Verizon is preparing to launch cloud-based media streaming for all its FiOS subscribers. The service will allow you to store your music, photos and videos on their servers and play them back on your phone, laptop or other mobile device. More »
Verizon is planning to stream live FiOS TV to mobile devices, with a particular focus on the iPad, the company announced today. The move is part of Verizon’s ambition for mobile devices capable of equalling (and surpassing) your current TV. More »
Verizon has announced that it reached almost 1 gigabit download speeds during a recent FiOS trial. A subscriber was able to attain throughput of 925Mbps with currently deployed equipment – barely shy of a gigabit, but still really fast. More »
Fiber optics. It sounds fast (it is). But it also sounds expensive (it is). So expensive, it turns out, that Verizon has announced that it’s winding down expansion of its FiOS network. It will keep plugging away in markets that it has already announced—Philly, New York City, and D.C., chiefly—but it won’t be looking at expanding FiOS to any more major cities. The AP report gives a sense of how expensive the endeavor was for Verizon: More »
The WSJ delves into the trials and tribulations of trying to build a gigabit fibre network out to even the 50,000 homes at the low ends of Google’s goals for their trial network. It could cost up to $US1 billion, and Google’s already mentioning to people it’s asking for help, like Case Western Reserve University’s Lev Gonick, whose building gigabit fibre to 104 homes, that “we have a lot to learn”. Oh boy, sign me up. (Actually, do sign me up.) [WSJ]
With Comcast upping its speeds to 50Mbps in a few markets, Verizon’s gotta roll out a big, round number to compete, so they’ve announced, and then hedged, the upcoming rollout of 100Mbps FiOS service, starting hopefully in 2009.
While AT&T U-Verse lags far, far behind Verizon FIOS in the insane bandwidth race, the boost to 18Mbps downstream for the top tier U-Verse package that starts Nov. 9 nearly doubles the relatively pokey 10Mbps they offered. To put it in perspective though, Verizon has an upstream package that still goes faster than that. And they don’t have those pesky caps looming, either.
In an attempt to one-up Verizon’s FiOS, AT&T has finally rolled out a new software update for its U-verse service that’ll let subscribers watch recorded shows on up to eight different TV sets. FiOS only offers multiroom DVR for seven different televisions currently. The feature is already available in San Francisco an nearby subscriber cities, but ought to be rolled out to the rest of the Bay Area this week. While I’m sure this is a welcome change for anyone who’s been using U-Verse, I doubt being able to DVR on one extra set will help AT&T gain the ground it so desperately craves. [Wall Street Journal]
Verizon’s New Jersey headquarters is a complicated place. Part bunker, part weirdly Buddhist sanctuary, it housed the original AT&T before the government cut it up into little pieces, half of which became Verizon, and half of which have congealed back together, T-1000 style, into Verizon’s biggest competitor. I’m told when Verizon moved in, the exorcism cost millions. That’s partly the reason they brought me out: To exorcise the notion that AT&T is winning the race to change the way you watch television. Verizon showed me a new version of FiOS TV that will start rolling out to customers any day now, and hitting everyone by end of the year, with a feature set rivals that AT&T’s U-Verse, including interactive content, PC connectivity, RSS feeds, even the ability to see what your neighbours are watching in realtime. galleryPost('vzfiosnew', 3, '');
If you still rock the bunny ears we salute you. But odds are, you probably get TV one of two ways: Cable or satellite. There’s a newer way: IP, that is Internet Protocol, TV–in this case, the TV delivered over the internet by your phone company. Verizon and AT&T push FiOS TV and U-Verse, respectively, in select regions of the country where their fibre networks have been built out. In a lot of ways, it’s the TV of the future–in part because most of you can’t get it yet. Beyond that, the technology that delivers it to your home, as well as who is doing the delivering, opens up some pretty sweet new interactive possibilities. And even for regular old boob tubing, the way it’s architected means its good for HD buffs. AU: This is very US-centric, but it’s still an interesting read for anybody interested in what the future might hold…
