Archive for the 'FiOS' Tag
November 4th, 2009, 11:07 am by Tamara Chuang, a.k.a. The Gadgetress
 Many people here in Orange County want Verizon FiOS TV and Internet service badly but can’t order the service in their neighborhood. However, if you happen to be building the first “green” house in Huntington Beach, consider Verizon at your service.
The new Living Green home, which is being unveiled today in Huntington Beach, managed to get the highly sought-after TV and fast Internet service.
Our Huntington Beach housing reporter (yes, we have a reporter who covers real estate just in HB!) wrote all about the home Tuesday at “Grand opening for 1st Surf City green home.”
Built by Living Green Homes Construction & Development, the 3-story home at 319 21st St. has a few other notable perks. It was built on guidelines from Build it Green, uses 40 percent less water and 65 percent less energy and saves the owner $700 a month (What? That’s one huge monthly bill!) Plus, it’s just a few blocks from the beach. The kick-off party is today at 1:30 p.m. The home will be open for public tours before it’s sold.
But any techie in their right mind will gloss over these greenish facts and hone in on the 100 percent fiber-optic FiOS service. FiOS is an alternative to cable TVand offers Internet speeds of up to 50 mbps downstream, 20 Mbps upstream, plus it has the most high-definition channels available in O.C. In addition, FiOS service includes on-screen widgets to check your Twitter messages and Facebook status and other geeky things like that.
The “green-ness” of FiOS? It “increases a homeowner’s ability to reduce their carbon footprint through telecommuting, video-conferencing and on-demand entertainment,” says the company.
Good enough for me!
Of course, I should note that this near downtown Huntington Beach neighborhood was one of the first to even get Verizon FiOS services. Verizon didn’t have to go much out of its way to offer it.
You’ll have to check out the Register’s Green OC blog to get full coverage of Orange County’s green building scene. Added 12:50 p.m. - Here’s the story: “State’s green building program easier than national system.”
Recent Green OC news:
Posted in: Video & TV • FiOS • Green • Green OC • huntington beach • real estate • Verizon FiOS | 10 Comments »
November 2nd, 2009, 8:26 am by Tamara Chuang, a.k.a. The Gadgetress
 For anyone hoping to order Verizon FiOS TV service, the company reported some disappointing news last week: Fewer customers are signing up for service.
FiOS service does tend to be more expensive than cable, but you do get more HD channels, faster Internet and nifty TV widgets.
But the most discouraging aspect for all who hope FiOS succeeds is that Verizon spent the quarter targeting homes already in FiOS territory. In Orange County and other parts of Southern California, the company slowed down on expanding in new neighborhoods. Rather, it focused on signing up more customers in existing FiOS locations.
One theory: People who want it, sign up immediately. Everyone else? You’ve got to have more enticing offers (read: cheaper than cable with no strings attached).
Still, FiOS continues to grow, just slower than many had hoped. Same is true in Orange County, which wasn’t completely shut out of expansion.
In fact, construction has just wrapped up in Seal Beach and Los Alamitos, Verizon’s Jon Davies confirmed.
The single family houses and apartment buildings were mostly in following areas in Los Alamitos:
- The area bordered by Los Alamitos Blvd on the west, Katella on the north, Farquhar on the south and Lexington on the east.
- The area north and south of Ball and west of Bloomfield.
- The area around Cerritos and Humbolt.
- The area north of Katella between Bloomfield and Florista.
WHERE IS FIOS IN ORANGE COUNTY?
| View Verizon FiOS in Orange County in a larger map. If you have a place to add, you can do so in the comment area of this Google Map. You’ll need to log into Google. Or feel free to leave a comment below with specifics so I can verify and at some point in my life, I’ll update it on the map. |
In addition, Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in: Video & TV • FiOS • huntington beach • Los Alamitos • Seal Beach • Verizon FiOS • Westminster | 12 Comments »
October 26th, 2009, 12:40 pm by Tamara Chuang, a.k.a. The Gadgetress
Update: Added several East Coast states that got FiOS in recent months. See addendum below.
—————————-
Verizon’s FiOS TV service continues to grow, but not quite as fast as it used to.
From July to September, 191,000 people signed up to get TV service from Verizon FiOS, bringing the number of subscribers to the cable TV alternative to 2.7 million nationwide, according to the company’s third-quarter financial report this morning.
But 191,000 is about a 33 percent decline from the most recent quarter. Even compared to Verizon’s year-ago quarter, the number is lower. The last time Verizon’s net new customers didn’t break the 200,000 mark was in the second quarter of 2008. Is Verizon’s FiOS TV service losing steam?
The growth rate decline was a big letdown. Sanford Bernstein, and analyst with Craig Moffett, called the drop in FiOS growth rates a “clear disappointment,” according to the Associated Press report. Wall Street had expected growth of 253,000 net new customers.
By comparison, AT&T said last week that its U-verse TV service added 240,000 customers during the quarter. Both U-verse and FiOS are offering TV services to compete with local cable companies.
Here’s a comparison chart of the growth of FiOS TV:
| Verizon FiOS TV |
3Q07 |
4Q07 |
1Q08 |
2Q08 |
3Q08 |
Q408 |
| New |
202,000 |
226,000 |
263,000 |
176,000 |
233,000 |
303,000 |
| Total (in millions) |
0.7 |
1 |
1.2 |
1.4 |
1.6 |
1.9 |
2009:
| 1Q09 |
2Q09 |
3Q09 |
| 299,000 |
300,000 |
191,000 |
| 2.2 |
2.5 |
2.7 |
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in: Internet • Video & TV • earnings • FiOS • FiOS TV • subscribers • Verizon earnings • Verizon FiOS | 6 Comments »
October 21st, 2009, 1:00 pm by Tamara Chuang, a.k.a. The Gadgetress
Spotted on Verizon’s site: In celebrating its 5-year birthday announcement of its young FiOS fiber-optic-based services, Verizon says it plans to offer FiOS customers the ability to add security, heating and air conditioning and various consumer electronics to their FiOS networks.
