Fios

Verizon Communications Inc. has launched FiOS TV and Internet in three neighborhoods in the city - Chestnut Hill, South Philadelphia and North Philadelphia, near Girard College. Elizabeth "Jane" Kilduff, in Chestnut Hill, is one of the company's first new customers. She signed up for Verizon's "triple play" at a promotional price of $79 a month for six months and $109 for the next 18 months. She estimates she will save $4,000 in the two years when compared with her previous service with Comcast for cable TV and Verizon for phone and Internet service.

Verizon won an important City Council committee vote yesterday - with full Council approval likely - in its bid to compete with Comcast for customers in Philadelphia. Full approval, which could come in two weeks, means that most Philadelphians will eventually have an option besides Comcast, the cable giant with about 1.8 million subscribers in the city, the Pennsylvania suburbs, South Jersey, and northern Delaware. The Committee on Public Property and Public Works yesterday recommended approval of a 15-year franchise agreement that would allow Verizon to build a citywide $1 billion fiber-optic network within seven years.

Comcast Corp., in a sweeping move that aligns it with what one analyst called "its mortal enemy," joined two other cable companies to sell wireless spectrum to Verizon Wireless for $3.6 billion. The deal announced Friday includes an agreement by the parties to cross-sell bundles of wireless, phone, cable-TV and Internet products. Comcast, in turn, will gain access to Verizon's national wireless network. Verizon Wireless, which has 91 million wireless customers, will use the additional spectrum to boost capacity of its network for phones and tablets.

Just in time for the Australian Open, Verizon's FiOS TV service says it reached an agreement with the Tennis Channel. The 24-hour channel had been blacked out since early September while Verizon and Tennis Channel negotiated terms. The Tennis Channel is available to FiOS TV customers who subscribe to the the Ultimate HD and premiums sports packages.    - Bob Fernandez  

IS IT MY imagination or is every other commercial on TV (or radio or in newsprint) sponsored by one of the dueling monopolies, FiOS or Comcast? It's hard to believe that they can afford that much advertising. Of course, if you have a near monopoly, you can bleed all the suckers you've already hooked. The Federal Communications Commission goes ballistic over a small breast being exposed for four seconds from 75 yards away. But the agency does nothing about escalating cable/Internet/phone costs.

Verizon Communications Inc. has told Comcast Corp. that its Verizon-bashing "Don't Fall for FiOS" advertisements are false and asked the cable giant to fix them in a "cease and desist" letter. Among other advertising claims, Comcast says that a comparable triple-play bundle of TV, phone and Internet service from Verizon can cost $400 more a year, after promotions expire, than one from Comcast. Verizon would challenge the advertisements' truthfulness through the National Advertising Division of the Councils of Better Business Bureaus if Comcast failed to change them, Verizon vice president Eric Rabe said yesterday.

Sanity, at least as it regards the TV remote control, might be on the way. Comcast Corp. says that, as part of the X1 upgrade to its interface and channel guide, the company redesigned its TV remote and removed 24 buttons - almost half. There are now 29 buttons instead of 53. (FiOS has 47.) X1, being rolled out in individual Comcast markets, among them Philadelphia, Boston, and Atlanta, is the most sweeping change to the Comcast look and functionality since the late 1990s and a seismic shift in how the nation's largest pay-TV operator delivers entertainment.

OVER THE LAST couple of weeks, bailout proposals have been nonstop, from the $700 billion bill passed by Congress for financial institutions and corporations to $25 billion for Citibank and another $25 billion for Detroit. The economy needs all these players to keep this country moving, but at some point the requests have to reach the average person. It's reported that 11 million Americans are out of work. Action is needed immediately, Barack Obama stated while naming his new economic team.

Verizon Communications Inc. said yesterday that it would start offering its new television service late next week in several New Jersey counties, including Camden. The company will identify the first 100 New Jersey cities to get the service in the next few weeks. The City of Camden, however, will not initially be one of the 10 in that county to get the service, which will compete with Comcast cable. Earlier this month, Verizon began offering its fiber optic service - FiOS for short - in Montgomery, Delaware, Bucks and Chester counties.

ONCE AGAIN, Comcast is trying to milk us for more money. This time, it's $8 for the NFL Network that other outlets offer free. This is the same company with a commercial about the big bad expensive phone company. I'm shocked at Brian Roberts' audacity. How much more money does he honestly think he can wring out of us? I'm ready to throw a parade the day I can get Verizon FIOS in my neighborhood. Keith E. Callan, Philadelphia