Fios

IFIND IT LAUGHABLE that on a day when lobbyists for Comcast were deluging City Council with pleas to delay Verizon's bid to bring FiOS service to Philly, my cable TV (and Internet) service was down for nearly 13 hours due to yet another Comcast service interruption in my neighborhood, roughly the 40th time this year such an interruption has occurred, usually when a cloud appears in the sky, or when the wind blows. I urge City Council to do the right thing and approve Verizon's efforts to bring competition to the city.

RE THE DEBATE about FiOS coming to Philly: I don't understand why Verizon needs the city's permission in the first place to run a fiber-optic cable into my house and provide a service. I could see if the product or service had a safety issue, like alcohol or cigarettes, but why does a business need the city's permission to run their business the way they want to? If Acme comes to town, do they need the city's permission because the city wants to protect Genuardi's or because we already have Genuardi's here?

Years after Verizon Communications Inc. wired the suburbs of Boston, Buffalo, and Baltimore with superfast Internet, more than one million residents in the poorer urban neighborhoods of those metro areas are still waiting for FiOS. Ditto, according to a union representing Verizon workers, for Syracuse, Albany, Erie, Scranton, and other Northeast cities. No FiOS. City officials didn't think that would last. They believed — hoped — that Verizon would get around to them to compete head to head with the cable companies.

"We were happy as can be to have an iconic brand in the portfolio of stable brands within the company. That was real evidence to our shareholders and people who followed us that we were very serious about our five-year plan. " - Flowers Foods Inc. chief executive George E. Deese, on his company's acquisition last year of Philadelphia Krimpet-maker Tasty Baking Co.   "Now I guess I can smile.... Maybe I can take a day off. " - New York Mets chief executive Fred Wilpon, after Mets owners agreed to pay up to $162 million (and likely much less)

RE TOM SPEYER'S letter: "Please, Council, approve FIOS. " Tom is not alone in the struggle with Comcast. Comcast holds the residents of this city over the coals and pretty much does and charges as it wants because there is no competition. Competition is healthy and I bet Comcast will feel the loss if Verizon is allowed to bring FIOS to Philadelphia. Dish service is not comparable to cable. Maybe the Daily News can start a campaign to get the residents to write members of City Council on this issue.

As thousands of striking Verizon workers rallied and picketed from Massachusetts to Virginia, dozens this morning took to the sidewalks outside the company's offices at Ninth and Race Streets in Philadelphia this morning. Verizon Communications Inc. workers first took to the picket lines on Sunday, after unions representing 45,000 technicians, customer-service consultants and operators failed to reach an agreement with management on a new contract. Heath care costs and pensions were among the key issues.

In November, when Mayor-elect Michael Nutter called for Philadelphia's "best and brightest" to serve his administration, I was galvanized to take action. As a Class of 2007 Penn alum who has worked for many political campaigns (including Nutter's primary campaign), I saw myself as one of the people the new mayor would want to join his team. Many of my friends felt the same, and we submitted applications and resum?s to the administration. Months later, I have heard nothing back.

Telecom giant Verizon Communications Inc. hoped to sprint to a new pay-TV franchise agreement in Philadelphia this year and bring the cable battle to Comcast Corp.'s doorstep. But Verizon is facing headwinds from the cable king - which says the city's proposed 15-year deal with Verizon should be the same as the deal with Comcast - and from the realities of Philly politics. In its initial plan to install a high-speed FiOS pay-TV network in Philadelphia, Verizon said it would not wire the suburbanesque Far Northeast and the Northeast for years.

Amid reports of vandalism and tentative talks between labor and management, striking Verizon workers formed a river of red in their union T-shirts at a rally in Chinatown on Monday morning. About 600 workers thronged outside a Verizon operations facility at Ninth and Race Streets, temporarily blocking traffic, as they listened to speeches, shouted slogans, and heard updates from their leaders. They were among 45,000 Verizon Communications Inc. employees who went on strike early Sunday morning after management and labor failed to reach agreement on a contract.

Comcast Corp. chairman and chief executive officer Brian L. Roberts said yesterday that the company will experience double-digit cash-flow growth for the next three years - a result of getting customers to sign up for more services. "We're going to have the whole company focused on running one bundled business," Roberts told investors at a Citigroup Inc. telecommunications conference in Phoenix. Two years ago, 40 percent of Comcast's customers bought a service in addition to basic cable.

