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No FiOS In Boston? We'll Make an Ad Anyway
Zott writes "The Boston Globe has a front-page story about Verizon's FiOS that recounts what many of us here in Boston and some surrounding urban areas know already: Verizon won't invest in the physical plant and actually offer the fiber optic Internet and TV service here in the 'hub of the universe.' This hasn't stopped Verizon from launching a new advertising campaign with Donnie Wahlberg (member of New Kids on the Block, actor, and well-known Boston native) standing in Copley Square and the Charlestown neighborhood touting the product. It goes even further, though — according to the Globe's article, '"This is New England, where people tell it straight," says Wahlberg... "No phonies, no fakers, no shortcuts."' Except for the shortcut in the fine print that's presumably in the ad somewhere: 'FiOS not available in all areas.'"
A FiOS ad?
That's mighty sad
Like the last razor
Rick Rubin had.
Burma Shave
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
I have FIOS. In Boston.
Advertising in its purest form: outright lies
But what about doodie-heads? Are there meanies or stupid-faces?
Why did Slashdot choose this article? Do they like Marky Mark or something?
I get turned down for articles far more interesting tan this one...
Dissapointed.
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I got a mailer for Verizon FIOS at my house this week. Guess what? They don't have coverage in my area. Who is the idiot that ran that Mail Campaign?
My uncle lives in a planned houseing community and fios wanted to go in and put the lines and infastrcture but the community said only if you pay us X dollars. Guess what Fios said never mind. Not sure where I was going with this but it just came to him mind reading this.
Paul: Father... father, the sleeper has awakened! - Dune
I'm sorry, I understand the sentiment, but it just seems odd having those lines come from someone whose life's work is to pretend to be someone he's not.
To hell with Verizon, what ever happened to all those public wireless efforts years ago? I don't care about fibre to home, I care about buying (or getting for free?) internet from someone not part of the ruling plutocracy.
This happens ALL the time with ALL carriers in ALL cities. Apparently Boston is more important than the rest of us???
A few years ago the rumor was that Verizon wanted to install FIOS in the areas where people are most likely to pay for it (the middle and upper class parts of the city), but the mayor wouldn't let Verizon install a single foot of fiber unless they agreed to install it everywhere throughout the entire city.
Whether you believe that rumor or not, there have been enough ongoing public battles between Menino and Verizon to make the Globe article's statement “Mayor Thomas M. Menino has spent many fruitless years cajoling Verizon to bring its service to Boston” a load of crap.
Is the next Slashdot article going to complain about having to see Long John Silvers advertisements when there aren't any Long John Silvers restaurants in the area? Because I see those ads pretty frequently...
#DeleteChrome
Here in Maryland, we received FiOS flyers in the mail; they hung advertisements on our door knob; they put advertisements under our cars' windshield wipers; they made phone calls (because we were current Verizon ADSL customers, I presume, the phone call was legal); they even came out to the house in person at one point, all trying to sell us on FiOS. We still see TV ads on our local TV stations (just over the air; we don't have cable).
Being that we are big-time Internet content consumers -- video, photos, Linux distros, gaming -- FiOS was a huge deal for us. From the first time I heard the acronym, I wanted it. I couldn't wait to free myself from the unreliability and below-average speed of ADSL.
That was in 2008. But suddenly, a shift happened: instead of Verizon spamming *us*, we found ourselves spamming *them*. We'd call them on the phone and ask if they were offering FiOS yet. "Nope, it's not available in your area yet". Over time, the reps started leaving the "yet" off, as if to imply that it would never be available. Turns out they were right.
I was making pretty good money at the time, so I called Verizon and asked how much they wanted to connect the fiber from what I assumed was a local switching box to our house. I told them I'm willing to pay an amount they'd typically charge a business. They declined to quote a price, simply repeating that FiOS is not available in my area, over and over again, like a broken record. Meanwhile, I posted on the dslreports forums inquiring about it, and someone who lives about half a mile down the road said they have FiOS, and they thought our entire town was wired up with it. Apparently I'm not part of the town I live in. Who'd have thought?
Then I read this story: http://www.niemanwatchdog.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=background.view&backgroundid=631
It's no wonder FiOS never came. It was a profiteering scam all along. Verizon's plan was basically to:
(1) Tell the government that they need a lot of money to roll out the next generation internet service to America to keep us competitive with the rest of the world; this convinced politicians sufficiently well that they received a big chunk of change from taxpayers.
