Verizon IPTV is vital to company's fate

Filed in archive IPTV on October 27, 2006

Can you see me now?

Verizon reports its Q3 results on Monday.

One thing that investors will probably hold their collective noses through is the shrinkage of the company's core phone business. Verizon's access-line count is expected to fall 10% from year-ago levels, say people familiar with the numbers. In recent times, the number of lost accounts has typically been 6%, so this would represent an acceleration of that trend.

The more rapid erosion of basic phone lines is largely a result of the success of VoIP phone offerings from cable outfits such as Comcast and Cablevision. Comcast, for example, reported Thursday that its triple play of TV, phone and Internet services was catching on with bundle buyers. Comcast added 483,000 phone customers in the third quarter.

And that is why Verizon must compete in the years ahead with their FiOS TV (Verizon's version of IPTV).

UPDATE:

Well, Verizon just reported in. Shares of the New York phone giant dipped 4% as investors grew concerned about the quickening pace of erosion at its core business, along with the higher costs of its fiber-optic-network expansion effort. Also, FiOS is expected to drag fourth-quarter earnings down about 2 cents more than originally projected.

It also said that its FiOS customer base new stands at 522,000 with video customers now at 118,000.