Anyone know who Rhino Cable Services is working for?

[bravonoj]

I've seen their trucks in the Port Richmond area from Thompson and Ontario down to Thompson and Tioga - they are running new fiber. Anyone know if they are subcontracted for Verizon and if this is the FiOS we have been promised for 4 years?

[radiocolin]

Doubtful. Verizon has pretty much stopped expansion on FiOS. That's why they're entering into agreements with Comcast to resell each others services.

[BarryG]

Doubtful. Verizon has pretty much stopped expansion on FiOS. That's why they're entering into agreements with Comcast to resell each others services.

Actually no, they still have an obligation to cover the entire city of Phila. It is expansion to new cities that has been halted.

[radiocolin]

Their obligation is by 2016. I guarantee they find a way out of it by then, despite promises to honor it.

April:
Hoping for FiOS, some cities now feel abandoned by Verizon - Philly.com

City Councilman James Kenney recently called for a public hearing amid complaints that Verizon was running FiOS lines, but not connecting the lines to individual homes.

Over Verizon’s objections, City Council approved a resolution April 19 to hold a public hearing on the matter. No date has been set. Verizon spokesman Lee Gierczynski said the company agreed as part of its franchise agreement to provide information on the build-out privately to the city, but not publicly.

[bravonoj]

yeah, that's what I was wondering - they have been before the court because of the buildout halt. Next time I see the truck I will see if I can see if the fiber is branded - all Comcast fiber says "Comcast Fiber Optics" on it...hopefully I'll run into them again tomorrow and I will ask

[BarryG]

Their obligation is by 2016. I guarantee they find a way out of it by then, despite promises to honor it.

April:
Hoping for FiOS, some cities now feel abandoned by Verizon - Philly.com

I guess we'll see. They seem to want to avoid the poor neighborhoods... if they are going to finish what they started, neighborhoods like Port Richmond make sense right now.

[bravonoj]

Well, sorry to report it seems to be a Comcast fiber expansion/cutover. Last night they were back out in full force all the way down Ontario Street, and I assume doing a cutover to the new fiber because it resulted in a complete loss of all of their services. Not to mention lots of yelling from one tech to the other (at each pole) - I assume they do not have either a radio or phone to communicate, so what else would you do at 2am in a densly populated residential area but scream at the top of your lungs.....

Another ding for Comcast. Not to mention that if PWD needed to do work that resulted in a loss of water they would have to notify us.

/rant over. Can't wait for FiOS to complete the PHIA rollout.

[radiocolin]

/rant over. Can't wait for FiOS to complete the PHIA rollout.

People are under this weird misconception that while Comcast a ****ty, consumer-hating telecom company, Verizon somehow isn't.

[BarryG]

People are under this weird misconception that while Comcast a ****ty, consumer-hating telecom company, Verizon somehow isn't.

Almost every report I've heard is that Verizon is worse than comcast. Comcast has big problems but they really have improved, probably due to competition from fios.

[thetalkingmule]

Consumer Reports has Verizon as the top 1 or 2 cable/internet/tv providers with a rating of 78. Comcast is 2nd to last with a 65 rating. Verizon may be mediocre, but the product is better and Comcast is absolutely garbage.

[airlite]

With FiOS Verizon has become a cable provider. In order to sell cable in Philadelphia, you need a franchise agreement with the city. The city's agreement says Verizon must cover the entire city in order to sell cable service here, which they DEFINITELY want to do. So while they've managed to screw over many other areas through their deft navigation of telephone company regulations, Philadelphia should get 100 percent buildout.

[mixiboi]

Consumer Reports has Verizon as the top 1 or 2 cable/internet/tv providers with a rating of 78. Comcast is 2nd to last with a 65 rating. Verizon may be mediocre, but the product is better and Comcast is absolutely garbage.

Yeah, Verizon the telephone company is the horrible one...the FiOS divison still has ways to go before they mess up their rep...

[lucidinnature]

Their obligation is by 2016. I guarantee they find a way out of it by then, despite promises to honor it.

April:
Hoping for FiOS, some cities now feel abandoned by Verizon - Philly.com

You know you're in comcast country when fluff b.s. articles like this make the paper.

Comcast pulled the same crap many years ago, yet everyone forgets. It wasn't all that long ago in the realm of things where you had to go west of broad to see a game since comcast didn't expand into south philly and pennsport-and kept the games locked to prism.

Now, you have a brand new system. Fios never said they were hooking up each and every home. They put the infrastructure in, and if you want it? You order it and pay to run the wire to your house. It's the same if you want a telephone line and no wires existed before.

[radiocolin]

AFAIK, the phone company is required to provide you copper phone service if you ask for it, and swallow the charge to run the wires, as a provider of last resort.

I vaguely remember talk of a loophole a few years ago where people wanted DSL but didn't have the necessary wiring upgrades to their property, and the phone company wouldn't provide DSL without charging you for those upgraded wires. So in order to get DSL without having to pay for the wire running, you would order an ISDN line (which fell under the old POLR rules), then cancel the ISDN when the wires were run and order DSL on the shiny new copper you didn't have to pay for.

Verizon has mostly realized that it doesn't want to roll out FiOS, as they testified in 2010 when they said they were going to stop rolling out to new cities. Now they're trying to figure out how to get out of their existing agreements because they know there's no money in wiring Brewerytown or Point Breeze in 2013. Maybe there will be in 2016, just like Comcast came around to South Philly, but we know how good telecom companies are at looking toward the future.

And really, you can't blame Verizon for not wanting to spend a crapton of money to wire an area when they aren't going to sell enough FiOS subscriptions in the area to make that money back.

That's why you suddenly see Comcast selling Verizon Wireless service. They're hoping they can sweet talk municipalities into accepting LTE service in lieu of fiber.