(2) Using money that they'd normally be spending on PSTN (telephone) infrastructure, deploy a *token* amount of FiOS in areas where it's the most profitable and lowest cost / barrier to entry to do so, and tell the politicians, "See? We're doing it!" -- meanwhile they were doubtless placing neighborhoods inhabited by Congressmen and Senators at the top of the priority list.
(3) Once the government seemed satisfied, stop the deployment entirely, except for finishing off areas that they already promised local or state governments they'd roll out to.
(4) Keep all the money that the government gave them for FiOS, and hand it out to their top executives as bonuses.
It's a devious, scheming, unabashedly evil plan, which succeeded with flying colors, as far as lining the executives' pockets. Meanwhile, not only did they screw taxpayers out of their money, but they didn't even follow through with the service they said they'd provide, for the vast majority of the people.
Meanwhile, through price fixing and industry collusion, even with arch-rivals such as Comcast and AT&T, they have managed to keep a damper on innovation, cloud hosted services, HD video streaming, and other premium internet services in the U.S., by intentionally restricting the internet access of the common man to about 7.1 Mbps, give or take.
This is all nothing new. Verizon is a shining example of exactly what is wrong with the United States: corporate greed, flying in the face of the government's best intentions, abusing taxpayer money for corporate gain, and preventing Americans from having an equal footing with the rest of the industrialized world on the "Information Superhighway". The first chance we get, we should lock their top executives and investors away in solitary confinement for life. But of course that will never happen, because nobody gives a shit that the crooks get away with this. And they know it, too, or they wouldn't have done such a thing in plain sight.
Why is this a big deal? I get ads for all sorts of places that aren't in my area, FiOS included.
The greater Boston marketing area includes areas other than the City of Boston itself. For example, they also show Red Lobster ads and the closest one's in Connecticut.
Slow news day, huh?
FTA: "While the service is prevalent in the suburbs, Verizon Communications Inc. has said it is too costly to wire the city for FiOS, leaving Comcast and tiny RCN as the only cable providers for 650,000 residents."
The center of the metropolitan area has self-proclaimestd "great" internet service and the average citizen only knows it's faster than what was previously available. I live in the Portland, OR area, where suburbian areas have roughly twice the speed for half the price (Frontier FiOS vs. CenturyLink DSL).
The urbanites tend to be unaware of what's actually available nearby, and therefore have nothing to contest. Advertising could help the FiOS provider bring awareness to the average person of what "fast" really is, thereby creating demand that didn't previously exist.
Posted from Boston, plugged into 50MBps Verizon FiOS. It was already installed in the house when we moved in. Also had FiOS at our previous Boston residence, which was over two years ago. It was installed within 24 hours there.
Later tonight I'll watch the Redsox game, in HD, over FiOS.
I have no idea what this article is talking about.
sounds like a prime opportunity for Google Fiber!
Really no short cuts in boston? Is that what his driver tells him?
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
My telco up here in western Canada will not advertise an Internet service unless they can offer it to %70 of their customer base. They will still roll out the service, just not market it. Not sure what percentage of Verizon customers can qualify for FiOS service though...
FiOS deployment is very patchy in the Boston area. I live in a suburb of Boston and I own a retail shop there. My home and shop are about four blocks apart. I had FiOS in both locations since 2008.
Recently I moved my shop to a new location a block and a half away. It is actually between my home and my previous location. No FiOS service, though; I had to settle for DSL.
There's more to be annoyed about with this ad (which I have not seen, but I read about in the Globe). If the ad has Wahlberg saying "This is New England", then by "New England" they mean Massachusetts (Boston excluded), Connecticut and Rhode Island. Verizon abandoned northern New England (Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont) years ago, selling off their business to tiny Fairpoint Communications. Fairpoint, which has finally got most of their accounting issues straightened out, have admitted that while they will continue to serve existing FiOS Internet customers (TV was not offered), they are not expanding it anywhere. At least I got FiOS Internet while Verizon was building it out.
I live 20 miles west of Boston in a town with about 60,000 people. I have FiOS. I had it when I lived in Braintree (10 miles south) and Plymouth (30 miles south).
Posted from Boston, plugged into 50MBps Verizon FiOS. I have no idea what this article is talking about.
Years ago, Verizon rolled out FiOS to a handful (literally) of customers in Boston, same as they did in Cambridge and other municipalities. It was probably done as some sort of token measure to claim they were offering the service everywhere, or justify commercials like these.
