Verizon doles out double punch to cable TV firms

Faster Internet speeds, TV service coming

By: George Spohr
   WASHINGTON TOWNSHIP — On the heels of Patriot Media’s announcement that it will offer phone service to customers in Central Jersey, Verizon has delivered an opening salvo of its own — and it’s a double-punch.
   Verizon is looking to add TV service to its growing list of offerings.
   That wasn’t unexpected.
   But Verizon’s also looking to capture the high-speed Internet market back from cable companies, such as Patriot, whose cable lines are typically capable of delivering faster download speeds to customers than DSL phone lines, such as Verizon’s.
   It’s doing that by building a fiberoptic network from the ground-up — a network capable of delivering download speeds of 600 Mb per second — 100 times faster than the download speeds offered to residential customers of many cable companies.
   That wasn’t expected.
   The company is in the process of hiring hundreds of residential consultants to work at its building at 600 Horizon Drive in Robbinsville, Washington Township, according to Lew Welstead, an employment specialist at the company’s Silver Springs, Md., office who oversaw the announcement.
   It kicked off its search at an information session Oct. 22, where it fielded resumes and offered pre-employment testing.
   The company already is selling its TV service in Texas — and, for the time being, poses little threat to local cable providers, as it would have to make competitive bids for municipal franchise agreements, said Rich Young, the company’s senior media-relations specialist for New Jersey.
   "We’re building a new, fiberoptic network — taking fiber lines directly to the home," Mr. Young said.
   "We will be able to sell super high-speed Internet services to those lines, and we can certainly use them to sell TV services," he said.
   He stressed that Verizon-provided TV service in Central Jersey is still years off, which will keep Patriot, for the time being, firmly in control of the marketplace. And some of the new hires will offer customer support to growth and expansion unrelated to the fiberoptic network.