Fios TV in Albany NY - Update

[hicks107]

I spoke to someone from Verizon yesterday. He had just left a meeting about Fios. He said that Verizon was trying to decide where to build the TV Hub. The choices were here or Buffalo. He said that they decided to build the hub in buffalo since only about 15% of the fios footprint in the capital region has Fios internet, and 60% of buffalo's does. Also, the cable company in Buffalo really sucks and even though Time Warner just bought them out, they dont have a huge grasp on the market. Whereas in Albany, Time Warner has dominated the TV market - especially with their all-in-one garbage.

The Verizon tech said that now the plan will be to build the Hub in Buffalo and start offering TV service out there. Then "in a few years" build a tie between Buffalo to Albany to get TV. Apparently each state should only have about 1 video hub. But NYC already has a hub and they dont want to oversubscribe it by putting the rest of the state on it.

He also mentioned that Verizon is toying with the idea of a state franchise, but the fact that a new bill to allow state franchises requires the TV provider to be able to service 85% of its footprint quickly changes Verizon's mind. They would be required to offer fios in some very rural parts of the state.

So basically we wont be getting fios TV anytime soon. National Greed will probably offer TV in Albany before Fios does.

Oh, BTW, if you live in Schenectady, they just finished building out fios internet from parts downtown into parts of Scotia.