Verizon FiOS, the fiber-optic television service with about four million subscribers, will continue to operate, Verizon said.
In addition to Cablevision, which makes Disney Channel on Demand available to its digital cable service's 2.5 million subscribers, most of them in the New York City area, Verizon has been offering the "High School Musical 2" premiere as an on-demand option in the 550,000 homes nationally with access to its fiber-optic television network.
At present, 15,000 customers subscribe to at least one fiber optic service — television, Internet access or phone service.
Both companies are racing to offer fiber optic-based television services to win back customers from cable companies that sell Internet-based phone services.
[New York Post] The city's Franchise and Concession Review Commission unanimously voted to allow Verizon to provide fiber-optic cable-television service around New York City — breaking a monopoly held by Time Warner Cable and Cablevision — though it will take until 2014 to make the service available to all households.
Verizon is spending $23 billion on a fiber-optic network for television and faster Internet service.
For Bell, having control of media properties will reduce content costs for its mobile services, its satellite TV system and a new fiber optic-based cable television service that is being introduced initially in Quebec, Mr. Cope said.
This merger is about buying the lines that connect to the homes of BellSouth customers and selling them everything you can squeeze down a fiber-optic line, including television, Internet, movies and music.
In rural Grant County, Wash., about 1,000 homes are using the high-speed fiber optic cable that provides television service as a pipe to transmit data on utility usage.
