TV Choice and Competition Near for Residents of Town of Owasco, N.Y.

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Residents of the Town of Owasco in Cayuga County in central New York are a major step closer to having a real choice for their cable television service, thanks to a newly approved agreement authorizing Verizon to offer its FiOS TV service, delivered over the most advanced fiber-optic network straight to customers' homes.

The Owasco town board approved the franchise agreement Oct. 8.

The addition of the Owasco cable television franchises brings to 166 the total number of New York municipalities that have authorized Verizon to provide FiOS TV service.  Thirteen of these municipalities, including Owasco, are located in central New York.  The 12 others are: the Town of Camillus, Cicero, Clay, DeWitt, East Syracuse, Fayetteville, Fleming, North Syracuse, Salina, Sennett, the Town of Skaneateles, and the Village of Skaneateles.

On Oct. 5, the company launched FiOS TV service in parts of eight communities in the central New York region, providing TV choice and competition for some 50,000 homes. 

"This is all about choice for our residents," said Owasco Town Supervisor John Klink.  "Verizon has made an investment in our community and brought a new technology that ushers in a new era of competition for our household entertainment and Internet access.  Competition brings with it better customer service, better value and more services."

As with all local franchise approvals in New York, the agreement between Verizon and Owasco is subject to review by the New York State Public Service Commission.

Said Andrés Irlando, Verizon president for the New York region, "We've had great success with our FiOS TV product in just the short time it's been in the central New York market.  Consumers realize that FiOS TV and FiOS Internet are game-changers in terms of entertainment and programming choices, picture quality, social networking features, and download and upload speeds.  The superior technology and the powerful broadband capacity that Verizon FiOS brings into the home beat anything else on the market today -- hands down.

"A total fiber network into the home triggers key differentiators and technology innovations like FiOS' multi-room DVR and on-screen Twitter and Facebook applications.  These are features that traditional cable just can't provide.  And these franchise agreements clearly demonstrate the customer demand for choice in broadband, television and entertainment services," Irlando said. 

A staple in the New York business community with more than 32,000 employees in the state, Verizon is continuing to invest in the state's infrastructure by building, maintaining and enhancing its wireline and wireless networks across New York, including its state-of-the-art fiber-optic network, providing consumers and businesses with reliable FiOS services for their Internet, entertainment and voice services.

FiOS TV Service Highlights

FiOS TV service highlights include:

  • More than 500 all-digital channels grouped by genres such as entertainment, sports, news, shopping, movies and family, making it easy for audiences to find their favorite programming.

  • 125 HD channels in the central New York market, with extraordinary clarity and theater-quality sound.
  • An industry-leading library of more than 16,000 video-on-demand (VOD) titles each month, 70 percent of which are free.  In addition, the VOD library includes 1,700 HD titles per month.
  • An innovative interactive media guide (IMG) that helps customers quickly and easily find and enjoy content from TV listings, VOD catalogs and the digital video recorder (DVR), as well as personal music and photos from a home network.  Among the features of the IMG are:
    • Multi-Room DVR - Verizon's Home Media DVR allows customers to stream recorded HD and standard-definition programs to up to six other TV sets throughout the home.  This includes the ability to watch three separately recorded shows on three TV sets at the same time, plus pause recorded programming in one room and continue watching in another.

    • Media Manager - This feature lets FiOS DVR customers access personal photos, videos, music and slide shows from their home computers and play them on their TVs.  Subscribers also can search for and enjoy online videos from blip.tv, Dailymotion and Veoh on their TV screens.
    • Widgets - Customers have one-touch, on-demand access to local weather and traffic reports, daily news and sports headlines and daily horoscopes, as well as FiOS TV's Widgets Bazaar with interactive social applications from Facebook and Twitter.  Additional widgets include:
      • ESPN Fantasy Football - FiOS TV customers who are registered users of ESPN Fantasy Football will have instant on-screen access to personalized NFL statistics, including rosters, box scores, scoring leaders and player information.

      • Pro Football Widget - One-stop access to NFL stats and the NFL RedZone channel, giving customers who subscribe to the channel the ability to set on-screen alerts for whenever a team is moving inside its opponent's 20-yard line.  The alerts, once set up, pop up at the bottom of the TV screen while viewers are watching any channel.
      • Weatherbug Widget - Provides instant access to real-time, personalized weather information and forecasts.  Customize weather reports by any ZIP code, pull up hourly or seven-day forecasts and view radar weather imagery to see how local conditions are developing.
      • KODAK Widget - This widget gives registered KODAK Gallery users instant on-screen access to photos and slideshows that they have stored on Kodak's online digital photo service.
    • Free casual games - With the remote control and an HD set-top box, customers can access chess, solitaire, sudoku and wordplay.
    • "What's Hot on FiOS TV" - Features information on the most-popular programs currently being broadcast in the region and the most popular VOD titles.
    • Dual Pause and Play - Allows customers to pause live programming, change channels, and then return to the paused program and pick up where they left off.
    • Channel sorting options - Customers can create two separate lists of favorite channels for family members.  Customers also can filter channels in the guide by genre, for instances where a customer only may want to see HD content, international channels or kids programming, among others.