For all practical purposes Verizon does not, and has not ever, offered FiOS in Boston, Cambridge, or Somerville. If you don't believe me, plug in a friend's phone number and address into their "can I get FiOS?" tool. You won't succeed.
This is well documented in discussions on DSLreports and other forums if you just bother to plug in "Boston FiOS coverage". Go look at the DSLreports maps for self-reported service coverage. There are a couple of dots of FiOS customers in the Boston area, and a sea of them elsewhere.
Please help metamoderate.
I live in the Boston area, Marlborough, and FiOS is still in business and selling FiOS. What they won't do is run new fiber to a building that doesn't already have it. They still advertise trying to get people to connect that do have the fiber already ran.
I have moved twice and have been able to purchase FiOS is both locations.
So, unless the commercial talks about running cable the argument doesn't make much since.
Encryption: I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend your right to encrypt it...
So you musta ment Hubbotha univers , then
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
Chuckle, gives me a good excuse to relate why I jumped ship to the local cable provider 3 or 4 years ago.
I had a damned slow (80kb/sec) adsl, and my phone on VZ copper for years.
Late December, the phone goes out, but the net remains, which I guess it can when only one side of the copper opens up and the other side, due to 50 yo paper insulated cable being soaking wet, might as well be ground.
Call VZ on my cell phone, they promise they'd get to it in about 4 days. Really? Week later I call again, and told maybe 10 days.
I call the PUC & filed a complaint, 3 days later they come out, make snide remarks about me calling in the PUC, claimed they had enough problems, found another so-so pair in the cable & moved me. Bad hum and I can hear the neighbors. Phone rings half-heartedly at all hours of the day/night.
I should mention that typical wait time to talk to a human started out at about 10 minutes and got progressively worse, till the last time, in late April, they didn't even transfer twice, and I timed the last time they started the elevator music & I gave up after 47 minutes and called the PUC again, but since I hadn't talked to VZ long enough to get the persons name, which our PUC requires you do, that was the end of it.
Between then, late Dec 2008 and April 30 2009, I actually had a working phone 17 days. And no pro-rate adjustments were ever made to the duns I was getting. I called Shentel, who had bought the local cable tv system 2 years back, got a 5x faster net connection and the same free to the lower 48 I had with VZ, for about 5 bucks a month less. All installed and working great in 4 days most of which was waiting for the modem to arrive. Outages have been 99% power related, two weeks once when the 112 mph direcho came thru in 2010, clearing out lots of trees including 3 of mine, 40 yo jack pines, one of which wound up on the next door neighbor's roof. Anything that looked like a wire or something to hold up a wire had to be built back up from scratch. Not Shentels fault IOW.
AFAIAC, VZ still owes me about $300 for services billed and not delivered. If I owned any stock, I'd sell, because its only going to get worse. With their managements attitude it can't help but implode at some point.
Cheers as usual, Gene.
Google only goes where the locals have already built the infrastructure. They buy "dark" fiber, but if your city doesn't happen to have any, don't hold your breath.
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
At this rate, we're gonna be an Internet Third World Country. Not dissing third world countries mind you...
Codifex Maximus ~ In search of... a shorter sig.
'"This is New England, where people tell it straight," says Wahlberg... "No phonies, no fakers, no shortcuts."'
Yeah, there's no phonies in the land of Congress, the CIA, defense contractors, and New York City. :bigeyeroll:
They upgraded their municipal power grid so ran fiber everywhere anyway. They offer residents bare internet over fiber now, details here: http://www.concordnet.org/pages/concordma_lightplant/Broadband
this isn't as witty as I'd like.
Verizon won't turn the TV on for the FiOs system here in Croton on Hudson, NY. The system works for phone and internet, but they won't turn on TV. Towns next door have TV, but VZ won't return phone calls about our little village. We are an anomaly , though. We have DOCSIS 3.0 and FiOs on the same street, so they have to compete, which isn't good for anyone except the consumer. VZ made a deal with the Cable Companies, than in exchange for the cable company wireless spectrum, VZ would stop selling "cable tv". VZ is clearly keeping their end of the (collusive) bargain.
The "free market" part comes from the bidding/negotiations process any cable company can engage in with the town. In MA towns, the franchise negotiations are handled by the selectmen (whose meetings are broadcast), and then approved at the annual town meeting. Yeah, you read that right. We have annual town meetings, where the entire town approves the budget. It's over the course of a couple of evenings, and anyone who is a resident can show up, speak, and vote on how the town spends its money. What do you expect from the birthplace of the American Revolution?
