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Verizon Ups Ante In Cable Battle

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By RICHARD MULLINS, The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 5, 2007

TAMPA - Verizon plans to start offering today a new perk for customers signing up for its cable TV service - a free 19-inch HDTV.

There are caveats to the deal, but the offer represents one of the more aggressive moves yet in Verizon's 2-year-old campaign to deploy cable TV across the Tampa Bay area, competing directly with the dominant local cable company, Bright House Networks.

Over the past two years, Verizon has spent about $1 billion in the Bay area converting itself from primarily a telephone and Internet company, into a media and entertainment company - deploying a new, largely underground, fiber optic network.

This time two years ago, it was available to just 10,000 houses around Temple Terrace. Now the network stretches over 54 million feet, past 620,000 households in Hillsborough County, plus parts of Pasco, Pinellas, Polk, Manatee and Sarasota counties.

Since launching the service two years ago this month, Verizon says it has signed up about 100,000 cable TV customers. Nationally, Verizon officials also said that 15.2 percent of customers who can receive the service do enroll, and locally that subscription rate is higher by "a few percentage points," said Suri Surinder, Verizon's Southeast region senior vice president and general manager.

If construction goes according to plan, Verizon will build its network deeper into Pinellas, reaching St. Petersburg by the end of 2008, and through the southern tip of the peninsula by the end of 2009.

The free TV deal fits within Verizon's extensive marketing and advertising campaign that has seen everything from the company logo printed on takeout Chinese food boxes to banners pulled by airplanes across the area.

For a year-end marketing push, Verizon this week will start offering a 19-inch Sharp LCD HDTV (retail price tag about $300), or a $200 gift card for the electronics store Best Buy to customers who sign up by Dec. 31.

Customers must sign a two-year contract for three Verizon services: home telephone service, FiOS Internet, and FiOS TV Premier cable service. Together, Verizon says those services should cost about $99 per month, which includes one set-top TV box.

Bright House officials were sanguine about Verizon's marketing offer.

"Prices are comparable between Bright House and Verizon," said spokesman Joe Durkin. "What sets us apart is a commitment to quality and customer service. If Verizon FiOS was all that, then they would not need to entice people with a 19-inch TV."

Reporter Richard Mullins can be reached at rmullins@tampatrib.com or (813) 259-7919.

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