Verizon to build regional video hub in Washington, bring FiOS TV

by Darren Murph posted May 4th 2008 at 8:49PM

Comcast may have just given the HD lineup in Southwestern Washington a serious boost, but that's not frightening Verizon away. The carrier has just made public its intentions to build the state's first regional video hub in Everett, which will end up being a "key component of the company's plan to deliver video programming" in the future. Thankfully, Verizon went ahead and made certain that we knew this hub wasn't being constructed for kicks and giggles -- according to David Valdez, senior vice president for the Northwest, the company is "preparing its network to offer consumers in the region FiOS TV." Regrettably, there's no timeframe given for when we can expect services to roll out, but the outfit is negotiating with a number of cities and counties in order to gain those highly sought after cable franchises as we speak.

Filed under: Fiber

Tags: expansion, fios, fios tv, FiosTv, verizon, washington

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

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Rich @ May 5th 2008 2:49AM

I live in a building that does not have the necessary exposure for satellite tv, thus I'm stuck with comcast for my cable service. Looking forward to Verizon being licensed in this area for fios tv to FINALLY establish some competition and give consumers a choice.

Neutral

Firtch @ May 4th 2008 11:07PM

Everett is basically Seattle Metro Area, so this news is a little understated: Seattle is getting a competitor to Comcast! Us Amazonians and Microsofties will get a break from this monopoly!

Neutral

Toropop @ May 5th 2008 1:15AM

Don't get too excited, Sparky. To be clear -- for our viewing audience -- yes, Everett is in the Seattle Metro area. No, this doesn't mean Seattle, itself, will benefit a whole lot from this competition. The City of Seattle, and much of its immediate surrounding municipalities, are served by Qworst (Qwest) and are not on the slate to get FiOS for obvious reasons. The Eastside (Microsoft and Boeing country) will definitely reap the rewards since almost all of it is Verizon country.

Something that IS understated in the article is that Comcast's video hub is also located in Everett. This will be a story I will definitely follow.

A couple of other things to be aware of:

1. In moving to the Portland area from Everett, I noticed that Comcast was much higher for less service than I was getting/paying for in Everett. When FiOS came online here, yes, it was cheaper. A year later, FiOS is turning out to be more expensive than Comcast, granted, still better quality. This last week, too, I just got a notice that FiOS was jacking up their prices again (4th time in a year).

2. While FiOS still kicks a** with their Internet service, their television services still have some serious tiling and degradation issues to iron out, which have been all over the news down here, and seemingly get omitted when talked about on Engadget, BGR, BroadbandReports, etc.

Proceed with caution and a clear mind.

Neutral

phanbouy @ May 5th 2008 4:38PM

"can you hear me n--" ZAP!

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