Programming choices for Hispanic, African-American, Asian, Russian and other multicultural audiences are available in every market, making FiOS TV an outlet for emerging and independent networks to showcase their diverse programming.

Verizon's fiber network delivers amazingly sharp pictures and sound, and has the capacity to transmit a wide array of high-definition programming that is so clear and intense it seems to leap from the TV screen.  In addition to FiOS TV, Verizon's fiber network also delivers Internet download speeds of up to 50 Mbps (megabits per second) and upload speeds of up to 20 Mbps, as well as high-quality voice service.*

The Town of Owasco joins a growing list of New York communities that are paving the way for competition and choice in the television market.  In addition to Owasco, Verizon has been granted cable television franchises in the following municipalities:

City of New York

Long Island
Amityville, Asharoken, Atlantic Beach, Massapequa Park, Cedarhurst, Laurel Hollow, Lynbrook, Mineola, East Hills, East Rockaway, Farmingdale, Valley Stream, Freeport, Williston Park, New Hyde Park, Sands Point, Bayville, Old Field, Floral Park, South Floral Park, Garden City, Nissequogue, Northport, Poquott, East Williston, Head of the Harbor, Hewlett Bay Park, Mill Neck, Stewart Manor, Centre Island, Lake Grove, Lawrence, Lindenhurst, Long Beach, Malverne, Manorhaven, Huntington Bay, The Branch, Oyster Bay Cove, Flower Hill, Great Neck, Great Neck Estates, Great Neck Plaza, Kensington, Kings Point, Lake Success, Munsey Park, North Hills, Plandome, Plandome Heights, Plandome Manor, Port Washington North, Rockville Centre, Roslyn, Roslyn Estates, Roslyn Harbor, Russell Gardens, Saddle Rock, Sea Cliff, Thomaston, Bellerose, Lloyd Harbor, Baxter Estates, Hempstead, Cove Neck, Brightwaters, Hewlett Harbor and Westbury; and the towns of North Hempstead, Huntington, Smithtown, Hempstead, Oyster Bay, Islip and Babylon

Westchester County
Ardsley, Dobbs Ferry, Tarrytown, Irvington, Greenburgh, Eastchester, Mount Kisco, Elmsford, Port Chester, Tuckahoe, White Plains, Rye Brook, North Castle, Mount Vernon, Mount Pleasant, Yonkers, Scarsdale, Bronxville, New Rochelle, Cortlandt, Peekskill, Buchanan, Rye, Larchmont, the Village of Mamaroneck, the Town of Mamaroneck, New Castle, Pelham Manor, Sleepy Hollow, Briarcliff Manor, the Town of Ossining, the Village of Ossining, Yorktown and Pound Ridge

Rockland County
Nyack, South Nyack, Upper Nyack, Grandview-on-Hudson, Clarkstown, Orangetown, Piermont, Airmont, the Town of Haverstraw, West Haverstraw, Chestnut Ridge, Ramapo, Spring Valley, Stony Point, the Village of Haverstraw, Suffern, Hillburn, Wesley Hills, Montebello, New Hempstead and Pomona

Dutchess County
Wappinger, Wappingers Falls, Village of Fishkill, Town of Fishkill, City of Poughkeepsie and the Town of Poughkeepsie.

Orange County
Cornwall, Cornwall-on-Hudson, Town of Newburgh and City of Newburgh

Erie County
Amherst, Blasdell, Lackawanna, Village of Hamburg, Town of Hamburg, West Seneca, Tonawanda, Village of Orchard Park, Town of Orchard Park and Kenmore

Putnam County
Kent, Carmel

Onondaga County
DeWitt, Salina, East Syracuse, North Syracuse, Cicero, Clay, Fayetteville, Village of Skaneateles, Town of Skaneateles, and the Town of Camillus

Cayuga County
Fleming, Sennett

* NOTE: actual (throughput) speeds will vary.

Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ), headquartered in New York, is a global leader in delivering broadband and other wireless and wireline communications services to mass market, business, government and wholesale customers.  Verizon Wireless operates America's most reliable wireless network, serving more than 89 million customers nationwide.  Verizon also provides converged communications, information and entertainment services over America's most advanced fiber-optic network, and delivers innovative, seamless business solutions to customers around the world.  A Dow 30 company, Verizon employs a diverse workforce of more than 230,000 and last year generated consolidated revenues of more than $97 billion.  For more information, visit www.verizon.com.

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