Television distributors are being financially compensated for missed NHL games in this season shortened by labor problems, but hockey fans and other pay-TV subscribers won't see any of it. Neither the NHL nor TV distributors disclosed the financials in what the parties are describing as rebates, citing confidentiality agreements. A Comcast Corp. executive disclosed the existence of the rebates in a conference call with Wall Street analysts last week. Comcast and Verizon Communications Inc., which operates the FiOS service, will follow industry practice and not pass those rebates on to subscribers, say officials with both companies.

With sports-channel costs soaring, Verizon Communication Inc.'s FiOS TV service says it will surcharge almost five million customers $2.42 a month for regional sports networks and this week launched its first non-sports cable-TV package. FiOS Select HD costs $49.99 a month versus $64.99 for a FiOS package with ESPN and other sports channels. DirecTV, the nation's second-largest pay-TV operator after Comcast Corp., also is implementing sports-related surcharges. The actions come amid a national debate over sports entertainment, which is now estimated to account for half the programming costs in the typical cable- and satellite-TV bill.

Verizon Communications Inc. is boosting Internet speeds in its FiOS service tiers and will double the fastest download speed to 300 megabits a second. The fastest upload jumps to 65 megabits a second from 35 megabits. Bandwidth-hogging video and the proliferation of home devices is driving Internet consumption, the company said. The faster speeds — which take effect in June — allow the FiOS network to move data more quickly. The average home now has seven Internet-connected devices using a wired or WiFi Internet connection and by 2015 the average home is projected to have between nine and 15 Internet-connected devices.

Years after Verizon Communications Inc. wired the suburbs of Boston, Buffalo, and Baltimore with superfast Internet, more than one million residents in the poorer urban neighborhoods of those metro areas are still waiting for FiOS. Ditto, according to a union representing Verizon workers, for Syracuse, Albany, Erie, Scranton, and other Northeast cities. No FiOS. City officials didn't think that would last. They believed — hoped — that Verizon would get around to them to compete head to head with the cable companies.

City Councilman Bobby Henon plans to haul allegedly negligent landlords into City Hall to answer for why they've let properties deteriorate, going so far as to single out eight people during Council's session Thursday. Should they refuse to agree to testify before Council, Henon said he would subpoena them as part of a resolution he introduced in March to compel witnesses to come forward and provide documents. "We need to start thinking about how and why our buildings fall into disarray, about why they become abandoned in the first place, about the way that we respond when the first call comes in from a resident about short-dumping, about a broken window, about trash on a lawn and any other property maintenance issue," Henon said Thursday.

Verizon Communications Inc. customers in Southeastern Pennsylvania and northern Delaware lost FiOS Internet service for four to five hours early Tuesday morning because software problems, a company spokesman said. The problem was fixed by about 9:30 a.m. FiOS TV and phone service were not interrupted, spokesman Lee Gierczynski said. - Bob Fernandez

"We were happy as can be to have an iconic brand in the portfolio of stable brands within the company. That was real evidence to our shareholders and people who followed us that we were very serious about our five-year plan. " - Flowers Foods Inc. chief executive George E. Deese, on his company's acquisition last year of Philadelphia Krimpet-maker Tasty Baking Co.   "Now I guess I can smile.... Maybe I can take a day off. " - New York Mets chief executive Fred Wilpon, after Mets owners agreed to pay up to $162 million (and likely much less)

NEW YORK - Striking Verizon landline workers say they laid the foundation for the company's booming wireless business and shouldn't be expected to give up contract benefits just because they work on a less profitable side of the business. But management says the company has to change to stay competitive and the 45,000 landline workers can't expect to be paid the way they were when the phone company was a monopoly. "It's no secret that the wireline business has experienced a 10-year decline in our customer base and in profitability," said CEO Lowell McAdam.

Amid reports of vandalism and tentative talks between labor and management, striking Verizon workers formed a river of red in their union T-shirts at a rally in Chinatown on Monday morning. About 600 workers thronged outside a Verizon operations facility at Ninth and Race Streets, temporarily blocking traffic, as they listened to speeches, shouted slogans, and heard updates from their leaders. They were among 45,000 Verizon Communications Inc. employees who went on strike early Sunday morning after management and labor failed to reach agreement on a contract.