Verizon's aggressive FiOS roll out could definitely be one of the items COO and President Denny Strigl has to review if his sunny optimism about 2008 proves mis-founded. Verizon was celebrating their one millionth FiOS TV customer yesterday and have plans to roll past another 3 million homes this year. But the reality is it is the broadband service that is really driving FiOS take up, rather than the need to replicate either a cable or satellite pay-TV service. While there are a million fiber TV homes, there are 1.5 fiber Internet homes
Strigl suggested just this at the Q3 conference call last year--that the demand for high speed Internet is what is really driving fiber take up. This was also obvious from the numbers yesterday with DSL growth virtually stalled and Strigl admitting Verizon was seeing a migration from DSL to fiber and wireless broadband. Given the entry prices for fiber Internet are lower than standard DSL pricing, it is going to save cap-ex and lift revenue if Strigl simply decides to slow the fiber deployment. This may upset the New York types agitating for Verizon to finally put them on the roll-out plan, but will settle investors who have now been given a very bullish guidance for 2008.
For More:
- Transcript of Verizon's conference call yesterday
- Verizon celebrates one million FiOS TV customers Release
Related articles:
See our special section with all the coverage of Verizon's Q4 earnings
Spotlight: Verizon FiOS turns two ReportÂ
Verizon FiOS TV tops 200K subscribers Report