seal Beach
- UPDATED: Verizon FiOS TV heavily targeting apartments, condos in O.C. and more
- Speed up your Verizon FiOS Internet for free; just ask
- FiOS Internet service at a standstill in OC
- Speed up your Verizon FiOS Internet for free; just ask
- Behind the TV services in OC
- Verizon FiOS TV expands in O.C.
- Guide to TV services in OC
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Weak. If they had a plan they could certainly release those dates and they could definitely offer competitive pricing with the cable companies in order lure customers away. Obviously they’ve got nothing going on beyond their current deployment for the cities they are already in. Pretty short-sighted if you ask me and they’re going to lose a lot of customers that are not willing to wait around. I know I’m not going to wait.
too bad hey are not comming to newport beach– needs a good competitive kick in the butt time warner
Recently cancelled Verizon service in Fountain Valley after their neighborhood dsl line degraded so much that the fastest service they could offer me was 768k. I asked about FIOS and they said not in Fountain Valley for “quite some time” because the City of Fountain Valley was asking for a fee for every manhole Verizon had to access to upgrade to FIOS. They had ‘moved on” and would not come back to Fountain Valley until they had finished elsewhere. Now I use Time/Warner cable internet and Vonage.
sorry, it looks like FIOS will just continue to be way too limited to be a viable choice for most OC residents.
c’mon, Orange County is not THAT big… I suppose if I still lived in HB there is a moderate possibility that FIOS might be available. but for people in central OC, it’s “oh too bad, but we’ll still advertise in your area”
not willing to wait a few more years, so I won’t worry about it and stick with my existing choices.
Mike, I actually had a similar experience in the southwest part of Orange with AT&T a while back. I could only get about 620-630k throughput with their standard DSL. I knew they had a switching station only about a mile away, so I couldn’t really understand the problem – especially when I had gotten close to the (promised) 1.5MB originally. I downgraded my account to their cheapest level known as “basic” (I was getting the same speed anyway) and decided to live with it for the time being until I moved to a new address.
why do they spend so much money advertising something nobody can get? if 24%+ of people that can order do, that sounds like a license to print money to me. can’t understand why that wouldn’t be a top priority 150% effort project. also can’t understand why oc wouldn’t be at or near the top of the list of areas where they would focus most of their effort. get it done already. pay the cities what they ask. you’ll get it back with gobs of profit in a year.
It’s too bad that the Verizon press release doesn’t say if the expansion into cities such as where I live in Brea are included.
I have rentals in different cities and in Stanton, that house is served by AT&T/SBC/Pacific Bell, where on the other hand, my rental in Lake Elsinore is in the Verizon/GTE territory and the tenant subscribes to Fios TV (local channels only).
My home in Brea is also in the AT&T territory. A very small section of Brea (north of Central and west of Puente) is actually in the Verizon/GTE territory and is assigned to the La Habra exchange and would have to assume that’s the section of Brea where Fios will be available.
I haven’t seen where Verizon is expanding Fios beyond where they currently provide local exchange (wireline) telephone service. In essence, the local service goes hand in hand with Fios.
Some may recall back in 1999/2000 where GTE/Verizon got in hot water with the CPUC for “dumping” it’s then residential customers back on to Pacific Bell after they decided it was not economically feasible to provide local telephone service by leasing lines from Pacific Bell.
I know in a few select areas in the Dallas Metroplex, Verizon has laid it’s fiber in areas served by AT&T/SBC/Southwestern Bell. It’s approximately 10 cities that border current Verizon exchange areas.
Without Verizon telling us so, I don’t believe we will see Fios expanded beyond their telephone exchange service areas. Veriozn has not filed any tariffs with the CPUC to offer service in their non-exchange areas such as the rest of Brea.
I would think Verizon has bigger fish to fry like getting Fios installed in the Pacific Palisades and Malibu. I have a unit in the Palisades, and those tenants can’t get DSL speeds higher than 1.5mb down because they are too far away from the central office.
Just an FYI, when you subscribe to Verizon’s Fios TV service, you have to rent a box for each outlet where you like to watch tv, even if it’s just local channels. The good thing it’s all digital now, but the bad thing is unlike Time Warner, I would need a box for every tv just to watch local channels.