Last year Verizon and other IPTV providers asked for and were granted a pass to continue issuing set-top boxes with integrated security, but it runs out July 1. To comply with the separable security order, Motorola's whipped up two new boxes, the QIP7100 HD and QIP7216 HD DVR, which also apparently feature upgraded processing power and MPEG-4 support (not that you'd need any extra compression in your FiOS anytime soon). Comcast and other cable companies have already issued over 4 million STBs with CableCARDs and were decidedly nonplussed by the telcos get a pass, although Verizon will still be distributing SD boxes sans-Card due to their all digital plans for next year -- as if anyone would want one of those. We suppose insisting on a steady supply would be too much to ask?

New York, also known as Verizon's FiOS TV playground, is getting yet another connected town. The Wesley Hills Village Board granted a video franchise to the carrier, ratcheting the number of FiOS TV-enabled communities in NY to 110. It's not mentioned exactly how many domiciles in the Rockland County town will have access to service, but hopefully the vast majority of you living there will be within reach when it goes live in the near future.

Hot on the heels of Lakeville, Massachusetts getting word that it would be receiving Verizon's fiber-based television service comes news that two more Bay State communities will be joining it. Just this week, Verizon began offering up FiOS TV to some 8,500 households in Rochester and Walpole, and if you just so happen to call either of those locales home, you too can phone up the carrier and see if it's within reach. Meanwhile, we're waiting for the day that 100-percent of Massachusetts is FiOS-enabled -- which should happen in like, two months or so.

Somebody's thinking of you, Lakeville, and that somebody is Verizon. Hot on the heels of two announcements in the state of Virginia comes word that your quaint town will soon be the next to receive FiOS TV access. Just this week, the town approved a cable franchise enabling the carrier to offer its fiber-based TV service to some 4,000 households in the region. When things go live "soon," the Bay State will have 70 different communities that are FiOS TV-enabled, which most definitely makes those of us not situated in New England quite depressed.

It's no secret that Comcast is the 800-pound behemoth in the Metro DC area, and while Verizon has been scattering its FiOS TV seeds all around the region, it has yet to really infiltrate Washington, D.C. proper. According to Mayor Adrian Fenty, all that could be changing. In a recent interview on NBC4, Mr. Fenty states that "negotiations are still ongoing," though things seemed to be moving more quickly than in "other jurisdictions." He continued on to say that he estimates the service (though he didn't specify FiOS TV, just "broadband capability") will be available to DCers "early next year." Of course, we've seen promise dates slip out before, so we wouldn't bet the farm on this coming to fruition just yet, but at least all that finger crossing hasn't been completely in vain, yeah?

[Thanks, Jeevan]

Not many HD fans have had to go through a longer drought without new HD channels than Verizon FiOS TV customers, but with analog channels dropping like flies all across the country, we have a juicy little rumor that we just want to believe -- after all, we already feel lied to with spring half way over. The one thing that really adds credibility to the rumor that 26 newcomers will be added by the end of July is the fact that all but two markets will be analog free just in time for 26 new channels of high-def goodness. Many don't realize that Verizon is out of bandwidth on its QAM infrastructure, so in order to free up enough space for 100 HD channels -- unfortunately not all the new throughput will be dedicated to HD -- and to keep its promise to the FCC, Verizon is eliminating 49 analog stations. The bad news is that Florida and Texaswill have to wait another few months before they'll have access. The full list is after the break.

Look out Cox -- you aren't the only television provider in the Hampton Roads, Virginia area expanding your network. As it's done so many times before, Verizon has announced its intentions to string its fiber optic-based network to more of the Hampton Roads area, and as if that weren't enough, it'll be upgrading systems in Hampton, Portsmouth, Poquoson and York counties while continuing work in Chesapeake, Newport News and Virginia Beach. Of course, it still has to garner the appropriate cable franchises from a number of locales, but at least those frustrated by limited options can count on one more arriving in the not-so-distant future.

