verizon

LAS VEGAS--Verizon Communications is looking toward big cities as the next big opportunity for its Fios broadband and TV service.

The company said Wednesday that it expects to get approval from the New York Public Service Commission to offer its Fios video service in New York City as early as next month.

"Our plan is to cover all of the 3.1 million households in all five boroughs in the next five to six years," Verizon's COO Denny Strigl said during a keynote speech at the NxtComm trade show here. "We will start this year as … Read more

LAS VEGAS--Verizon Communications is boosting speeds for its Fios fiber-to-the-home service, the company plans to announce Wednesday.

The company's COO Denny Strigl is expected to announce the speed upgrades during his keynote speech at the NxtComm trade show here. The upgrades come as Verizon customers use more bandwidth intensive applications such as video downloading and photo sharing.

"The appetite for bandwidth shows no sign of slowing down," Strigl said in a statement. "Neither will we. We've already had successful trials of the 100-megabit home, which will be a reality faster than anybody thinks."

As … Read more

Correction: This story misstated a quote from Tom Tauke, executive vice president of public affairs and policy for Verizon. Tauke said that it was in the best interest for the FCC to make a decision on the Comcast/BitTorrent case. He did not say that it was in the best interest for the FCC to make a decision against Comcast.

LAS VEGAS--Executives from AT&T and Verizon Communications said Tuesday that it's important for the Federal Communications Commission to take action in the Comcast debate over slowing down certain forms of peer-to-peer traffic in order to prove that … Read more

LAS VEGAS--Executives from AT&T and Verizon Communications defended early termination fees for wireless customers Tuesday, but said they wouldn't oppose Federal Communications Commission rules that required these fees to be "reasonable."

Jim Cicconi, AT&T senior executive and vice president for legislative affairs for AT&T, and Tom Tauke, executive vice president of public affairs and policy for Verizon, said following a panel discussion at the NxtComm tradeshow here, that their companies are justified in charging early termination fees for wireless contracts, which often top out at $200.

The battle over early termination … Read more

Skydeck makes a very cool product, but it is destined for smallness.

The product: It's a service the mobile phone carriers can use to make their Web pages actually useful for their customers. Instead of just showing a bunch of marketing pitches and the minutiae of the customer's bill, a Skydeck-powered site shows phone users who they talk to, either in chronological order or by frequency, and in an extremely comprehensible format. For users whose phones have the necessary software enabled (SyncML), it will also let them manage their phone address books.

Add-ons for social-network sites let users … Read more

The LG Decoy, which we mentioned last week, is now officially available from Verizon Wireless. If you'll recall, the Decoy is the first-ever handset with a stowaway built-in Bluetooth headset in the back. It's a slider phone, with a 2-megapixel camera, a microSD card slot, stereo Bluetooth, an MP3 player, EV-DO support, and access to Verizon's V Cast broadband services. The Decoy is priced at $179.99 with a two-year service agreement and a $50 discount.

On today's episode, Molly issues a blanket un-curse to all who have suddenly discovered that Firefox has trouble with Flash. (But really, it's Firefox's fault.) Also, the Associated Press volunteers to tackle the thorny issue of defining fair use for all of us, and yet the blogosphere insists on painting it as some sort of heavy-handed attempt to lock down their own content and dictate rules that they have no legal authority to tackle. How rude.

Verizon blocks access to whole USENET hierarchy http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080616-alt-blocked-verizon-blocks-access-to-whole-usenet-hierarchy.html … Read more

Ditching that old-school landline could pay off.

Verizon Communications says it will offer discounts to landline-free wireless customers who combine Internet or TV service from the company. The discounts will range from $8 to $21 a month, depending on the wireless package.

The Associated Press reports that Verizon will introduce the Flex Double Play bundle starting next week for those who combine a Verizon Wireless plan with broadband or Fios TV, the company's cable TV service.

The discount applies to DSL service with downloads at 3 megabits per second, and to Fios (fiber-optic) broadband at up to 20Mbps, the … Read more

Nokia just launched a pretty decent midrange phone for Verizon, dubbed the Nokia 6205. The 6205 is one of the very few CDMA phones Nokia has launched here in the U.S. It comes with a decent array of features, like a 1.3-megapixel camera, EV-DO, voice dialing, a microSD card slot, video messaging, 58MB internal memory, external music player keys, and more. The 6205 will be available in two flavors; a simple blue version, plus a special black "The Dark Knight" edition to coincide with the movie of the same name. The "Dark Knight" edition … Read more