"The area above Cottman Avenue is not getting any service for six or seven years. I can see that the company was concerned about being criticized for cherry-picking. But it's another matter of wiping out the area that you could be accused of cherry-picking," Councilman Brian O'Neill, whose Far Northeast district has higher-income households and more predominantly white neighborhoods than other parts of the city, said Wednesday.
Verizon, which has been accused of targeting wealthier suburban towns with FiOS, relented after complaints by O'Neill and Councilwoman Joan L. Krajewski.
On Thursday, Verizon added zip codes in the initial FiOS installation phase in the Northeast districts. The company now says it will wire 45 percent of the city's homes for FiOS in four years and the remaining 55 percent by the seventh year.
But other issues remain on the table - among them jobs at a call center in the city, the participation of minority contractors in the installation, and financial penalties if Verizon fails to live up to its deal.
Verizon did not expect that winning a Philadelphia franchise agreement "would be a walk in the park," company spokesman Eric Rabe said Friday. "City Council is facing an avalanche of lobbying from the local cable company, and the people of Philadelphia are being held hostage," he said. Verizon had said it would like an agreement this year, but now it appears it will not get one until late January, at the earliest.
Councilman Darrell Clarke, chairman of the committee reviewing the proposed Verizon franchise, said Friday that Comcast had asked questions about the agreement but that he did not believe the company had slowed the process.
The Nutter administration gave Council the proposed agreement about a month ago after negotiating it over several months. Clarke said he believed Council had improved the proposal.