Please help metamoderate.
You do realize the article is about Boston, not New York City, right?
You do realize New York (the entire state) is NOT PART OF NEW ENGLAND, right? New York is part of the Northeast.
Seriously: did you just try to someone who lives in a region, what that region is?
Please help metamoderate.
Verizon does offer DSL in Boston too but it is of course not FIOS but still adequate for most basic web surfers.
DSL is not competitive in an age when other technologies offer 10-15x the bandwidth. Seriously - when my comcast connection works and the stars align, I've seen download speeds of 5-10MBytes/sec.
RCN is a competitor to Comcast and I get my Internet through them.
It used to be that Comcast and RCN service areas in Boston don't overlap. One street might be RCN, another might be Comcast. I don't know if things have changed. If you plug in your address, does Comcast offer service in your area? (I'm not being sarcastic, I'm genuinely curious.)
Please help metamoderate.
We get bombarded with ads for Progressive Insurance and Geico ( Id like to step on that little green limey). Neither of them actually sell auto insurance in Massachusetts !
Hub of the universe? WTF? Last I check Boston wasn't the hub of anything other than it's own ego.
There *used* to be technology in Boston.
There still is; it's just not the same companies, except for Microsoft, Oracle, and Google, among the big "old tech" companies. Microsoft owns a huge building right on the Charles, for example, and has a huge office on 128; so does Oracle. Google's smack in the middle of Kendal Square.
Facebook, Apple, Amazon, ITA, Turbine, SCVNGR/LevelUp....that's just who I can think of off the top of my head. Then there's all the pharma companies...
Boston remains popular because of a steady supply of young, well-educated labor and living costs that are high but not astronomical like they are in SV. It's also a far more pleasant area to live in than NYC.
Please help metamoderate.
My understand is, that at least in Cambridge, Verizon doesn't want to pay to support public access television. Comcast already pays lots of $$ to CCTV (hence their nice shiny offices in a nice new building). Not sure I blame them. But this deadlock has gone on for over a decade. It's time it was broken, and FiOS arrive in the city.
NYC must be the switch.
Interesting claims you make, but I'm not completely sold on your explanation.
I did hear that Verizon basically halted the FiOS rollout "until further notice", but it's also clearly a very costly service to deploy -- and I don't think you can necessarily fault a business for expanding it slowly or in calculated stages.
I live in Poolesville, MD myself (population of only 5,000 - 5,500 or so and stuck right in the middle of the Agricultural Reserve area -- so basically a 20-30 minute drive, minimum, to surrounding communities of any note - like Germantown, Darnestown or Potomac). We got FiOS late last year (I switched from Comcast on pretty much the first day it was possible). Really, it's hard to explain how Verizon would have deemed Poolesville worthy of a FiOS rollout if it truly was only selecting the "most profitable" and "lowest cost / barrier to entry" areas?
Honestly, as demanding and fickle as many of our local residents are, I'm surprised Verizon didn't just give up and yank any initial plans to deploy it here. Poolesville has an ongoing legal battle with Verizon over the initial installation because they're upset Verizon damaged various bits of roadway, edges of driveways or lawns, or what-not while pulling the fiber. Technically, I'm sure the complaints are legitimate -- but I'm also a little surprised residents weren't just thankful enough to receive the service that they couldn't just overlook having to reseed a corner of a lawn or whatever?
My opinion of the service as a customer? Excellent broadband speeds that typically give a little bit more than advertised speeds on a given package. Television channels selection includes everything I'd want and seems to be a little cheaper than Comcast. VoIP phone service has been great too, overall. We have experienced a few outages lasting several hours each where TV never goes out but internet and phone do. The first week the service was installed, it went out constantly. I was about to cancel it and go back to Comcast, but finally spoke to a higher-level technician who explained it was a problem common to new rollouts where the router in the central office needed a firmware update. (He claimed the upgrades were basically pushed out to the routers, but still had to be manually flashed onto them in a separate step ... and it's that step that was neglected for whatever reason, causing the instability.) After he claimed they'd done the upgrade, we never had those service issues again.
Living in the greater Boston, this is nothing surprising. I cannot even get DSL where I live.
Well maybe if you stopped with that presumptuous overblown sense of entitlement then someone might take you seriously!
Twinstiq, game news
What part of Philly or Boston are you in? I know people in both that have FioS and it is teh awesome.
I used to be