It’s just a small mention inside the press release, where the company pats itself on the back for managing to offer 15 million homes FiOS TV and Internet services. But it does say this feature will come in “coming months.” Here’s the blurb:
Verizon will further enrich FiOS over the coming months so that it becomes a control hub for much more than home information and entertainment. Verizon will leverage the dynamic home network built for every FiOS customer, adding such household systems as security, heating and air conditioning and various consumer electronics.
It’s not too difficult to add these services to an existing home network. Some companies, like Irvine-based Smarthome, have been doing it for years. Such services allow people to turn on the heater from their cell phone or get an e-mail alert when their security camera spots something fishy outside the front door. Other networking companies like Fountain Valley’s D-Link Systems offer inexpensive network security cameras for the do-it-yourselfer.
But building the super home network is not as simple as turning on a switch. Perhaps Verizon has figured out a way for anyone to integrate home security and utilities to the home network? As noted from the press release, details are coming.
In the same press release, Verizon also updates us on how far its fiber-optic TV and Internet services have come. The service, which launched in 2007 in Orange County, will be available to 15 million homes and businesses by the end of the year. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in: Video & TV • electronics • FiOS • heating • home network • Security • Verizon FiOS | Post a Comment »
October 8th, 2009, 4:20 pm by Tamara Chuang, a.k.a. The Gadgetress
Spotted on MultiChannel News: Verizon FiOS is raising the price for TV customers. Not all though. Just those who subscribed to the FiOS TV Premier package.
I double checked with Verizon and a spokesman confirmed that indeed, prices are going up $10 per month for Premier customers not in a contract. Those in a contract won’t see an increase. The new price is $57.99.
This is because the Premier plan no longer exists. It was phased out last year, replaced by FiOS Essentials and FiOS Extreme HD. The new plans are $47.99 and $57.99 respectively.
Customers can either pay the extra $10 a month or upgrade to the newer plans, which include a few more features like access to all new channels and the 5,000 new video-on-demand shows added this year. Most of the shows are free, said spokesman Jon Davies.
Premier customers don’t get access to all the HD channels.
Pretty much all the TV providers in Orange County have raise prices this year. Here are links to those stories from early 2009:
Recent stories about TV, mobile prices:
Posted in: Video & TV • FiOS • FiOS prices • prices • Verizon FiOS | 10 Comments »
October 7th, 2009, 12:28 pm by Tamara Chuang, a.k.a. The Gadgetress
If you’re a Verizon Internet customer and have kids, or like to play games yourself, set an alert for Friday, Oct. 9, when Verizon offers free access to 1,500 games on demand. After the free weekend, ending Monday, Oct. 12, the price goes back to $4.99 to $14.99 per month.
That’s four full days of free games.
The offer is for Verizon’s FiOS Internet and DSL customers. Go to verizon.net/freegames to access the games.
This is a mostly casual collection of games, which include Boggle, The Secret of Margrave Manor 2, SpongeBob Teaches Typing, Zoo Tycoon, Bejeweled Twist. You can scan the list of games available on Verizon’s main game page at gamesondemand.verizon.net.
The catch? You can play the games on a computer as much as you want all weekend but after that, you’ll be locked out. If you do decide to pay for the service, you’ll get two weeks free. Or just head to other Web sites that offer free casual games all the time, like AddictingGames.com or EA’s pogo.com.
Like deals? Check out the OC Register’s Deals blog.
Posted in: Internet • deals • FiOS • Free stuff • GAMING • Internet • Verizon FiOS | Post a Comment »
October 7th, 2009, 6:00 am by Tamara Chuang, a.k.a. The Gadgetress
 In a report out this morning, traditional TV service providers continued to get pounded by consumers. Ratings company J.D. Power and Associates ranked cable companies the lowest out of all available TV services in the company’s 2009 TV Service Satisfaction report.
Here in the West, Time Warner Cable and Cox Communications scored the lowest out of the six TV services available in Orange County. Newer TV alternatives AT&T U-verse and Verizon FiOS took the lead, with satellite TV services DirecTV and Dish Networks tied for third place.
The annual report said overall scores improved from 2008, indicating that TV providers really are paying attention to their customers, said Frank Perazzini, director of telecommunications at J.D. Power.
Consumers said they didn’t have to wait on hold for as long as last year — falling 13 percent to 9 minutes, 5 seconds. Customers also experienced fewer outages — 11 percent this year, compared to 15 percent last year.
Overall scores were at 632 on a 1,000-point scale, up 23 points from last year. This year’s study was based on 28,118 U.S. households who were surveyed in January, March and July 2009.
Still, 632 out of 1,000 doesn’t sound too hot. Here’s where the local companies landed:
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in: Video & TV • AT&T U-Verse • Cox • Cox Cable • customer service • DirecTV • DISH • DISH Network • FiOS • JD Power • JD Powers • Time Warner Cable • TV service • U-Verse • Verizon FiOS | 44 Comments »
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Tamara 'the Gadgetress' Chuang
Here's a list of TV/mobile companies helping consumers one tweet at a time. 
