Op/Ed Verizon shares are falling, and it's believed that investor nervousness about Fios deployment investment is the reason. Near-sighted and myopic investors generally aren't keen on Fios, because it lacks immediate returns for their portfolios - even if the long-term FTTH vision (if not FiosTV) is obviously the right one for a phone-turned-data company. Some "excess inventory," a recent FiosTV rate hike and the retirement of Fios architect Larry Babbio has Wall Street's gossip hens apparently all aflutter.

You could take those things as unrelated events (which they are), or you could lump them together in a bizarre stretch of logic and assume it's the end of the Fios world. "This is the beginning of the end for FiOS," one (wisely) anonymous "DC-based telecom investment veteran" tells the Street. "Verizon has underperformed AT&T - because of their foolish decision to throw money at a small and shrinking part of their overall business," he says.

The Street.com's patience is equally non-existent: "One disappointment for investors has been the failure of FiOS to vanquish cable rivals like Comcast, whose shares have soared this year, driven by hefty user gains." Consider, though, that Fios deployment has barely begun, and as recently noted, AT&T and Verizon's upgrades combined will only cover one-third of homes passed by US MSOs by the end of the decade.

You're shocked Comcast is still standing after the onslaught of a barely built network? This is a slow hike up a steep hill, so go long and pipe down. It's a little early to be expecting Fios to be out "vanquishing" major cable operators, and it's also a little early for investors to be committing seppuku over upgrades that are absolutely necessary if Verizon wants to be relevant in 2015.