Verizon Begins Offering FiOS TV Service In Its Largest Texas Market Of Plano
Plano, TX - Deep in the heart of North Texas, a video service shootout begins between Verizon, Comcast and satellite providers, with the winner gaining critical consumer market share in this city of more than 250,000.
Effective immediately, about one-third of the 65,000 Verizon-served households in Plano can order the company's FiOS TV service, which offers a broad collection of all-digital programming with more than 350 total channels and more on the way.
The initial offer will be available to all Verizon local telephone customers who live east of Central Expressway, plus several thousand households situated west of Central Expressway and bordered by Spring Creek Parkway to the north, parts of Custer Road to the west and Plano Parkway to the south. (See map at verizon.com/newscenter.) Thousands more Plano residents, plus households in neighboring cities served by Verizon equipment in Plano, will be able to order FiOS TV this summer. Additional expansion will take place throughout Plano during the second half of the year.
The launch of FiOS TV in Plano follows the passage just six months ago of a state-issued video franchise that expedited by about one year the time frame in which Verizon can offer residents of Plano and other local cities a competitive alternative to existing cable and satellite services.
"This is liberation day for Verizon customers in Plano. No longer will they have such a limited choice for their video services," said Verizon Southwest Region President Steve Banta. "Sales of FiOS Internet Service and FiOS TV continue to grow at a record pace, which reveals how important broadband has become in today's society. The value and features of our FiOS voice, data and video services fit hand in glove with a family-oriented community like Plano where people, young and old alike, will enjoy our service." Verizon FiOS TV Now Available in 17 Texas Cities
Plano joins 16 other Dallas-Fort Worth suburbs as the first cities in Texas to receive the company's new fiber-optic television service, which is delivered over the nation's only all-digital, fiber network being made available, on a mass scale, to millions of individual homes and businesses in multiple states. The other Texas communities are: Carrollton, Colleyville, Coppell, Flower Mound, north Fort Worth, Grapevine, Highland Village, Irving, Keller, Lewisville, Murphy, Rowlett, Sachse, Southlake, Westlake and Wylie.
By the end of the year, as Verizon continues building out its fiber-optic network that now spans 20 million feet in North Texas, FiOS TV will be available to nearly 400,000 North Texas households, or 33 percent of Verizon's landline customers in Texas, with over 1 million potential viewers. In Plano alone, Verizon crews have placed 5 million feet of fiber since December 2004.
Verizon will continue its rollout of FiOS TV in the rest of the company's previously announced FiOS markets in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and expand the video service to more cities later this year.
SOURCE: Verizon