It just wouldn't be a complete week without Verizon giving New York some more love, now would it? As of this month, Verizon has officially begun taking orders for its fiber-based FiOS TV in Roslyn Harbor and Wappingers Falls. In case that wasn't enough, it's announcing availability of service in the village of Plattekill and portions of the Village of Wallkill, both located within the Town of Newburgh. Go on New Yorkers, snicker away -- we know you all are Verizon's favorites anyway.

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.

Verizon's doing more than just blessing Oregon customers with more HD content -- it's also preparing to bring its fiber-based services to even more folks in the Ocean State. $86 million has been set aside to invest in network expansion within Rhode Island, promising FiOS TV to an additional ten communities (specifics were solely absent) and giving another 50 union-represented technicians and customer service representatives a job. Yep, all that new cabling means expanding its Providence-based Fiber Solutions Center, but it failed to mention when the new hires would take place. Lastly, it's planning on upgrading the internet services in Cranston, Hope Valley, Jamestown, Narragansett, Pawtucket, Providence, Tiverton and Weekapaug, giving each of those locales download speeds of 7-megabits per second.

Not even half a year after Verizon strung its FiOS TV service to Oregon, those very subscribers are now getting access to HD VOD. The carrier has been on quite the roll of late, dishing out HD VOD to a slew of other states just a month prior, but this marks the first time Beaver State residents can yell "me too!" For starters, you can look forward to seeing content from CBS, Discovery Channel, Music Choice, HDNet and Ovation TV, and if Verizon has its way, it'll be offering up 1,000 HD VOD titles per month by the close of 2008.

While that 150 HD channel-future isn't yet guaranteed, Verizon's plans for expanding FiOS service throughout all of NYC took a big step forward, as the city has reached an agreement with the telco for a cable TV franchise contract. Pending approval by the city's Franchise and Concession Review Committee at a public hearing May 20, New York residents can expect full fiber coverage by 2014, with nearly a third of households receiving service by year end. Want some of that uncompressed HDTV? Head out and make your voice heard May 20.

Verizon's Q1 2008 results just hit the streets, and only three months after the carrier landed its one millionth subscriber, it's now well on its way to netting the second million. During Q1, the company managed to sign up 263,000 new FiOS TV customers and 262,000 net new FiOS internet customers, bringing the grand total to 1.2 / 1.8 million for each respective service. Call it a hunch, but it looks like Verizon's really onto something with this fiber-based TV thing.

The Bay State is getting even more love from Verizon, as Hingham becomes the third locale in Massachusetts to get hooked up with FiOS TV access in the past month. The Board of Selectmen in Hingham granted a cable franchise to the carrier earlier this week, which paves the way for 3,000 more households to select Verizon for TV programming should they choose. No word on when exactly service should arrive, but it ought not be long now.

The Associated Press finally got wise to big cables practice of squeezing three HD channels into one QAM channel -- something we've known for years -- but the real winner in the article was Verizon, who's FiOS service came out looking like the next savior. The author completely missed the fact that the real reason why FiOS doesn't squeeze as many channels in as Comcast, is because it has the worst national HD line-up of any major HD provider in the country. The closest the article gets to not giving FiOS a free pass, is when it mentions that "The FiOS system didn't offer Sci Fi HD, which Fowler's testing showed at 12.59 Mbps on Comcast." The author really buys into Verizon's marketing by saying that it doesn't compress because it has so much bandwidth, but we know better. In fact the reason why FiOS customers have to wait almost a year for a new HD channel is because Verizon is in the middle of infrastructure upgrades, and the sunsetting of analog channels, that will allow it to live up to it's promise of 150 HD channels by the end of 2008. Don't get us wrong, we agree with Verizon's decision to offer quality over quantity, we're just annoyed that we have to wait until the end of 2008 to watch Sci Fi HD or History HD.

[Via 1080eyes.com]